How China Decides Who's in Charge: Inside the CCP's Power Game

The Chinese Communist Party rules over 1.4 billion citizens at home and claims a kind of dominion over a vast Chinese diaspora abroad. It is among the most powerful political forces at work anywhere in the modern world. More than a century after it was founded in the wake of Russia’s October Revolution, the Party counts over one hundred million members in its ranks, controls one of the world’s most powerful economies, and has one of the world’s most formidable militaries at its fingertips.

From the outside, the CCP can look like an all-but-unstoppable force, slowly unfolding a master plan that has carried China from poverty to the edge of superpower status over a span of decades. Its leaders are shadowy and enigmatic. Its power structures are convoluted and often hidden from view. Its ultimate ambitions are known to its leaders, and its leaders alone.

But beneath the Party’s calm, calculating veneer lies a brutal and unending struggle for power. Influential factions rise and fall. New ideas and new leaders gain favor at the expense of their predecessors. And those select few who can achieve true dominance will fight to keep it. The Chinese Communist Party is not a languid collection of stuffy bureaucrats; it is a crucible shaped by ambition, greed, corruption, and all the cloak-and-dagger intrigue of a modern-day Game of Thrones.

On rare, fascinating occasions, the rest of the world can steal a glimpse of the CCP’s internal battles for power. What those glimpses reveal is that the question of who governs China is settled less by the Party’s formal machinery than by a perpetual, high-stakes contest among rival networks of loyalty, patronage, and concealed wealth.

The Pyramid That Meets Once Every Five Years

Like any great story of palace intrigue, the dynamics inside the Chinese Communist Party have as much to do with the system as with the people. To set the terms of engagement, it helps to start with the CCP itself: how it is structured, how power is meant to flow through it, and how it is supposed to work in an ideal world that does not have to account for all the messy human bits.

In the simplest possible terms, the internal hierarchy of the CCP is a pyramid. A tiny number of people hold immense power at the top, and progressively more people hold progressively less power as you travel down through each layer of leadership. But in China, that pyramid comes with an unexpected feature: a supreme ruling body that only convenes once every five years, with the power — at least in theory — to turn the entire state structure on its head.

That ruling body is the National Congress, a collection of about 2,400 high-ranking CCP members. It last gathered in 2022 and will most likely meet again in 2027. Delegates are sent to the Congress through indirect elections, chosen by provincial Party congresses, screened, and then dispatched to the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Inside the National Congress and the Central Committee

Over a span of seven days, the National Congress receives a report from the General Secretary on the successes and failures of the past five years of government, along with any ideological changes made to China’s state structure during that time. In that speech, the General Secretary lays out a guide to the next five years — a meticulously crafted plan intended to be followed carefully, and usually spearheaded by the person preparing, at that time, to take over for China’s current leader when they eventually step down.

During the seven-day National Party Congress, delegates choose the roughly 370 members of China’s Central Committee — a collection of high ministers, bureaucrats, provincial leaders, and military officers who form the basis of Chinese national government. To be clear, the power of the National Party Congress is not quite as absolute as it sounds. Much of what it does is ratify decisions already shaped elsewhere.

The Central Committee, with its 370 high-ranking officials, is charged with actually leading China during the five-year intervals between Congresses. Its membership includes about two hundred full members and roughly 170 non-voting alternates. They elect internal leaders, approve or shape large-scale decisions the government will undertake, choose the directors of China’s largest state-owned enterprises, and are consulted on the big decisions with outsize impact on the nation. They also oversee the Party’s Organization Department, its Publicity Department, and its United Front Work Department — highly influential bodies that control CCP personnel, propaganda, and the people living under Chinese rule.

Even so, the Central Committee does not meet particularly often — just about once a year, on average. Its members carry ample responsibilities elsewhere: managing provinces, bureaucratic organizations, military commands, civic institutions, and other high-profile posts across the country.

The Real Power: The Standing Committee and the General Secretary

The real power behind the throne in Beijing is the Politburo Standing Committee, or PSC. It currently comprises just seven of the most senior members of the Central Committee, and historically has included somewhere between five and eleven members — always an odd number, for voting reasons. The Standing Committee is the rough equivalent of a cabinet of secretaries or ministers: a full-time body meant to comprise China’s brightest minds and most influential leaders.

