China's Communist Party Elite Open Four-Day Plenum Focused on Discipline and Loyalty

China's political leaders began a four-day meeting on Monday to discuss ways of strengthening discipline inside the ruling Communist Party. President Xi Jinping is pressing officials for greater loyalty while deepening his anticorruption campaign.

The gathering is the fifth plenum, a closed-door session attended by roughly 300 members of the party's Central Committee. Observers are watching it closely for signs of the country's direction and its future leadership.

The timing is notable. The meeting comes about a year before Xi is widely expected to win a fourth five-year term as party leader, and ahead of anticipated personnel changes in key leadership bodies.

Xi has already consolidated his hold on power, but analysts say the plenum offers another opportunity to bring the conduct of officials into line with Beijing's wishes. Ruby Osman, a senior policy adviser at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change in London, told The Associated Press that the plenum is a chance to make sure new generations rising through the ranks share Xi's view of the opportunities and risks China faces. Earlier plenums have helped Xi cement his authority.

The Chinese leader has run a 14-year campaign against corruption that has purged thousands of officials, including dozens of committee members. Even so, he remains frustrated with cadres who he says still fail to carry out his orders. In a January speech, published by state media ahead of this week's meeting, he criticized "two-faced" officials who seem to comply with directives but "inwardly resist", are "politically opportunistic" and pursue "individualism".

According to China's official Xinhua news agency, the committee will discuss a draft policy decision on advancing "full and rigorous party self-governance." The aim is to make cadres more disciplined, more effective and less corrupt. Neil Thomas, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, expects calls for closer scrutiny of public spending and major projects, wider use of technology to uncover corruption, and tougher consequences for officials who do not deliver on Xi's priorities.

The purges have thinned the body's ranks. This year's plenum is expected to have the lowest turnout since the death of former leader Mao Zedong in 1976. Eight Central Committee seats are vacant, and another 15 members are under investigation and could be replaced.

The anticorruption drive has also reached the military, removing five of the seven members of the Central Military Commission, the party's top armed forces body. The plenum could bring new appointments to that commission, and Xi might even restructure the party's control over the military.

The talks take place while the world's second-largest economy struggles with persistently weak domestic spending and a prolonged crisis in the vital property sector. Turbulent political and economic relations with the United States are also weighing on China's leaders.