China’s Communist Party opens fifth plenum

China’s Communist Party ​began a meeting of senior cadres on Monday aimed at tightening discipline and pressing officials to implement Beijing’s orders, reports Reuters. The plenum ‌paves the way for a leadership reshuffle next year expected to extend leader Xi Jinping’s rule for another five years.

Xi briefed the party’s four-day Central Committee meeting on a draft document centred on “full and rigorous party self-governance” that state news agency Xinhua said addressed the challenges the party faced, including ​growing its governing capacity, as well as guarding against complacency and combating corruption, the president’s signature campaign.

The Central Committee will convene in the closed-door meeting from Monday to Thursday—the fifth ​such gathering since the current cohort was formed in 2022 and therefore known as the “fifth plenum”. Analysts say this could be the last major party gathering before its 2027 leadership reshuffle, when Xi is expected to hold on to the top job for a fourth term.