The Standing Committee oversees a kind of second-tier cabinet, the Politburo, which currently includes twenty-four members. Because so many of China’s mundane or provincial decisions flow up from bureaucratic organizations, provincial leadership structures, or other committees, a large portion of the Standing Committee’s time is spent reviewing and either approving, denying, or modifying those decisions before they are put into action. But the Standing Committee’s members are also the closest advisors, chief deputies, and most trusted executors of the man at the top of the CCP: the General Secretary.

Despite the rather pedestrian-sounding title, China’s General Secretary is the unequivocal highest authority in the CCP — the leader of the Party, and thus the head of an unchallenged single-party apparatus that exercises complete control of the nation. The holder of the General Secretary title also holds the title of President, although that is a ceremonial position, and the title of Supreme Commander of the People’s Liberation Army.

That position is held by Xi Jinping, who has occupied the post since 2012 and has become the first person since Mao Zedong to serve in the role for more than two terms. The degree to which the General Secretary controls China in practice can vary from leader to leader, and the post is technically open to being influenced by a range of important voices across the CCP. But regardless, the General Secretary is China’s highest office. He enjoys unparalleled access to the Party’s internal levers of power, unparalleled access to the people of China through the media, and unparalleled access to the world, with all manner of diplomatic channels and means of travel at his disposal.

For the foreseeable future, China’s leader will be a he. Right now, just eleven of the CCP’s 205 permanent Central Committee members are women, reflecting an exceptionally difficult path to the top that is unlikely to get any easier.

The Wider Cast: Councils, Commissions, and Key Players

Besides the strict hierarchy of the CCP’s upper leadership, a number of important positions and organizations deserve mention. China’s State Council is headed by the General Secretary and includes a premier, vice-premier, and collections of ministers, chairpersons, and others who function essentially as a second cabinet alongside the Politburo. While the Politburo holds veto power over the State Council’s decisions, it is far more focused on questions of ideology and guiding vision, whereas the State Council concerns itself with practical policy implementation.

The Organization Department is directly responsible for all state and Party personnel and works as an overt political fixer: elevating rising stars who show promise, squashing personnel who tend to underwhelm, and pulling strings to create a pool of trusted leaders from whom a smaller selection can be chosen to actually lead China. The United Front Work Department keeps a tight grip on China’s powerful elites, keeping them in line and ensuring they act in service to the Party, while simultaneously tracking the global Chinese diaspora — especially people who have risen to important positions in foreign governments or institutions.

The People’s Bank of China is responsible for monetary policy. The recently established National Security Commission is a shadowy organization that appears to control the nation’s security apparatus, and the National Development and Reform Commission guides and manages the national economy. One organization that does not have much pull, however, is the national legislature, the National People’s Congress — which is different from the National Congress mentioned earlier. The People’s Congress is basically a rubber-stamp organization, meeting once a year for about two weeks and passing into law the many decisions that China’s real power players have already made.

A handful of individuals beyond Xi Jinping play an outsize role. Zhao Leji, age sixty-seven, is the chairman of the seven-man Standing Committee and spent years leading China’s top anti-corruption bureau, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Li Qiang is the nation’s Premier, the second-most-powerful member of the CCP behind only Xi himself; both he and Leji are among Xi’s most important allies.

Wang Huning, another key Standing Committee member, is believed to have played a central role in developing Xi Jinping Thought, the Belt and Road Initiative, and a range of cultural and foreign-policy reforms — and is regarded as the man who has shaped China’s guiding ideology since the 1990s. Li Ganjie is a rising star, currently the youngest Politburo member and head of the United Front Work Department after a turn leading the Organization Department. Zhang Youxia is Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission and the de facto day-to-day leader of the Chinese military.

Beneath the Surface: Factions and the Rise of Xi

That is the official structure of the Chinese Communist Party — but it hardly scratches the surface. China and its leaders take great care to present a calm, cool demeanor to the outside world, and they benefit greatly from making themselves inscrutable, so that the rest of the world has to rely on subtle signs and signals to get a sense of who is in and who is out in Beijing. Under the surface, factionalism, internal purges, and bitter power struggles are common.

A useful example comes from before Xi Jinping’s time. In the wake of an era under Deng Xiaoping, the CCP was divided between two factions: the Chinese Communist Youth League and the Shanghai Gang. The two sides traded power back and forth from 1989 until 2014.

