China Elevates Military General Zhang Shengmin to Politburo at Sparsely Attended Plenum

China's top Communist Party leaders wrapped up a four-day closed-door plenum on Thursday by electing General Zhang Shengmin to the Politburo, the party's top governing body. Zhang currently serves as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and also holds the role of deputy secretary of the CMC Commission for Discipline Inspection, overseeing internal military discipline. The promotion came after President Xi Jinping had already purged two of China's top generals, leaving Zhang as the only Central Military Commission member besides Xi himself — and the Politburo without any People's Liberation Army representation until now. Delegates also adopted a resolution on strengthening party self-governance, discipline, and anti-corruption, with the party acknowledging that the tasks ahead were "increasingly arduous." The meeting takes place roughly a year before Xi is widely expected to secure a fourth five-year term as the party's leader. Notably, analyst Neil Thomas of Asia Policy calculated an attendance rate of just 74 percent among Central Committee members — the lowest since the era of Mao Zedong, suggesting the military purges ran wider than anticipated. Xi has sustained an anti-corruption drive since coming to power in 2012, which analysts say now also targets underperforming officials.