Wave of Elite Investigations Signals Political Tightening in Beijing Ahead of Key Event: Insiders

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In the first 40 days of 2026, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a broad wave of investigations into senior officials, which analysts say raises questions about the regime’s stability and power struggles ahead of its significant annual political event—the “Two Sessions” meetings—in early March.

Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 9, at least 25 senior officials and executives in state-owned enterprises were announced by the CCP as being under investigation or under disciplinary review.

In January, at least 10 current or retired officials at the regime’s ministerial or vice-state level were purged—a noticeably higher figure than in comparable periods in recent years.

On the civilian side, the list includes Wang Xiangxi, former minister of Emergency Management, who has been placed under disciplinary review and investigation. The cases of Sun Shaocheng, former Party secretary of Inner Mongolia, and Tang Yijun, former Minister of Justice, have already moved into legal proceedings. Gu Jun, former general manager of China National Nuclear Corporation—a state-owned enterprise whose top executives are treated as full ministerial-level officials—has also been under investigation.

“Normally, the authorities are careful about how many senior officials they announce at once,” Ye said. “They worry about public reaction—if too many are exposed, people start asking whether corruption is everywhere inside the CCP.”

Two decades ago, Ye noted, China might see five or six ministerial-level officials investigated over the course of an entire year, often clustered around major political meetings. “Now, you’re seeing five [investigations] in a single month,” he said. “It looks like [the investigations are] designed to intimidate senior officials.”

Ye added that the timing is especially significant because the two generals, Zhang and Liu, were removed just weeks before the Two Sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)—the two houses of China’s rubber-stamp legislature—where officials set national priorities, approve budgets, and signal policies for the coming year.

“Handling top-level cases before the Two Sessions clears obstacles for personnel arrangements,” he said. “The signal is very clear.”

Cui Kai, a China-based independent scholar who used a pseudonym due to fears of reprisal, told The Epoch Times that the recent investigations and purges have already affected the military’s chain of command and could have spillover effects across the civilian leadership.

“This round of action isn’t ending anytime soon,” Cui said. “Power struggles at the top are still playing out.

“At a minimum, things won’t stabilize until around the Two Sessions in early March. It could even drag on until the next CCP Central Committee plenum in the fall.”

Cui added that personnel arrangements for both the NPC and the State Council are now under close scrutiny. He said that when serving ministers are investigated, other regime officials often view the announcements less as isolated corruption cases and more as political warnings.

“There are reports of [retroactive] investigations going back 10 years in some places, 20 years in others,” Hong said. “Some cases involve illicit gains in the tens of millions of yuan, others in the hundreds of millions or more.”

However, the analysts said, the latest wave of cases appears less focused on sheer volume than on timing, seniority, and institutional spread—drawing more attention to how Xi’s anti-corruption campaign could shape the regime’s next round of personnel decisions during the Two Sessions.