State Media Caught Quietly Altering List as Politburo Shrinks to 21

China’s top leadership list appears to have been quietly rewritten. Xinhua’s page for the 20th Central Committee leadership reportedly changed the Politburo roster from 24 members to 21, removing former Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia and two other senior figures.

The change followed an Aug. 28 decision by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to remove Zhang and Liu Zhenli from their state Central Military Commission positions, according to Ming Pao. He Weidong, a former CMC vice chairman who has reportedly been under investigation, and Ma Xingrui, the former Communist Party secretary of Guangdong, also no longer appeared on the list.

The report interprets the alteration as a sign that the Politburo may already have removed Zhang and Liu from their party military posts. Under the Communist Party constitution, the Politburo can exercise the Central Committee’s powers between plenary sessions. That would place Zhang’s exclusion beyond a personnel change in the state military commission and inside the party’s highest decision-making circle.

The reported purge extends well beyond the Politburo. Overseas Chinese-language media and think tanks have counted 57 four-star generals who have either faced official investigations or allegedly disappeared since the 20th Party Congress. The names cited include former Western Theater Commander Wang Haijiang, former Navy Commander Hu Zhongming, former Northern Theater Commander Huang Ming and former Air Force Commander Chang Dingqiu.

The fifth plenum, expected in October, may formally announce party and military expulsions for Zhang, Liu and other senior officers. The report says as many as 40 Central Committee members could be replaced or lose their qualifications, portraying the upheaval as a major test of Xi Jinping’s effort to consolidate personal control over the military.