[Regime Subversion Alarms Surge Following Crisis in Military Leadership]

Chinese President Xi Jinping has initiated moves to tighten an iron grip over the Communist Party before cementing his fourth term at next autumn's 21st Party Congress. The 5th Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, which concluded on the 29th of last month, uncharacteristically admitted that party leadership had been "weakened at one point" and that "grave root causes of trouble" existed within the military. In tandem, the plenum adopted a decision on "comprehensive and strict party governance," mandating limits on the unilateral power of provincial and ministerial chiefs, continuous audits of cadres' family assets, a big-data supervisory platform, and the oversight of party members' online behavior. At the same meeting, the expulsion of 33 individuals—the largest scale in history—was confirmed, including former Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia, once Xi's closest military confidant. Despite a cooling economy, Xi prioritized loyalty over growth, and the vigilance of a leader scarred by the betrayal of close associates is now solidifying into the party's core operating principle.

Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on the 3rd that "the Chinese Communist Party is targeting 'laohaoren' (Mr. Nice Guys) ahead of next year's leadership reshuffle." Here, "laohaoren" refers to cadres who avoid conflict and turn a blind eye to misconduct by others in order to protect their own careers and interpersonal ties. According to SCMP, the decision document adopted at the 5th Plenum outlined directives to crack down on this passive culture of self-preservation. Authorities intend not only to catch those who accept bribes, but also to hold accountable those who witness wrongdoing within the organization and remain silent.

Two demands overlap here: the requirement that "cadres must be clean" and the mandate to "actively enforce party discipline." From the leadership's standpoint, dismantling the custom of cadres overlooking each other's misconduct is essential to enforcing directives from the central leadership. From the perspective of cadres, however, they will be scrutinized not just for violations they committed directly, but also for what they condoned and how they responded. Interpreted politically, the Xi Jinping leadership demands an apparatus that does far more than quietly hold positions—it requires one that actively mobilizes in lockstep with Beijing's orders.

The overhaul of personnel evaluation criteria falls within the same context. A day earlier on the 2nd, SCMP reported that "the Chinese Communist Party revamped its cadre selection procedures ahead of the 21st Party Congress." The resolution drafted by the team led by Xi incorporated new evaluation benchmarks. Reports highlighted a focus on identifying cadres who maintain integrity while demonstrating proven crisis-management capability. This underscores the reality that tightening party discipline alone cannot resolve the challenges of state governance: the regime must secure unswerving loyalty while simultaneously finding capable administrators who can deliver results in turbulent circumstances.

[Party Mouthpiece Acknowledges a 'Fleeting Crisis']

The most extraordinary aspect of the 5th Plenum documents is the party's own admission of an internal crisis. The official communique stated that the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core confronted head-on "the weakening, hollowing out, and dilution of party leadership that emerged at one point," as well as shocking internal party problems. In an on-site descriptive piece on the front page of the October 31 edition of the People's Daily, the paper reiterated the document's assessment that the party spirit of certain members—including high-ranking cadres—was weak, and that their ideals and convictions were wavering or entirely absent. In an accompanying commentator editorial, it evaluated that the party had eradicated "grave root causes of trouble" lurking within the party, the state, and the military. For a mouthpiece of a Communist Party claiming infallibility to put on record that party leadership was shaken "at one point," and to single out the military as harboring those grave hidden perils, represents an unprecedented development.

The timing and targets indicated by this language coincide directly with the downfall of Zhang Youxia. When Zhang Youxia and former Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli were placed under investigation in January of this year, the People's Daily and Liberation Army Daily both defined the pair as having endangered the party's absolute leadership over the military. In September, the Politburo expelled them from the party, citing "factional activities and disloyalty" as primary grounds. Placing the January characterization—that the military's top-ranking general threatened the party's absolute command—alongside the recent document's self-assessment that party leadership was once weakened and that severe hidden perils were excised, points to a singular conclusion: China's top leadership experienced an authentic power crisis emanating from the military brass, and the party has formally acknowledged it in official records.

[17,000-Word Resolution: Reaffirming the 'Xi Jinping Core' and Checking Local Chiefs]

The 17,000-word resolution released by Xinhua News Agency on the 1st reaffirmed Xi Jinping's "core" status within the party and codified "Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building"—which debuted earlier this year—as a long-term charter for organizational governance. The resolution's list of prohibited acts explicitly bans appointments based on personal ties, marginalizing political rivals, forming factions, distributing anonymous denunciations and rumors, vote-buying, horse-trading over posts, outward compliance paired with inward defiance, and "improperly discussing central policies" (wangyi zhongyang). It also contains explicit clauses demanding the precise identification and resolute elimination of duplicitous "two-faced individuals." In effect, it enumerates and preemptively forecloses every conceivable channel through which opposition forces could gather votes or build coalitions ahead of the Party Congress.

Structurally, the resolution is engineered to expand the authority of the Party Central Committee—namely Xi Jinping—while reining in the discretion of provincial and ministerial heads. Leading cadres are forbidden from managing their assigned regions or portfolios like "private fiefdoms," and demanding that subordinate bodies venerate the personal authority of the chief is strictly banned. The mandate requiring the "yibashou" (top authority) to speak last during discussions of major matters outwardly claims to foster open debate; in practice, however, it serves as a check to prevent regional powerbrokers from consolidating their personal cliques. Grassroots discipline inspection bodies are now mandated to report on the exercise of authority by major cadres to higher authorities at least once every six months.

