For one whole week, thousands of delegates filed into the cavernous Great Hall of the People in Beijing to attend one of the most important events on the Chinese political timetable.
With Xi Jinping forcefully at the helm, the National People's Congress, which concluded on Thursday, is an periodic statement on where China is headed and how it plans to get there.
Barracuda and canvases
But absent from the strictly arranged proceedings were some of Xi's formerly trusted confidantes, and other high- ranking officers- about 100 delegates were n't present for the opening session, all swept up in a grim surge of recent discharges.
The empty seats tell a different story to the steady, unified governance that Xi and the Chinese Communist Party seek to project.
They're the starkest substantiation of Xi's broadanti-corruption crusade which began when he was appointed general clerk of the party in 2012.
further than a decade on, it shows no signs of decelerating down. Why?
It's corruption, pure and simple'
Back in 2012, corruption really was a problem in China.
The Communist Party is a massive institution, with further than 100 million members and millions of officers." So it's not surprising there are people who'll make miscalculations or who are loose," says Professor Kerry Brown of King's College London.
Still, corruption had come aboriginal. officers are n't paid veritably well, Brown explains, and the system is run by" a small political nobility with an enormous quantum of power".
Xi's precursor Hu Jintao called corruption a sharp challenge that would" bring the party the support of the people". So Xi made it his charge to stamp it out.
What followed were a slew of shocking apprehensions. In 2012- 2013, an embezzlement and murder reproach brought down Bo Xilai, a rising star in the party who was sloped to be Xi's main rival for the top job. In 2014 the man who formerly headed China's vast security outfit was arrested, and two times latterly, Hu's top assistant was jugged for life for corruption.
From government ministers to vill chiefs, no- bone
has been spared in Xi's crusade against" barracuda and canvases " that is, both high- ranking elites and grassroots officers. The result millions of officers have been chastened, sacked and indeed jugged in the last 14 times.
" The surprise is n't that people are taking persuading or backhanders, the surprise is that there is people that do not do that So I suppose some of these people have been removed because of corruption, pure and simple," Brown said.
In 2025 alone, China's topanti-graft body reported that nearly one million individualities were chastened. In January this time, 10" barracuda " were taken down, according to state media.
Brown, still, is conservative about the figures" To be chastened covers anything from just being told off, to getting a nasty letter saying do not do this again, right up to getting put in captivity and expelled from the party."
But every rebuke points to how central thisanti-corruption drive has come for Xi." From the moment he came to power, he has tried to punish the party," Brown says.
And he noway stopped, incompletely because graft is hard to bed out from the system. Indeed after the first round of purges in the service further than a decade ago," species and elevations were routinely over for trade, and bribery was rampant", according to Berlin- grounded think tank the Mercator Institute for China Studies( Merics).
" It's veritably hard to deal with( corruption) when you do not have the checks and balances and responsibility that you would need to be suitable to manage the party duly," Brown says." It has no real external source to kind of keep it in order."
Of course that is not how the party sees it. According to state media," the only reason that new cases keep arising is because' the more you dig, the deeper you get'", says Helena Legarda, a experimenter at Merics.
But this is n't the
full story of the purges, which have been driven by a leader plying ever more control over the party and
the country.
Power, fidelity and heritage
" Xi'santi-corruption crusade has always been about both corruption and politics," says Neil Thomas, from the Asia Society Policy Institute.
" It's an trouble to make the party a more effective governing machine and a club to remove political adversaries."
Brown describes it as a" kind of commercial clean- eschewal, a operation tool- it keeps people on their toes".
Under Xi, China has come a global profitable force, which has also boosted its geopolitical leverage. Billions are being poured into advanced chips, artificial intelligence and renewables- crucial sectors that will decide Beijing's position in the world and the outgrowth of its race with the US.
Some have noted a shaft in examinations into sectors just as they profit from generous government backing- similar as tech or military contracts. Because these are the veritably areas that Xi, and the top leadership, have designated as critical, corruption linked to them is seen as particularly obvious.
" I suppose the idea from the leadership is that if the party is not chastened and if it is not on communication and if it is not unified, also they are going to go the way of nearly all other political parties in the world and be divided and challenged and that is a threat they can not take," Brown says.
For Xi, spectators argue, corruption has come a catch- all term that encompasses not just graft, from small- time favours to huge backhanders, but much more- ideological contamination, a lack of commitment to China's intentions and, crucially, disloyalty.
They say it triggers one of his big fears an out- of- control party would prove disastrous for China, like it did for another major communist power, the quondam Soviet Union, whose fall he has frequently spoken about. The possibility of any similar decline on his watch would hang his power- and his heritage.
In January, Xi told officers they would be left" with no place to hide" because" the fight against corruption is a struggle that the party can not go to lose, and must noway lose".
still, it's because it is, If it sounds empirical." It's not like losing an election, they lose everything," Brown says." So I suppose this is the sign of a party which is veritably important apprehensive of its vulnerabilities."
Put simply, the pressure is on. As spectators see it, Xi has been in power a long time and his major third term ends coming time.
While China's global influence grows and the competition with the US heats up, Xi is also battling a decelerating frugality and disgruntlement among youth. So the emphasis on concinnity, nationalism and the need to fight corruption for a" public revivification" is n't bare rhetoric.
It's also a constant attempt to stay in control- and keep any pitfalls or challenges at bay.
Survival
In 2012, Xi assumed the part of president of the Central Military Commission, the top- decision timber body for the fortified forces. In the times since he has reshaped the structure of the People's Liberation Army( PLA), bringing it under his direct control, frequently with the help of purges, spectators say.
" Purges have increased across the board, but the PLA is a massive outlier. utmost of its elderly leadership has been devastated by correctional conduct during Xi's third term," Thomas says, noting that they stemmed from" genuine graft but expanded to include perceived political disloyalty".
About 52 of PLA
leadership positions have been impacted, according to the Center for Strategic
and International Studies.
The biggest recent swoop was in late 2025, when nine top generals, including He Weidong and Miao Hua, who were both on the CMC, were indicted of crimes involving an" exceptionally large quantum of plutocrat( and) extremely serious in nature".
also in January, China blazoned the junking of Generals Liu Zhenli and Zhang Youxia for" serious violations of discipline and law", according to state media. Zhang, one of Xi's closest military abettors, was thevice-chairman of the CMC.
This important body, which Xi leads, is now down from seven to two men, including Xi.
" Official narratives after the purge of Zhang and Liu make clear that their discharges were political in nature and grounded on a( perceived or real) lack of fidelity to Xi and his pretensions," says Legarda.
The emphasis on fidelity suggests that particular survival is a factor.
" Xi knows well that controlling the PLA is pivotal to his long- term political future," notes critic Brian Hart in a CSIS report.
He points out that former leader Jiang Zemin retained his chairmanship of the CMC for two times after stepping down, undermining his successor's power. Xi wants to avoid that so he can have" lasting influence with the PLA," Hart writes.
Purges are n't new to the opaque yet cut- throat politics of the Chinese Communist Party. Mao Zedong, the author of communist China, regularly purified his top apprentices, occasionally further than formerly, after bringing them back. Xi's father himself was a target.
In Xi's case, corruption charges have come a form of" political disputation that he has developed into the main base of his power," Prof Frank Pieke of Leiden University says.
The discharges do not appear to be over because Premier Li Qiang said at the congress last week that Beijing would" continue its political rectification of the service".
write by weatharo
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