The Fourth Plenary Session has concluded, and the communique’s content is unremarkable with no waves. Xi Jinping has not lost power, and neither Wang nor Hu has returned to the center.
At the same time, no additional members have been added to the Military Commission, and the 47 absent Central Committee members (historically rare) have only been partially filled with 11, leaving 36 vacancies.
The only major change is that Military Commission member Zhang Shengmin has been promoted to Vice Chairman of the Military Commission. It’s unknown whose person he is, but given that he helped take down 9 generals, he is highly likely to be closely related to the main figure in the Military Commission (Zhang Youxia). And he has not entered the Central Political Bureau either.
Here’s how I interpret the outcome of the Fourth Plenary Session: a ceasefire along the line.
Of course, there’s also the possibility that there was never any anti-Xi faction in the military—it was all just wild speculation. But as for me, starting from a week ago, looking at the CCP’s dynamics over the past year, after reviewing back and forth, my conclusion is that it does exist, it truly exists, and this time they tried to force a showdown to bring Xi down, but the goal was not achieved.
Trump really wants both sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict to agree to a “ceasefire along the line,” but Putin disagrees. In the CCP’s internal war, both sides have agreed.
Does a ceasefire along the line mean everything is fine?
American Buddhist Net 