[From Family Assets to Online Activity: Building a 'Digital Surveillance Net']

The scope of surveillance has expanded beyond individual cadres to envelop their families and private lives. The resolution mandates formal investigation and verification whenever a cadre's family assets and expenditures visibly outstrip normal income levels. Spouses and children, as well as businesses operated by children-in-law, are placed under perpetual oversight. Personnel vetting processes will scrutinize cadres' social circles, while illicit rent-seeking using former titles post-retirement will face strict crackdowns. The center of gravity in anti-corruption efforts is being shifted decisively from post-facto punishment to proactive prevention.

The primary engine of this system is technology. The resolution explicitly mandates the deepening of a digital discipline inspection and supervision apparatus, alongside the construction of a public power supervision platform powered by big data. It also envisions an "early-warning and punishment-linked mechanism" that tracks integrity risks in real time and metes out immediate disciplinary action the moment warning signs surface. Clandestine corruption practices—such as promises of deferred earnings, proxy shareholding, "white glove" front figures, and the "revolving door" between government agencies and commercial enterprises—are singled out for intensive crackdowns. Malfeasance leveraging the internet, virtual currencies, cross-border capital flows, and blockchain is also incorporated. Nikkei Asia reported that "this surveillance dragnet targets not only sitting bureaucrats, but also retired cadres and party members who have fled overseas."

The management of party members' online behavior is equally noteworthy. The resolution declared an intent to overhaul mechanisms ensuring that party members discharge their duties across both online and offline spheres, during working and off-duty hours, and in regular as well as emergency circumstances. To achieve this, authorities are rolling out "elevated management" (tiji guanli), whereby party branches inside internet companies are brought under the direct supervision of party committees one tier higher. According to Hong Kong's Ming Pao, the Beijing municipal government has already reassigned party organizations at seven major internet conglomerates, including JD.com and Meituan, from district-level administration to the direct jurisdiction of the municipal Internet Industry Working Committee. Industry trade associations and chambers of commerce are likewise mandated to embed party-building stipulations into their official articles of association.

[33 Expulsions, 279 Attendees: The Scale of the Purge by the Numbers]

The disciplinary actions ratified at this session represent the largest scale in party history. According to Reuters, the Central Committee endorsed the expulsion of 33 individuals, including former Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Party Secretary Ma Xingrui and Zhang Youxia—19 more than were disciplined at the 4th Plenum last year. Former National Financial Regulatory Administration Chief Li Yunze was stripped of his internal party posts. Out of the 34 individuals subjected to disciplinary actions, 16 hailed from the military. Even former CMC General Office Director Zhong Shaojun, once regarded as Xi Jinping's personal chief of staff for military affairs, was included on the list, sending an unmistakable signal that personal proximity offers no immunity.

Party discipline authorities also disclosed the cumulative scope of the purge. Zhang Fuhai, Deputy Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, stated during an October 30 press conference that "since the 18th Party Congress in 2012, discipline inspection organs nationwide have logged over 8.1 million cases and disciplined more than 7.92 million individuals," adding that "among them, 963 were high-ranking cadres under the direct purview of the Party Central Committee." In his explanatory speech on the resolution, Xi diagnosed that "structural shifts in the composition of party membership have emerged in recent years," warning that "impurities in ideology, organization, and conduct remain fundamentally unresolved, while novel challenges continue to proliferate." The resolution was reported to emit an unyielding signal that "supervision will only grow increasingly stringent."

[Why Times Insight: Why Xi Jinping Is Terrified]

Why Times assesses that the actual reality of the "crisis" acknowledged by the party was a direct challenge to authority orchestrated by top military leaders around Zhang Youxia—in essence, an abortive coup attempt. Official texts scrupulously avoided the phrase "coup d'état." However, the three formulations—"weakening of party leadership," "grave root causes of trouble inside the armed forces," and "threats to the party's absolute leadership over the military"—are not the vocabulary used to describe mundane bribery scandals. Removing a fellow child of the revolutionary generation, an intimate associate entrusted with stewardship of the military for over a decade, while in the middle of a Politburo term is virtually unprecedented in the post-1989 era. If such a figure shook the party's command over the military, the magnitude of the dread left in Xi Jinping's mind is not difficult to fathom.

Xi's subsequent decisions point in an unwavering direction. He has left the Central Military Commission depleted, shrinking its active ranks from seven members down to two without installing replacements. Why Times assesses this reflects a calculation that elevating any individual risks creating a "second Zhang Youxia." The resolution's bans on local chiefs treating their jurisdictions as "private fiefdoms," its granular prohibition of vote-buying and faction-building, and its extension of surveillance dragnets to family wealth and internet remarks reflect the identical imperative: to sever every potential pipeline through which opposition forces could coalesce ahead of the Party Congress that will decide his fourth term.

Joseph Torigian, a professor at American University, observed to U.S. public broadcaster NPR that "Xi Jinping wants party members to place the Communist Party, rather than private interests, at the center of their lives," evaluating that "Xi has long harbored intense vigilance against the Communist Party collapsing from within, much like the Soviet Union." Expert analyses cited by NPR also drew the implication that "with the plenum laser-focused on internal discipline, Xi is improbable to embark on external military adventures against targets such as Taiwan until he achieves absolute certainty over his command of the armed forces."

Other perspectives certainly exist, viewing this resolution not as an expression of fear, but as a demonstration that his power has reached its absolute zenith. Precedents exist where long-ruling leaders institutionalized discipline immediately prior to party congresses, such as at the 6th Plenum of the 18th Central Committee in 2016. However, in an atmosphere where plenary attendance sank below 300 and the military command remains a functional vacuum, the fact that a leader facing a fourth term played the card of surveillance and loyalty vetting rather than pro-growth economic initiatives carries immense weight. Xi Jinping's authority emerged structurally larger from this plenum; nevertheless, the cost of safeguarding that authority—the collateral sacrifice of economic vitality and military professionalism—is compounding at an equal pace.