Oct 27, my insider report: "Roughly 40 Central Committee members are unaccounted for."
Oct 29, the CCP's own communique: 205 full-member seats, 162 attended.
43 empty chairs.
I'll let the numbers speak for themselves. 🙂
🚨 "Where are the missing 40?" The CCP just answered my question—in its own communique.
On Oct 27, while the CCP's Fifth Plenum was still behind closed doors, I reported that roughly 40 Central Committee members were unaccounted for in an insider's head count (my program):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of8Ipybd9a0
Today, according to the communique released by Xinhua:
🔴 162 full members attended. The CCP's 20th Central Committee has 205 full-member seats. 205 − 162 = 43 empty chairs.
🔴 117 of 171 alternate members attended.
🔴 Total: 279 of 376, or 74.2%. It is the highest absence rate of the post-Mao era, with the most empty seats ever.
🔴 Compare: 364 attended the Third Plenum (July 2024) and 315 the Fourth (October 2025).
But the headline number is only half the story. Here is what the communique reveals if you read it line by line:
1️⃣ They are refilling the front row by draining the bench.
Full-member attendance fell by only 6 from last year (168 → 162). Why so few? Because the CCP keeps promoting alternates into the seats of purged men—10 more today, and 14 at the previous two plenums. Meanwhile, alternate attendance collapsed by 30 (147 → 117). The bench is shrinking faster than the team.
2️⃣ Even the promotion list is a purge list.
Five alternates who were next in line were skipped:
• Fu Wenhua—deputy commander of the CCP's People's Armed Police, former Beijing Garrison commander, and a former subordinate of Zhang Youxia
• Zhu Wenxiang—another PAP deputy commander
• Cong Liang—deputy head of the State Council's Development Research Center
• Ji Lin—former first vice president of the CCP's Central Institute of Socialism
• Zhu Hexin—deputy governor of China's central bank and head of its foreign-exchange regulator
Being skipped doesn't always mean being purged. But it is never a compliment.
3️⃣ Some well-known names are STILL missing from the expulsion list.
Yi Lianhong (former Zhejiang Party chief, under investigation since February), Ju Qiansheng (former PLA Strategic Support Force commander, stripped of his NPC seat in August), and Ye Jianchun (former Jiangxi governor, reported to have fallen in late August) are all full members. None was expelled today. So they are most likely sitting in some of those 43 empty chairs: not present, not yet officially gone. (This is my inference, not an official statement.)
4️⃣ The purge has reached Xi Jinping's own office.
Zhong Shaojun, Xi's personal secretary since 2002 in Zhejiang, was expelled. So was his successor as head of the CCP's Central Military Commission General Office, Fang Yongxiang. Of the seven members of the CCP's Central Military Commission named in 2022, only Xi and Zhang Shengmin remain. As I reported this morning, my source says a new CMC lineup may be announced in about two weeks. My report:
https://x.com/jenniferzeng97/status/2115833806665953697
5️⃣ A record 33 expelled, plus one (Li Yunze) stripped of Party posts.
These include former Politburo members Ma Xingrui and Zhang Youxia, former Joint Staff chief Liu Zhenli, and Liu Jianchao, the former head of the CCP's International Liaison Department. His fall had never been officially confirmed until today.
⚠️ Caveats, in the interest of transparency:
• All of these numbers are the CCP's own claims.
• "43" is the number of empty full-member seats. It is not a list of 43 named purge victims. Some seats are vacant because their holders were expelled; others belong to members who are under investigation, missing, ill, or deliberately kept away.
Still, the CCP has now admitted, in writing, that a quarter of its own leadership body is gone. In the same communique, it calls itself stronger than ever.
A party that has "fundamentally reversed lax governance" just held a meeting where one in four chairs was empty.
Who will be sitting in those chairs at the 21st Party Congress next year? Let's keep watching.
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