Link: https://www.rfi.fr/en/international-news/20261026-china-s-communist-party-elite-hold-key-talks-on-governance

Beijing (AFP) – China's President Xi Jinping opened a key meeting of Communist Party elites in Beijing on Monday, state media said, which observers will be closely watching for clues as to the country's direction and future leadership.

Roughly 300 members of the ruling Communist Party's Central Committee in attendance at the meeting, called the fifth plenum, will be looking to tighten discipline within their ranks, according to state media.

That includes measures to reduce corruption and make cadres more effective and loyal.

Xi opened the session on Monday, presenting a draft decision by the Central Committee that "sets out strategic plans for strengthening full and rigorous Party self-governance", state news agency Xinhua reported.

Few details from the closed-door gathering, held under tight security, will be made known until it concludes on Thursday, but the timing of the meeting is crucial.

The fifth plenum comes ahead of a major party congress next year, where 73-year-old Xi is almost certain to secure a historic fourth term and oversee a leadership reshuffle.

Previous plenums have represented key moments for Xi to cement his authority.

The Chinese leader has waged a 14-year campaign against corruption that has purged thousands of officials, including dozens of the Central Committee.

Yet he remains frustrated with cadres he deems are not implementing his orders.

State media published an article ahead of the plenum, based on a speech Xi gave in January in which he railed against "two-faced" officials who appear to comply with central directives but "inwardly resist", pursue "individualism" and are "politically opportunistic".

Analysts told AFP that Xi is trying to maximise efficiency and loyalty among cadres by imposing more supervision and rules.

But as a result of his expansive purges, this year's plenum is expected to have the lowest turnout since former leader Mao Zedong's death in 1976.

Eight of the Central Committee's seats lie vacant, with another 15 members under investigation and at risk of being replaced.

Xi's anti-corruption drive has also targeted the military, toppling five of the seven members of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the party's top armed forces body.

Of 44 military members appointed to the Central Committee in 2022, only two have not been purged or disappeared, according to the Asia Society Policy Institute.

The plenum could see new members appointed to the CMC; the party could wait until next year's congress to replenish it; or Xi might even restructure party control over its vast military.

The talks also come at an unsteady time for the world's second-largest economy, which has struggled to address persistently sluggish domestic spending and a protracted crisis in the crucial property sector.

Turbulent political and economic ties with the United States are also weighing on China's leaders.

Authorities are expected to release a summary of the outcomes after the meeting concludes on Thursday.

Billionaires and communists cannot coexist

It's very easy if you have no principles and never had any, like these guys.

Party elites? Whatever happened to classless society? 🤔

"Party elite" isn't a class in Marxist terms, classes are relationships to ownership of the means of production and therefore party members are members of a broader class. The CPC is overwhelmingly proletarian, and does have single digit percentages of capitalists but said capitalists are barred from the highest levels of party membership. Classless society is a descriptor of a society where production and distribution is so advanced that planning the economy scientifically is the most efficient, and thus everything is collectively owned and planned. China isn't there yet, so it still has classes.

Why is an arbitrary level of wealth incompatible with working towards a society where production and distribution is so advanced that collectively owning and planning the economy is the most efficient, and bringing about that fully collectivized society? China has a lot of developing industries, and marketization does play a helpful role in stitching these together into something that can be effectively planned, this is a traditional Marxist analysis.

The question is tangential. The issue is more about altruism. Especially of key figures. You can't have a perfect system without perfect people.

Wealth inequality is virtually always a symptom of greed and an indicator that actors are working for a deliberately lopsided system, not a highly functional communist or even socialist system.

The purges against "corruption" shouldn't be taken at face value. Authoritarian systems purge rivals and perceived threats in power games and label it as fighting corruption. Without the details of who did what and when, there is no way to know if Xi is pursuing altruism and purging actual corruption, or just playing power games and is the corruption himself.