The Shanghai Gang produced Jiang Zemin, who led China from 1989 to 2002, and the Youth League faction produced Hu Jintao, who led from 2002 to 2012. They were divided by ideology, geographical origin within China, and competing visions for the nation. For a while in their early years of fighting for power, they spent years undercutting each other, leveraging portions of the state apparatus under their control and trying to place as many key personnel into as many key positions as possible.

But by the early 2000s, the two factions settled into an equilibrium, working out power-sharing agreements and joining together to craft mutually agreeable policies that served their respective constituencies.

All of that changed when Xi Jinping took over in 2012. Xi came up as a member of the Shanghai Gang, and although his first couple of years did not represent too massive a divergence from the bipartisan order, that changed once he had enough time to work. Under Xi, the period of relatively low infighting came to a close, replaced by a far more cutthroat way of doing business. Nor did Xi simply consolidate power for the Shanghai Gang.

Instead, he created and then grew a third faction, bearing direct loyalty to him rather than to either side.

The Xi Gang and the Return of the Purges

First, it was the Youth League faction that found itself in the crosshairs — iced out of political decision-making wherever possible, pressured out of China’s most influential posts, and, at times, removed unilaterally. Then came the turn of Shanghai Gang members deemed insufficiently loyal, less than competent, or otherwise unable to provide what Xi needed. In their place, leveraging his control over the Organization Department, Xi has ensured that his own loyalists — collectively known as the Xi Gang — take over posts as they become available.

That change has occurred everywhere, from the highest levels of Party governance to low-level provincial and bureaucratic postings. Anywhere there is a Xi loyalist available, they are likely to find themselves in charge of their little pocket of China sooner or later.

The rise of Xi Jinping did not just come with a wave of loyalists. He also ushered in a second defining change: the return of large-scale, regular government purges. Under Xi, purges tend to focus on two key elements of the Chinese government — the military and the highest levels of internal bureaucracy. Those purges are carried out quietly, sometimes with official announcements that a certain general or overseer has been removed without further explanation, but usually with so little fanfare that the rest of the world learns of an ouster only when familiar faces fail to appear at important Party events.

The purges come in large waves, one of which is ongoing now, and they do not spare seemingly critical personnel. In 2024, eight of the 205 members of China’s Central Committee were purged, and eleven others appeared to be in serious trouble — together comprising almost ten percent of one of China’s most important political bodies. Also in 2024, Xi purged his highest admiral, two critical generals, and the deputy commander of China’s ground forces.

When China gives any reason for its purges, the justification usually has to do with corruption, which is indeed an endemic problem all up and down China’s military and civilian leadership. On those charges, Xi has purged even some of his closest political allies and most devoted loyalists — including his Foreign Minister and his Defense Minister, both removed from office in 2023. But corruption charges have also been a convenient way to remove people from rival factions who managed to survive deep into Xi’s tenure while still having some chance of becoming a rival one day.

A Party Still Divided Against Itself

That is not to say Xi has turned the CCP into a completely unified faction — far from it. Even his own loyalists are split into two internal groups: one referred to as the New Zhijiang Army, and the other as the Fujian Clique. The Fujian Clique is mostly made up of people who knew Xi way back in the day, when they helped him govern the province of Fujian through 2002. They have largely taken up positions in the military and security sector, while some of their most senior members now serve as part of Xi’s seven-man Standing Committee.

The New Zhijiang Army, by contrast, are ideological loyalists — people who have really taken to Xi’s political philosophy and worked overtime to show they are willing to put his plans into action. As such, they are more frequently present in positions where they can further ideological goals and maintain control over Party infrastructure. Smaller sub-factions have followed Xi ever since his time in his own province of Shaanxi, or even since his time at university. An interrelated but fundamentally separate rivalry splits China’s civil administration and its military leadership, each jockeying for power despite the fact that the Chinese military is technically beholden to its civil leaders.

Then there are other influential groups across China: the social elite, the oligarchy, and provincial or even local leaders with powerful factions of their own. China’s social elite — much to what one imagines would be Mao Zedong’s chagrin — is made up of an outsize proportion of people whose families were privileged before the rise of the Communist Party, with the descendants of those purged in the Cultural Revolution now having regained much of their wealth and status. There is also the oligarch class, the super-rich, including tech leaders like the seemingly redeemed Jack Ma, e-commerce leader Colin Huang, Tencent co-founder Ma Huateng, and electronics magnate Lei Jun.

