China Adds General to Top Council

Chinese Communist Party leaders promoted a military commander to their highest governing body on Thursday.

The plenum elected Gen. Zhang Shengmin to the Politburo. He currently serves as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. This move places the only remaining general on the military commission into the party's top decision-making group.

The promotion follows a series of purges by President Xi Jinping. Those actions removed two top generals from their posts. Zhang is now the sole member of the Central Military Commission besides Xi. The Politburo previously had no representatives from the People's Liberation Army.

Zhang holds a second role focused on internal oversight. He serves as deputy secretary of the CMC Commission for Discipline Inspection. This position gives him authority over military conduct and corruption cases.

The party adopted a resolution to strengthen self-governance and anti-corruption efforts. The document states that the tasks facing the party are increasingly arduous. It calls for uniting the people to safeguard national sovereignty and development interests.

The resolution emphasizes rooting out corruption and maintaining ideological purity. The party aims to enhance its long-term governance capacity and its ties with the public. This language appears in the summary released by Xinhua News Agency.

The four-day closed-door meeting comes about a year before Xi is expected to secure a fourth term. Party members reviewed and confirmed recent personnel changes during the session. Neil Thomas, a senior fellow at Asia Policy, calculated an attendance rate of 74 percent. He noted this is the lowest turnout since the era of former leader Mao Zedong.