Authoritarians often mistake dissent for disloyalty and purge even well meaning competent and ultimately correct voices, though it's never so black and white. Everyone makes mistakes, and no one is always altruistic, and even the corrupt do good on occasion even if by accident.

My question is not tangential, it's key to the question at hand, and the relevance of it to this conversation makes itself apparent in your later paragraphs. My point is not that China has a "perfect system," but instead that it has a good system, in that it is regularly improving and puts the people first. No more and no less than this do I claim.

The wealth inequality in China exists because it has private property. As I already stated, China has private property because it marketizes the underdeveloped sectors of the economy, where markets play a remarkable role in centralizing production and distribution. At the point of centralized production, markets have played their role to completion, and planned economy overtakes it. Planning production and distribution at an underdeveloped scale is remarkably difficult. This is the path to development in China based on Marxism.

What is an "authoritarian?" Is that a label we put on someone, or is it an existing category of people based on intrinsic qualities?

I’m sorry, I cannot hear through the propaganda.

You're fully capable of comprehending what I said, and responding in an intelligent manner. Do you think what I said goes against Marxism? If so, why?

I think reality is different from theory and I’m only interested in reality. Goodbye 🚫

I'm only interested in reality, theory is just how we understand reality. Where do you think reality and theory diverge, here? You're fully capable of making a point, I believe in you.

I understand your point about property and markets. Saying it is a path based on Marxism is a bit of a stretch. China is more capitalist than communist by any meaningful measure.

Like the famous critique of American socio-economic organization in that the rich get democracy and socialism, while the poor get authoritarinism and cold hard markets. China's economic modality can be seen as marxist only for the state, while the people get market based economics.

I fail to see your point. The commanding heights of China's economy are socially owned, and the state is under the control of the working class, primarily by the CPC, itself a proletarian party. This basis makes them socialist. As they develop, markets will continue to do what markets do and centralize, and this means a higher proportion of China's economy will he folded into the public sector. The state is not independent of class struggle, nor is it its own class, it's under the domination of one of the two classes that dominate any given society, and in China this is the working class.

Here's Cheng Enfu's diagram on the stages in socialist construction:

And thanks to the proletarian state, the working class is the primary beneficiary of advancement:

What, in your opinion, would China be doing differently if they wanted to be "more Marxist?"

Xi is a dictator who fighting hard to eliminate anyone who may oppose him.

They are sometimes the same sort of people

8>the state is under the control of the working class, primarily by the CPC, itself a proletarian party.

Yeah, we're not going to agree here. That's the party's marketing speak. While Xi did purge his fellow Princelings fifedoms, its wasn't to or for the proletariat, it was for loyalty to him. Marxist language is the legitimizing framework for public to justify why the party does what it does, but its just propaganda.

China's actual economy depends on capital, foreign, domestic and state. Has market functions and billionaires, at least in as much that they don't build independant power bases or pose risks to Xi. If anyone ever does, the state restructures the corporation or installs comittees within the corps to exert control and purges the rival powers. Remember Alibaba's Jack Ma? His criticisms of China's state owned banks and financial regulation positioned him as too uppity for the authoritarian Xi.

If the Marxist language were real, China wouldn't have minted so many billionaires while the purported proletariat toils in poverty. They wouldn't have a grueling 996 corporate culture whose very definition is exploitation of labour. We would see powerful independang labour unions giving the working peoples a voice in government and make dissent heard and action taken. Instead unions are illegal except for the All-China Federation of Traxe Unions which supresses dissent and ensures China's economy relies almost entirely on capitalism.

Mao's Iron Rice Bowl principles of state guarentees of employment, pensions amd welfare died with market reforms sfarting in the 80's to today. It's now a capitalist hire and fire, wage labour economy.

While China has state pensions and healthcare, it's not a colle tive or egalitarian Marxist system at all. Its really a tiered class based system of state run marlet based insurance schemes; one for civil servants, one for urban enterprise workers and one for rural workers. Even with these, there are still major out of pocket expenses for most major illness, and only a fraction is covered by insurance. These costs are only exacerbating the existing wealth disparities of a deeply unequal society. The mandatory employee employer contributions mirror western systems almost exactly and bare no resemblance to marxism.