Other major oligarchs include multibillionaires like Chen Dongsheng, Zhong Shanshan, and the wealthiest man in China today, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming. Finally, those who lead China’s wealthiest provinces — like Guangdong, Shandong, or Jiangsu — or wealthy cities like Shanghai or Shenzhen, benefit from massive bureaucracies under their control, complete with incredible levels of funding, influence over major institutions, and control over the lives of tens of millions of people.

Playing the Power Game Without Becoming a Target

Each of these factions has its own means to consolidate power and wealth, push out rivals, or otherwise elevate its position. But anyone who wants to play power games has to strike a very careful balance. They must ensure they do not make themselves a problem for higher Party leadership — or worse, for Xi himself. That means anyone trying to be a power player in China has to do it without making anyone more powerful than themselves worried that they are trying to become a rival, while also ensuring that their machinations do not inhibit the functions of the Party or its wider government, while also avoiding the possibility of being seen as an ideological dissident, a Westernized traitor to the system, or some other type of unwanted agitator.

That is a careful balance to get right, and occasional, inevitable missteps can only be partially rescued by leaning on connections with influential people. Instead, the preferred approach of most internal actors seems to be a two-step solution: lay low unless a winnable fight presents itself, and build reserves of financial capital. For anyone in the CCP or its periphery, a large share of wealth tends to be tied up in the Chinese banking system or in hard or digital assets, where it is subject to seizure or meddling from the CCP’s most important people. But a large portion of the wealth of powerful or influential Chinese leaders is spread across the globe, held in offshore accounts so that it is invulnerable to the push and pull of domestic infighting.

The Offshore War Chest and Shadow Sovereignty

Far from the preferred conduct of the glitzy American or European super-rich, powerful Chinese families have considerable incentives to squirrel away their wealth, conceal it from view, and save it for when they might need it most. In part, that is a recognition of the sensitivity of their place in Chinese society, where any power they hold is at the pleasure of Xi Jinping — but where getting too close to Xi today could very well see them purged by Xi’s successor tomorrow.

China’s public oligarch class, largely made up of tech and electronics leaders, tends to happily soak up attention and disclose its stunning range of assets, while the Chinese old-money families that have either kept their fortunes safe through decades of upheaval, or rebuilt what they used to have, would never be caught doing so. To be clear, the newer oligarchs are likely hiding a portion of their wealth too, even if it is not quite as much a way of life as it is for the families who know, firsthand, just how intense Beijing’s reprisals can be. A large portion of China’s offshore financial holdings are their assets, not the direct assets of the Chinese government — and that sets up a fascinating grey space where China’s offshore war chest overlaps with the holdings of people planning to stay rich long after Xi Jinping inevitably becomes a memory.

As financial liquidity expert Adam Rousselle has explained, that offshore money props up yet another layer of China’s internal power dynamic — what he called “a self-reinforcing shadow sovereignty.” That is to say, it props up a collection of oligarchs, party elites, and even semi-criminal networks that push against the boundaries of what China will permit when funneling money from the rest of the world to itself. Those vast sums of money can be loyal to China, but they do not have to be, and whether or not they are depends on the incentives and objectives of the people who actually control those hidden accounts.

Where Money Buys Its Way Into Power

It is here that the outer edge of Chinese power politics begins to take shape, where seemingly innocuous elites, dusty old party officials, or regional leaders can hide massive reserves of capital, drawing upon it as needed to give themselves a decisive advantage in what would otherwise be tightly contested political rivalries. This is where the portion of China’s wealthy and powerful who amassed that wealth and power through less-than-legal means are able to buy their way into China’s legitimate political structure, purchasing loyalty and influencing decisions to their benefit.

It is where money that represents people who disdain Xi Jinping, and could even seek to challenge him, can be hidden behind shell corporations, layered through multiple stages of proxy ownership, guarded by the financial institutions of other nations, and kept safe even in the event that its owners are found out and purged from the system. As Rousselle put it: “Inside China, elite interests are deeply fragmented. Party leaders in Beijing strive to keep a tight grip, pushing grand ideological projects and enforcing strict discipline.

