Persevering with Full and Rigorous Party Self-Governance and Breaking New Ground in the Self-Reform of a Century-Old Major Party

By: Ambassador Wang Wenli

The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) successfully convened its fifth plenary session from October 26th to 29th, 2026. Focusing on full and rigorous Party self-governance, the session deliberated and adopted the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Certain Major Issues concerning Persevering with Full and Rigorous Party Self-Governance. The session once again showed to the world that the CPC has the courage to carry out self-reform and advance rigorous self-governance. The CPC has broken new ground in the self-reform as a century-old major party, and serves as the strong leadership core in the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Since its founding in 1921, the CPC has consistently made the self-supervision and self-governance of the Party a vital task. Throughout the periods of revolution, development, and reform, it has continuously strengthened and improved Party building in a manner of keeping pace with the times and always seeking truth from facts. This year marks the 105th anniversary of the founding of the CPC. As the world’s largest Marxist ruling party, the CPC has over 100 million members and 5.431 million primary-level organizations, and exercises overall leadership over all areas of endeavor in every part of the country. Profound changes in national and global conditions have made the Party’s tasks of exercising effective self-supervision, practicing strict self-governance and properly build and making full use of the contingent of Party members even more arduous.

In 2012, the 18th National Congress of the CPC was successfully convened, marking that socialism with Chinese characteristics ushered into a new era. Since the 18th National Congress, the Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core demonstrated tremendous political courage and a strong sense of responsibility in confronting the startling problems within the Party. Staying firmly committed to full and rigorous Party self-governance, the Central Committee introduced the most stringent measures and continued working to purify, improve, renew, and excel itself. The Central Committee has steadily improved the Party’s conduct and maintained close ties with the people through the implementation of central Party leadership’s eight-point decision, marking the start of a tough, protracted battle against formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism, and extravagance. The anti-corruption campaign featured by cracking down on both “tigers” and “flies” fundamentally addressed the problem of lax and weak self-supervision and self-governance, ensuring the final overwhelming victory and comprehensively consolidated the results. The Party has thus grown stronger through revolutionary tempering.

Meanwhile, members of the CPC know well that it is a long-term and arduous task to persevere with full and rigorous Party self-governance, know well that the longer the Party governs and the longer China enjoys peace and prosperity, the more complex the environment becomes, the more important it is for the Party to enhance the awareness of potential dangers, remain vigilant in times of peace so as to build the Party well and strong. The session confronted the new circumstances and new issues facing full and rigorous Party self-governance, made scientific analysis in global, national, and Party conditions, and clearly pointed out the four formidable challenges under new circumstances, namely the Party’s governance and leadership capacity, the quality of its membership, and its resistance against corruption and moral decline. The session outlined the seven guiding principles for persevering with full and rigorous Party self-governance, namely serving the Party’s missions and tasks, taking strengthening the Party politically as the overarching principle, exercising rigorous governance across the board, adopting a problem-oriented approach, upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground, adhering to a top-down approach, and running the Party according to regulations, sending the strong signal of adopting higher standards and more stringent measures to carry forward the full and rigorous Party self-governance.

To do a good job of governing the country, we must first do a good job of strictly governing the Party; and to build a great country, the Party must be thriving. This is the basic conclusion drawn by the Chinese people from the course of China’s development since modern times. The session made a series of strategic arrangements and top-level designs as the Party endeavors to supervise, govern, develop, and strengthen itself, pointing out the direction and drawing a blueprint for following the path of Chinese modernization. As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and the world’s second-largest economy, China, a country that maintains rapid economic development and long-term social stability, is the greatest source of certainty in an uncertain world. China stands ready to work with all countries in the world, including Timor-Leste, to strengthen exchanges on governance experience, enhance exchanges between political parties, share development experience and opportunities, fully implement the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative, so as to write a new chapter in the solidarity and cooperation of the Global South, and join hands to build a community with a shared future for humanity.