There are no guarenteed jobs or living standards. Just a capitalist's hiring and firing with a minimal safety net of welfare (Dibao), just like the UK, Canada or even like the US's SNAP program of the past.

Funny how China's 'Marxist' end state, looks a lot like late stage capitalism, aka fascism. China is communist like the US is a Democratic Free market economy - only in rhetoric.

The CPC being proletarian isn't "marketing," it's a fact. The overwhelming majority of the CPC consists of workers, peasants, and professional workers. It isn't merely "Marxist language," but a fact of their actual composition.

You are absolutely correct that capitalists are not allowed to resist the government, and the CPC uses committees to exert control even over the nominally independent private sector. This is a good thing for a socialist state. The actual mover of China's economy isn't capital, but the state sector of the economy. Social ownership governs the commanding heights of the economy, while developing industries are largely marketized for the exact reasons I explained previously.

The examples you give explain your lack of understanding of China, and your lack of understanding of socialist construction. 996 has been illegal for years. Absolute poverty has been eradicated. Real wages for workers climbs massive amounts year over year. Independent trade unions are not allowed, because they do not belong in a socialist system, which is based on unity and collectivism, rather than independence and individualism.

The very basic fact of China is that the economy is predominantly socially owned, and the working class controls the state. In trying to oppose it from a Marxist perspective, you place Xi Jinping outside of class struggle, and take a moralist stance against private property instead of a materialist stance on socialist construction. You have not presented a Marxist argument in the slightest, and in so doing confused socialism for fascism, which has private ownership of the commanding heights and bourgeois control of the state.

Told you we weren't going to agree.

I still hope we can come to an understanding. I'm certainly not an authority on Marxism, and I'm still learning. If you have an actual counterpoint based on Marxism, I'd love to discuss it, but for the time being it sounds like you oppose China's type of socialist system but aren't actually engaging with it from a Marxist perspective. Critique is good, but critique should be coherent and grounded.

You're plenty smart enough, I think we can come to an understanding.

I merely gave an assessment based on obvious patterns and have zero stake in it one way or the other. You have provided nothing but propaganda talking points and haven't addressed anything I said, or countered any material argument other than to say I'm wrong, ignorant or reference immaterial facts.

You aren't arguing in good faith. If income disparity based on the exploitation of the working class and the absence of a classless, stateless society isn't good enough for you, nothing is. I could come up with more examples, but despite an apparent politeness, your rhetoric is hollow and immaterial.

Claiming the Chinese Communist Party's make up by the working class as fact, while ignoring that this just creates a new class, with its own rewards and privileges above the actual working class is hardly marxist, imperfect, nascent or otherwise.

What I said is the predominant view of scholars worldwide, outside of the control or coercion of the CCP. It is neither controversial, nor radical, except to the Party faithful.

There is zero agreement to be had here.

I've provided Marxist analysis. I suppose you can call that "propaganda talking points" because I am a Marxist and have an interest in promoting socialism, but that doesn't make my points incorrect. I'm arguing in good faith. The fact that China has not yet reached the communist stage of statelessness and classlessness does not mean it isn't working towards it or that it is not presently transitioning to it through socialism.

Claiming that the CPC represents a "new class" is not Marxist. Class society is bimodal, the CPC can either represent the proletariat or the bourgeoisie. There is no such thing as a third "new class," because classes have specific relations to their diametric opposite class. The CPC is proletarian.

What I said is the predominant view of Marxists worldwide. If you are going to reject Marxism as a tool for analysis and insert it with your own vibes, while claiming me bad-faith for adhering to Marxism, then I suppose I'll just be disappointed that you won't even entertain the idea of Marxist analysis. I do know you're capable of it though, it doesn't take a genius.

