Red Stars Rising: China's Communist Party Faces a Generational Shift

 Will rising officials be freer thinkers than older ones?

Key Political Context & The Upcoming Central Committee Gathering

• Next year, at the five-yearly Communist Party congress, the country's leadership until 2032 will be confirmed. While Xi Jinping's supreme position is secure, hundreds of senior roles below him are up for grabs.

• A gathering of roughly 370 leaders forming the party's Central Committee was scheduled from October 26th to 29th. Officially, they are set to discuss "full and rigorous party self-governance" (obedience to Mr. Xi), while privately pondering a generational shift in Chinese politics.

• Rising stars in the provinces and Beijing are known as the seventh generation of party leaders. Born in the late 1960s and 1970s, they are the first generation with few or no memories of the Mao era. Their formative years occurred during the 1980s opening-up period.

The Generational Numbering System and the Wreckage of the Sixth Generation

• In Chinese politics, Mao Zedong led the first generation, and pragmatic reformer Deng Xiaoping is described as the second generation. Mr. Xi belongs to the fifth generation (mainly born in the 1950s). By post-Deng norms, he should have stepped down in favor of the sixth generation (born in the 1960s).

• Instead, Mr. Xi abolished presidential term limits and stayed on. His anti-corruption campaign dismantled sixth-generation patronage networks, arresting or sidelining those once tipped for leadership and purging perhaps a fifth of the Central Committee's voting members over five years.

• Amid this wreckage, seventh-generation figures are rising. Notable examples include:

  • Zhu Zhongming (54): Appointed acting mayor of Shanghai in August, making him a shoo-in for the Politburo if he becomes city party chief.

  • Liu Jie (56): Governor of Zhejiang.

  • A Dong (55): First secretary of the Communist Youth League.

• Normal retirement rules (65 for senior officials, 68 for Politburo members) suggest two-thirds of the current Central Committee will step down, raising the proportion of seventh-generation officials to over 40%.

Profile of the Seventh Generation

• Education & Background: Unlike previous generations, they avoided massive educational disruption during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). A study by Li Cheng found over half of the top 100 seventh-generation officials hold PhDs, with a third studying engineering, finance, or economics.

• International Exposure: Many spent significant time abroad (e.g., Beijing mayor Yin Yong has a Harvard master's; Guo Ningning worked in Hong Kong and Singapore). They are also more likely to have served as business leaders in state-owned enterprises.

• Weak Revolutionary Ties: Unlike Mr. Xi—whose father fought alongside Mao and who spent seven years "sent down" to a poor village—the seventh generation came of age in the 1980s during China's most intellectually liberal window since the 1950s.

• The 1989 Threshold: Many were the same age as the pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square when that window of openness ended violently in 1989. While heavily socialized and vetted by the party, their early exposure to open-minded thinking distinguishes them from subsequent generations.

Succession Outlook and Future Prospects

• All but one member of the current Politburo Standing Committee (aside from Mr. Xi) are old enough to retire at the upcoming 21st party congress.

• While Mr. Xi is unlikely to empower a very young official as an heir-apparent immediately, the calculus may change by the 22nd congress when Mr. Xi will be 79. Former CIA analyst Jonathan Czin notes that passing the baton to someone in their 50s or 60s makes more sense than choosing someone who is already 70.

• However, this transition could introduce turbulence, as Mr. Xi may have to select a successor with whom he has had relatively little time to build trust, potentially cycling through multiple heirs-apparent much like Mao and Deng did.