How China keeps power in check: the Party's self-governance

The world's largest ruling political party needs to keep its own house in order so it can keep serving the people.

The scale of the task is enormous.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) had some 101.29 million members and more than 5.43 million primary-level Party organizations at the end of 2025, according to the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

The bigger the Party gets, the greater the need for discipline, oversight and self-governance.

The question is back in the spotlight at the start of the country's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030).

It is also a main agenda item at the fifth plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, to be held in Beijing from October 26 to 29.

The Party has made progress on self-governance since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012.

But with each passing year, it faces new challenges as conditions at home and abroad change, and as the Party itself changes, according to a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in late July.

A long-term strategy for self-improvement How should full and rigorous Party self-governance be understood? Why does it matter? And what role does it play in meeting China's development goals over the next five years? Wang Yiwei, vice president of the Academy of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era at Renmin University of China, says that for a political party seeking to govern over the long term, the greatest challenge is not external opponents, but whether it can keep holding itself to its own standards.

As the conditions in which power is exercised changes, new risks emerge, Wang says.

Corruption and bureaucratism are another matter.

They threaten every administrative organisation and are not one-off problems with one-off solutions.

The work of self-governance never stops.

Institutional safeguards like disciplinary inspections and investigations, regular education and measures that hold everyone accountable throughout their careers create a zero-tolerance environment for rot from within, says Wang.