The 5th Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing for four consecutive days starting yesterday. It is estimated that about 45 people will be "expelled" from the Central Committee at this plenary session, including Liu Jianchao, the former Minister of the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Hong Kong Ming Pao cited news that Liu Jianchao was found to have seriously violated laws and disciplines and was demoted from a full-time official to a divisional level.
The report pointed out that Liu Jianchao, the then head of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, who "disappeared" at the end of July last year, was also a member of the Central Committee, and the official has not yet announced his problem to the public. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection completed its review report on Liu around the beginning of the year and found that he had seriously violated disciplines and laws and demoted him from ministerial level to divisional level. It has not yet been made clear whether his party membership will still be retained.
According to sources, Liu Jianchao's problems are much more serious than those of former State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang who "resigned" as a member of the Central Committee during the Third Plenary Session of the CPC Central Committee. It is reported that Qin Gang was demoted to deputy ministerial level.
The International Department of the CPC Central Committee is the department of the CPC Central Committee engaged in party diplomacy. Liu Jianchao, 62, is a senior diplomat. He has served as director and spokesperson of the Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, ambassador to the Philippines, ambassador to Indonesia, and assistant minister of foreign affairs. In August 2015, he served as director of the International Cooperation Bureau of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and later served as member of the Standing Committee of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and secretary of the Commission for Discipline Inspection. In March 2018, he was appointed deputy director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the CPC Central Committee, and in May 2022, he was appointed director of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee. After Qin Gang's "accident" in the summer of 2023, Liu Jianchao was once regarded as a popular candidate for foreign minister.
The Fifth Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China opened yesterday at the military's Jingxi Hotel, and security work has been stepped up near the hotel in recent days. There were originally 205 members of the 20th Central Committee and 171 alternate members. The Asia Society Policy Institute, an American think tank, recently issued a report stating that after a series of personnel adjustments following the anti-corruption campaign, the number of attendees at the Fifth Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China is likely to drop to about 291, accounting for only 77.4%. This may be the lowest attendance rate for all Central Plenary Sessions since the end of the Mao Zedong era.
Incomplete statistics show that amid the anti-corruption storm, 22 members of the CPC Central Committee and 6 alternate members of the CPC Central Committee have been officially announced as having been dismissed or removed from their positions as representatives of the National People's Congress in the past year, including two former Politburo members Zhang Youxia and Ma Xingrui. There are also more than 10 military or party and government Central Committee members who have been "missing" for a long time. It is estimated that about 45 people have been "expelled" from the Central Committee at this Fifth Plenary Session.
