Are the latest Communist Party promotions a sign of a new political trend in China?

Beijing promoted 10 officials to full membership of the Communist Party’s Central Committee at a major political gathering this week, where the normally routine process of filling vacancies took on new significance.

The names of the officials who have filled the vacant slots were included in a communique released at the end of the fifth plenum of the party’s 20th Central Committee on Thursday.

Attendance also fell to its lowest level in decades. Only 162 of the Central Committee’s 205 full members attended, representing a turnout of just 79 per cent. Just 117 alternate members were present, down from 147 last year.

Under the party’s long-established practice, Central Committee vacancies were filled by alternate members in a predetermined order.

According to the party’s constitution, the order is determined by votes received during party congresses and, in the event of a tie, by the number of strokes in their family names.

But this week’s plenum saw a departure from that practice, with five alternate members being passed over for promotion.

The 10 officials elevated to full membership included several prominent regional administrators, many of whom have been tipped for higher office, such as Shanxi governor Lu Dongliang, 52, and Zhejiang governor Liu Jie, 56.

Among those passed over were Cong Liang, 54, director of the State Council’s Development Research Centre, and two lieutenant generals from the paramilitary People’s Armed Police – deputy commander Fu Wenhua, 61, and Zhu Wenxiang, 62.

None of the passed-over officials were shown at the meeting in footage aired by state broadcaster CCTV, and no reasons were given for their omission from the promotion list.

However, the South China Morning Post understands that Cong has been in poor health for the past two years and has barely been seen in public.

Such breaks with precedent have become more common in recent years and most of those passed over have either fallen out of political favour for minor offences or were already under investigation.

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According to a tally by the SCMP, the first such departure occurred at the 2022 plenary session when Wang Yongkang, then aged 58 and a former vice-governor of Heilongjiang province, missed out on full membership of the Central Committee.

Instead, Wang Weizhong, then governor of Guangdong, leapfrogged him to take the seat even though he was a year older.

Wang Yongkang was moved to a more ceremonial role at the local legislature, but still regularly appears in public.

During last year’s fourth plenum, seven more officials also missed out on expected promotions to the Central Committee.

They included Wang Jiayi, 61, a vice-minister for education, but his frequent public appearances suggest he is still performing his duties as normal.

Shi Yugang, the former deputy party chief of Yunnan, also missed out on full membership and has since been moved to a ceremonial advisory role in the province.

Meanwhile, the former Xian party secretary Fang Hongwei was formally placed under investigation just a month after being passed over for promotion last year.

The others overlooked last year are mostly from the military and have not been seen in public since.

It has not been explained why only 10 full seats on the committee were filled when the latest round of expulsions created 24 vacancies.

In the past 20 years, the only similar case of a seat remaining vacant after a plenum occurred when it took almost two years to replace Wang Yupu, the former minister of emergency management, who died in 2020.