You are desribing China poorly. At my most generous, it is what you want to see, not how it is. Your language doesn't fit the situation and the logic is tortured.

The Princelings are indeed a bourgoisie, and purges for those who don't show absolute loyalty is not classless, nor stateless Marxism at any state. It is identical to gangster run Russia or the Gangster run US.

China has ultra wealthy and ultra poor, worker exploitation and capital modes of production. The only difference is in China its the lie of an imperfect communism instead of an imperfect democracy like the US and Russia. That people fall for it is just sad and tragic.

Claiming that the CPC represents a "new class" is not Marxist. Class society is bimodal, the CPC can either represent the proletariat or the bourgeoisie.

You know less about Marx than even I do. His ideas revolved around two primary classes, but he also accounted for a peasentry, the lumpenproletariat and petty-bourgeoisie.

In the case of corrupt officials like princelings who would use their official capacities to gain private wealth through ownership, shares, bribes amd other forms of grift and graft, Marx would have lumped them in with bourgeoisie or petite-bourgeoisie depending on their level of success.

That I choose to separate an entrepreneur from a corrupt official as a seperate class doesn't mean I don't understand marxism, it means you don't.

Even an honest, humble worker who just happened to be a Chinese civil servant, if the apparatus of that civil society serves the interests of capital it was a caste that served the capital class, as China does now.

Later theorists after Marx and Engels were very clear in distinguishing between the low level public servants who were essentially wage workers in an administrative industry, and high level officials who not only had all the trappings of privilege, but usually formed a venn diagram with a suspicious amount of overlap with the capital owning class. Like Russia's oligarchs, or America's front running senators or Trumps flat out graft, the China Household Wealth Survey shows in aggregate that party members and especialy senior members enjoy a private wealth surplus.

This is not controversial this is mainstream academia everywhere. Actual Marxist and Capitalist professors have general consensus on this. The only people denying this are the grafting CCP members themselves, their loyalist servants (class traitors) and .ml users who ignore the world when it doesn't fit into their imaginary world and defy rational explanation.

I've provided sources where relevant when describing China, including the class makeup of the CPC and the ownership structures in China. I also provided the Marxist justification for it. Your comment, sadly, is another in your pattern of criticizing China from a vibes-based perspective and adding in Marxist language. I'll respond by taking your misconceptions and correcting them with Marxist analysis, as that's probably the most effective way to respond.

1. There are no "princelings." What you are describing is the higher tier of the CPC, the highest levels of government. In actual fact, contrary to your assertion, there are no capitalists in the Central Committee. As I stated earlier, the overwhelming majority of the CPC is made up of workers, be they factory workers, professionals, managers, or agricultural workers. Being bourgeois is not simply having "power," it's a specific relation to capital ownership that requires a direct class counterpart to exploit. This is because classes form a dialectical relationship, and the state is therefore not a third class but must be one of the two dominant classes in any given society. I have already demonstrated that the government is dominated by the proletariat, so I will move on.

2. The idea that Marxism is a "formula." This is incorrect. No, China is not a stateless, classless, moneyless society. It is not "imperfect communism" either. It's in the early stages of socialism, where the primary task is to develop the productive forces to the level that they can be fully collectivized and planned without introducing antagonisms between the level of ownership and the level of development, while keeping the bourgeoisie from forming a coherent class with political organizing. Marx and Engels spoke of lower and higher stage communism, later theoreticians separated it into socialism and communism, and later theoreticians broke down socialism itself into stages:

1. This is not like the US or Russia. In the US and Russia, capitalists dominate the state, and the commanding heights of the economy are privately owned. This central fact is ignored by you, who focuses on the fact that all 3 have developed administration. You recognize aesthetic similarities, such as the fact that all 3 have presidents, while turning a blind eye to their class character. Both the US and Russia are dominated by capitalists politically, China is not. The commanding heights of Russian and US economies are privately owned, in China they are socially owned.

