In recent years, a significant number of senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials have faced internal disciplinary actions, with some reportedly being secretly executed. This trend highlights the CCP’s stringent measures to maintain control and eliminate dissent within its ranks. High-profile disappearances and unexplained absences at key meetings have fuelled speculation about the fate of these officials. The opaque nature of these actions raises concerns about the extent of internal purges and the methods employed to enforce party loyalty.
Even as the CCP’s two sessions unfold in Beijing, the latest presidium list for the National People’s Congress (NPC) reveals the absence of two prominent figures from the military-industrial sector: Luo Yi, Chief Engineer at China National Nuclear Corporation, and Su Da, former Hunan Province Party Secretary. Neither attended the NPC’s opening session on March 5th.
This isn’t an isolated incident. Former high-ranking officials like Tian Guoli, ex-chairman of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, and Chu Ying, former GM of China North Industries Group, have also vanished from the public eye. Similarly, Lu Sanan, the then-director and deputy from the nuclear weapons research hub, China Academy of Engineering Physics, has disappeared.
Other notable absentees include Lei Fan, a top official in the Central Military-Civil Fusion Office, Zhang Kejian, a vice minister and defense tech chief, and Zhang Hong’an, a party secretary with military-industrial ties. Their absence at key meetings raises eyebrows.
The standout case is former foreign minister Qin Gang, who disappeared and was subsequently sacked. The CCP has yet to disclose the reasons behind his disappearance, fuelling rumours of espionage, leaking secrets, demotion, or even death. Last August, Deng Xiaoping’s former translator, Gao Kai, told Al Jazeera that Qin Gang lost his job due to corruption and was swiftly dealt with. Independent commentator writing for Taiwan’s Up Media on March 8th, suggests that the CCP’s treatment of senior officials has become increasingly opaque, with many vanishing without a trace and investigations remaining hushed up.
Experts speculates that if Qin Gang did leak secrets, he might have been quietly executed. If not, he could be held in an isolated camp for corrupt officials. The case of Japanese scholar AG Suzuki, arrested in Beijing in 2016 on spy charges, serves as a cautionary tale. Suzuki received a six-year sentence and, upon returning to Japan, described the case as absurd, triggered by a casual mention of Kim Jong-un’s executed uncle, Jang Song-thaek, in a conversation with diplomat Tang Benyuan. Tang, a former counselor at China’s Japan Embassy, was also arrested and likely secretly sentenced to death.
While imprisoned, Suzuki heard whispers that China’s ambassador to Ireland received a secret death sentence for espionage. Zhou Gang, a defector now in the US, recalled a party lecture where a military commission official admitted that scores of death sentences for officials occur annually but remain undisclosed. Analysis of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaigns estimates that 34 centrally managed cadres were internally handled in 2024 and 42 in 2023. Among the fallen members of the 18th and 19th Central Committees, at least 20 have no official explanation for their disappearance.
Many reported cases of depression-related falls or sudden illness deaths are suspected to be cover stories for senior officials already under internal scrutiny. Over the past two years, a wave of missing officials likely fits this pattern of internal handling. Take Lu Yaohua, a retired general and princeling, who vanished in 2021 and received a secret sentence late last year. The hush surrounding his case is likely due to his political clout, as keeping it quiet avoids rocking the party or military.
In December 2023, the Canada Cersei Group, experts in Chinese elite politics, reported tracking about 70 individuals detained in their probe of the Rocket Force. In January, exiled professor told NTD’s Elite Forum that Miao Hua, head of the Military Commission’s Political Work Department, is in hot water, with 600 generals under him facing a massive purge—the biggest hit yet to Xi Jinping, with disloyalty in the ranks boiling over.
Expert sees this a pattern in these disappearances and possible secret executions, describing Xi’s self-revolution as more akin to self-destruction. The CCP’s corruption is terminal, and its fake anti-corruption campaign is becoming increasingly ugly, signalling the regime’s inevitable decline. A folk prophecy even suggests that the CCP’s reign will end as it began—with a snake. Tang Dynasty monk Zhang Bo left a poem predicting centuries of history, with one line reading,
“Red rats share the era but not the fate; the central plain’s glory isn’t earned. The West sees southern troops again just as the golden snake’s time ends,”
widely interpreted as the CCP’s curtain call in a snake year.
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