Yet beneath them, provincial networks focus on their own survival and enrichment, prioritizing regional patronage webs and local power dynamics. Meanwhile, private capital — the tech tycoons, property moguls, and SOE-adjacent billionaires — operates with a different logic altogether, seeking to transform vulnerable domestic wealth into safer, untouchable offshore assets.”

These complex, well-hidden financial networks fuel China’s continued internal rivalries. They prevent Xi Jinping and his inner circle from establishing complete control, and they ensure the survival of elite factions outside Beijing’s direct reach. And to be clear, Beijing knows full well that this network exists.

The United Front Work Department is, quite literally, the reason for its own existence: it is meant to create a unified front among Chinese power players and ensure they work to Beijing’s benefit, including by force if necessary. All the while, the Chinese leaders engaged in this game of cat-and-mouse try to make careful use of their assets whenever they can, influencing China’s sprawling political system as it tries to regain control over them.

The Grand View: A System Built on the Double Game

Step back, and the grand view of China’s internal power dynamics comes into focus: a cutthroat party architecture where everything is a double game, balanced between support of the Party and support of one’s own interests. It is a system in which the interests of every powerful person are intertwined with the interests of all their peers — where a rigid, one-party political hierarchy does not favor open debate, but machination and secrecy.

Power bases and influence networks have to be airtight before even the most carefully considered power moves. Every person who chooses to participate in the system has multiple targets on their back: from people above their station who would ensure they do not become rivals, to people below their position who would take what they have in a heartbeat, to people who command relatively equivalent power but know that they can only get further by orchestrating someone else’s downfall.

It is incredibly intense. It is only ever high-stakes. And for those who play it best of all, the rising superpower they call home can become the ultimate prize. Understanding how China decides who is in charge means accepting that the answer lies not in a written constitution or an orderly succession plan, but in this restless, secretive, and deeply human contest for survival at the summit of a one-party state.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who actually holds the most power in China?

The General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party holds the highest authority. That role is currently held by Xi Jinping, who has occupied the post since 2012 and also serves as President and as Supreme Commander of the People’s Liberation Army. The General Secretary is supported by the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, the small group that functions as China’s most powerful inner cabinet.

How often does China’s supreme ruling body meet?

The National Congress, a collection of about 2,400 high-ranking CCP members, meets only once every five years. It last convened in 2022 and is expected to meet again in 2027. During its seven-day session, delegates choose the roughly 370 members of the Central Committee, which then governs in the intervals between Congresses but itself meets only about once a year on average.

What is the difference between the National Congress and the National People’s Congress?

They are two distinct bodies. The National Congress is the Party body that meets every five years to set leadership and direction. The National People’s Congress is China’s national legislature, which meets once a year for about two weeks and functions largely as a rubber-stamp organization, passing into law decisions that China’s real power players have already made.

What are the main factions inside the Communist Party?

Before Xi Jinping, the Party was divided between the Chinese Communist Youth League and the Shanghai Gang, which traded power between 1989 and 2014. Xi, who came up through the Shanghai Gang, built a third faction of personal loyalists known as the Xi Gang, itself split into the New Zhijiang Army of ideological loyalists and the Fujian Clique of longtime associates concentrated in the military and security sector.

Why does Xi Jinping carry out so many purges?

Under Xi, large-scale purges have returned as a regular feature of government, focused on the military and the highest levels of bureaucracy. They are usually justified by corruption, which is genuinely endemic in Chinese leadership, but they also serve to remove rivals from other factions. In 2024 alone, eight Central Committee members were purged, along with top military commanders, and even Xi’s Foreign Minister and Defense Minister were removed in 2023.

Why do powerful Chinese families hide their wealth offshore?

Inside China, wealth held in the banking system or in hard and digital assets is vulnerable to seizure or interference from the Party’s most powerful figures. Spreading wealth across offshore accounts, shell corporations, and layers of proxy ownership makes it invulnerable to domestic infighting and keeps it safe even if its owners are purged. This creates what analyst Adam Rousselle calls a “self-reinforcing shadow sovereignty.”

Does Xi Jinping have complete control over China?

No. Despite consolidating extraordinary power, Xi has not unified the Party. His own loyalists are split into competing groups, rivalries persist between civil and military leadership, and a vast network of hidden offshore wealth sustains elite factions outside Beijing’s direct control. These dynamics prevent Xi and his inner circle from establishing total dominance over the system.

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