The 4th Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CCP was held in Beijing from October 20th to 23rd. During and after the meeting, a well-known mainland media figure, Gao Yu, was closely monitored by the Beijing authorities for nearly 10 days and was prohibited from posting, retweeting, or commenting.
Recently, Gao Yu, who has just regained her freedom, provided insights into three major anomalies of the 4th Plenum and pointed out significant issues within the military.
On October 27th, Gao Yu posted on the social platform X, stating, “A 4-day meeting resulted in me being silenced for almost 10 days. It could be said that the 4th Plenum was an extraordinarily exciting conference.” She went on to analyze the highlights of the 4th Plenum.
Firstly, the attendance rate of the 4th Plenum was remarkably low, setting a record as the lowest attendance at a Central Committee meeting since Mao Zedong’s time. 18% of Central Committee members and 14% of alternate members were absent, resulting in an attendance rate of only 84%. Surprisingly, 27 out of 42 military representatives were absent, with a staggering absentee rate of 64%.
Secondly, during the 4th Plenum, a total of 14 Central Committee members and alternate members were expelled from the Party, while 11 alternate members were promoted to Central Committee members. Both numbers set new records for CCP meetings.
Gao Yu pointed out that the rankings of Central Committee members and alternate Central Committee members are determined differently, with the former based on stroke count of surnames and the latter based on votes received. However, the replacement process during the 4th Plenum was quite unusual as it skipped over the top 8 individuals. Notably, 5 out of the 11 individuals promoted were military personnel, starting from the 9th position, and all 11 were civilian officials.
Thirdly, on the afternoon of October 17th, the Ministry of National Defense announced the expulsion of 9 senior generals from the Party and the military, transferring them to military procuratorial organs for legal review and prosecution. All except Miao Hua were active senior generals.
“I predicted that the 4th Plenum would see the promotion of Political Bureau and Military Commission members. However, most of my expectations were wrong. There was no new member added to the Military Commission. Instead, Zhang Shengmin was appointed as the Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, breaking the tradition of simultaneously promoting to the Political Bureau.” Gao Yu wrote, “Currently, there is only one military member, Zhang Yuxia, in the Political Bureau, breaking the convention of having two seats for military members.”
Gao Yu believes that there are significant issues within the CCP’s military, stating, “Based on the above three points, it is evident to everyone that the military is facing major problems, or rather, intense power struggles within the military have caused serious damage. Except for the Air Force, all five major theater commands, as well as the commanders and political commissars of the Army, Navy, and Rocket Forces, have all been arrested.”