2. I'll take the good-faith route and assume you skipped over when I said classes are "bimodal." I'll clarify here: classes are not uniform. The lumpenproletariat are a subcategory of the proletariat. The petite-bourgeoisie are a subcategory of the bourgeoisie. They are not fully distinct classes on their own, but rather occupy positions within the two dominant classes. The peasantry are the dialectical counterpart to the aristocracy, so while they are a working class, they are not proletarian; they pay their lord rent in kind and produce much of their own consumption directly, or barter in towns with their produce. In all cases, class is not a level of wealth, but a social relation, so trying to categorize wealthier administrative workers in the CPC as bourgeois, be it petite or haute, is nonsense.

3. You keep repeating nonsense claims that China "serves the capitalist class," but capitalists disagree with you. This editorial from The Guardian explains it quite well, actually:

But Xi’s support for mixing private and public ownership structures was purely pragmatic. It had value, he said in another forum, because it would “improve the socialist market economic structure.” Xi’s assessment is echoed by Michael Collins, one of the CIA’s most senior officials for Asia. “The fundamental end of the Communist party of China under Xi Jinping is all the more to control that society politically and economically,” Collins argued earlier this year. “The economy is being viewed, affected and controlled to achieve a political end.”

…

The party’s overarching aim, though, has remained consistent: to ensure that the private sector, and individual entrepreneurs, do not become rival players in the political system. The party wants economic growth, but not at the expense of tolerating any organised alternative centres of power.

…

“[Capitalists] act as if they are being chased by a bear,” wrote Zhang Lin, a Beijing political commentator, in response to these comments. “They are powerless to control the bear, so they are competing to outrun each other to escape the animal.”

The fact is, capitalists are oppressed by the state, and are allowed to operate only within boundaries set by the CPC, in areas where marketization helps accelerate the goals of development into a planned economy. You keep alleging that the CPC is highly corrupt and profiting off of their positions, but whenever this happens and is caught, they are purged from the party and held criminally liable. CPC members having higher levels of wealth, due to being primarily composed of professional workers and managerial workers, is not the same as forming a unique class.

1. You cited absolutely nobody when describing your confusion as consensus. Allow me to cite communist parties and Marxist economists to back up my statements:

2. The Communist Party of China is today an indispensable reference point in the process of building socialism - The Communist Party of Cuba

3. General Secretary Tô Lâm: Xi Jinping is a sincere comrade and a close friend of Vietnam - Communist Party of Vietnam, describing both countries as sharing socialism

4. Kim Jong Un says ties between China and DPRK will get closer advancing the common cause of socialism - WPK of DPRK

5. Has China Turned to Capitalism? Reflections on the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism - Domenico Losurdo, famous Italian Marxist philosopher

6. On the Three Stages in the Development of Socialism - Cheng Enfu, head of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

7. Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom: My Experience of China Today - PhD in Marxism, professor Roland Boer

8. PSL on China's Socialist Influence - Party for Socialism and Liberation

9. CPRF statement on China - Communist Party of the Russian Federation

10. Western Marxism, the Fetish for Defeat, and Christian Culture (on why western Marxists do not believe existing socialism, including Chinese, is "pure enough") - Jones Manoel, Socialism and Liberty Party of Brazil

11. Socialist Market Economy (of China) - Wikipedia

There are many, many more I could list. You define the biggest branch of Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, as "the grafting CCP members themselves, their loyalist servants (class traitors) and .ml users who ignore the world when it doesn’t fit into their imaginary world and defy rational explanation." This is just naked ignorance on your part, compounded by your insistence to refer to the CPC as the "CCP," rather than their self-identified CPC label to conform with international communist party standards. It's disappointing, you act like you understand an ounce of Marxism yet show nothing but ignorance to it. You didn't even mention anything related to dialectical or historical materialism a single time!

Please be serious. It is better to be forthright and honest about not understanding Marxism or contemporary China than to continue to obviously and nakedly lie about both. We are all learning, so to not know something isn't a black mark on you, but pretending you do know something when you do not is to speak nonsense.