China Politburo member misses two key meetings as mystery builds

BEIJING – A member of China’s decision-making Politburo has missed two high-profile meetings in recent weeks, fuelling speculation about his fate amid President Xi Jinping’s widening anti-corruption purge.

Mr Ma Xingrui, who is also former party chief of Xinjiang, was absent on Dec 11 from state media footage of the Central Economic Work Conference convened in Beijing to map out policy for the year ahead. The other 22 members of the elite group attended the meeting, according to footage aired by state broadcaster CCTV after the conclave concluded.

The meeting signalled leaders are planning only modest economic stimulus in the months ahead.

Mr Ma also skipped a Politburo study session on Nov 28, according to CCTV footage of that meeting.

The state media did not release footage of the Politburo’s Dec 8 meeting, making it unclear whether Mr Ma was in attendance. The Communist Party’s agency overseeing personnel matters, the Central Organisation Department, did not reply to a faxed request for comment.

Chinese officials sometimes skip key meetings for health or scheduling reasons.

Mr Li Xi, a member of the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee who also heads the party’s anti-graft body, was absent from the Politburo study session in November, for example. He attended this week’s work conference.

Mr Ma’s pair of unexplained absences is “very unusual”, said Mr Neil Thomas, a fellow for Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Centre for China Analysis. “It’s still possible that Ma reappears without explanation – another mysterious move in Xi’s unpredictable reshuffling of the party ranks,” he added.

Mr Ma was removed as party secretary of the western Xinjiang region in July.

In his parting speech, Mr Ma said he “firmly supported” the decision to remove him, and an official announcement said he would “be given another assignment”, without elaborating. There has been no public announcement since about a new position. 

Mr Xi has already ousted one Politburo member in 2025, leaving the key decision-making body at its smallest size since 2006. 

Former general He Weidong, once a vice-chair of the Central Military Commission led by Mr Xi, violated party discipline and laws, the Ministry of Defence said in October.

Mr He was the first Politburo member to be ousted since former Chongqing party chief Sun Zhengcai was probed in 2017. 

Mr He’s downfall was part of Mr Xi’s sweeping purge of the People’s Liberation Army, which has taken down dozens of senior military officials, including two former defence ministers and top officers in the Rocket Force and aerospace industry.

Mr Ma, once widely seen as a rising political star, hailed from an aerospace background in universities and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

That expertise earned him a vice-ministerial post in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. He worked in Guangdong from 2013 to 2021, during which he apologised for a public landslide in Shenzhen.

His subsequent stint in Xinjiang was best remembered for the Urumqi fire protests during the Covid-19 pandemic that would later ripple across China to become one of the worst public outbursts of anger against Mr Xi. BLOOMBERG