On December 25-26, 2025, the Chinese Communist Party’s Political Bureau held its annual two-day so-called democratic life meeting at the end of the year, with Political Bureau member Ma Xingrui absent. During this period, Political Bureau Standing Committee members Zhao Leji, Cai Qi, and Ding Xuexiang left the meeting to attend the funeral of the late vice minister-level official Peng Peiyun. Meanwhile, some unusual wording in the meeting summary has caught the attention of the public.
According to a report by the CCP party media Xinhua News Agency on December 26, 2025, the Political Bureau of the CCP convened a democratic life meeting, with CCP leader Xi Jinping presiding over the meeting and delivering a speech. The Xinhua News Agency also reported that on December 25, the Political Bureau of the CCP convened a meeting, where they listened to the work report of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission and agreed to hold the Fifth Plenary Session of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection from January 12 to 14, 2026.
Prior to this, at a meeting on December 8, the CCP Political Bureau analyzed and discussed economic work for 2026 but did not address anti-corruption issues as usual.
For the past six years, the CCP has only held one Political Bureau meeting in December each year, covering both anti-corruption and economic issues. This year, in a rare departure from the norm, they added a Political Bureau meeting during the end-of-year democratic life meeting to address anti-corruption matters.
At the scene of the meeting, Ma Xingrui, a member of the Political Bureau of the CCP, was absent from the democratic life meeting. Sitting in the first seat of the Central Political Bureau members was Wang Yi.
Previously, Ma Xingrui was also absent from the CCP Political Bureau’s “collective study” on November 28 and the Central Economic Work Conference held on December 10-11.
Furthermore, during Peng Peiyun’s farewell ceremony on December 26, Ma Xingrui did not send a wreath. This was the second time Ma Xingrui was “absent” from such an occasion, as he also did not send a wreath at the farewell ceremony of former senior official Wang Bingqian on December 14.
Long-time commentator Jiang Wangzheng, who has been revealing moves within the CCP leadership, posted on a platform on December 26 that “Ma Xingrui has been detained and disciplined. Even the self-criticism opportunity of the democratic life meeting was not given, waiting for the first tiger of 2026.”
Ma Xingrui, a Shandong native of Xi Jinping’s wife Peng Liyuan, is one of the military-industrial complex high-ranking officials continuously promoted and trusted by Xi Jinping since he came to power.
On July 1, 2025, the CCP announced that former Vice Minister of the United Front Work Department Chen Xiaojiang would succeed Ma Xingrui as the Secretary of Xinjiang, with Ma Xingrui being appointed elsewhere. However, Ma Xingrui has not taken up a new position, and rumors of his downfall abound, including allegations related to his tenure in the military-industrial complex system and corruption during his time governing Guangdong and Xinjiang.
During the period of the Political Bureau’s life meeting, on December 26, the body of Peng Peiyun, a former vice minister and vice-chair of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, was cremated at the Babaoshan Cemetery in Beijing. Peng Peiyun passed away on December 21 in Beijing at the age of 96.
According to Xinhua News Agency, Political Bureau Standing Committee members Zhao Leji, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang, and former Standing Committee member and Vice President of the country, Han Zheng, attended the Babaoshan Cemetery on the morning of December 26 to bid farewell to Peng Peiyun. This meant that these three Standing Committee members were absent from the political bureau’s life meeting that morning.
From 1980 to 2015, the CCP implemented the policy of “one couple, one child.” Peng Peiyun served as the Director of the National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, a period during which the CCP enforced the “one-child policy” using harsh measures.
Under the overall deployment and implementation of the Family Planning Commission, in order to achieve the goal of “one-child,” various places widely adopted coercive measures, forcing pregnant women to undergo abortions and sterilizations, and even resorting to killing babies about to be born.
The CCP authorities described Peng Peiyun in the obituary as an outstanding CCP member and an outstanding leader in the work of population health, women and children, and socialist legal system construction. However, social media platforms are filled with angry criticisms from netizens about her, as well as painful memories of the “one-child” policy.
After the conclusion of the political bureau’s life meeting, Xinhua News Agency published the meeting communique on the evening of December 26. Compared to previous years, there were sensitive changes in the wording of the 2025 Xinhua report.
The 2024 communique cited five key areas of focus in the speeches of Political Bureau members, including “upholding the authority of the Central Party” and “implementing the decisions and deployments of the Central Party.” However, the 2025 communique listed five key areas of focus in the speeches of the Political Bureau members, no longer including “upholding the authority of the Central Party” and “implementing the decisions and deployments of the Central Party”; instead, it added “leading in respecting the people, organization, and the rule of law.”
In the 2024 communique, Xi Jinping directly made multiple demands on Political Bureau members of the CCP, including requirements for them to abide by rules and regulations, shoulder political responsibilities, and enhance education and management of their families and staff around them. However, in the 2025 communique, when Xi Jinping spoke, he no longer directly made demands on the members of the CCP Political Bureau, but rather directed them at “leading cadres.”
Observers are paying close attention to the unusual signs during the end-of-year political bureau life meeting, which may further substantiate rumors of Xi Jinping’s decline. Since the Third Plenary Session in mid-July 2024, there have been sudden changes in the CCP’s political landscape. Rumors about Xi Jinping being critically ill and facing a coup have been circulating. Signs of Xi Jinping’s diminished power and loss of control over the military have become increasingly apparent.
Funds like Miao Hua and He Weidong, key military leaders within Xi Jinping’s faction, were successively reported to have fallen from grace around the time of the Fourth Plenum in October 2025. Xi Jinping’s close aides like Fang Hongwei, Secretary of the Xi’an City Committee, and Chen Weijun, Vice Chairman of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region government, have also been toppled one after another.