The Communist Party of China's Central Committee has issued a notice launching the election of delegates to the 21st National Congress, due in Beijing in the second half of 2027. According to Huanqiu, there will be 2,360 delegates chosen by 38 electoral units nationwide, with the process to be completed before the end of June 2027.
Huanqiu reports that the Central Committee recently circulated a notice on delegate elections for the 21st Congress, laying out the work in full. It said the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee had already decided to hold the congress in Beijing in the second half of 2027, and that the Organization Department held a meeting to arrange the details.
광고 문의 · 300×250The timetable is clear. Elections begin as soon as the notice goes out and must end by the close of June 2027, with the 2,360 delegates picked by 38 electoral units. Huanqiu added that General Secretary Xi Jinping chaired meetings of the Politburo Standing Committee and the Politburo that took up the matter specifically.
Candidate qualifications and political vetting
According to the report, the notice requires delegates to be outstanding Party members who model compliance with the Party constitution. Political vetting is to focus on stance, attitude and awareness, as well as judgment, comprehension and execution, and anyone politically unqualified is rejected outright. Integrity checks on character and conduct are meant to stop candidates being nominated or elected with problems.
On composition, the notice calls for guaranteeing the share of frontline production and work delegates and recommending model workers, farmers and technical professionals. Women and ethnic-minority members are to hold a certain proportion, and delegates should come from fields including the economy, science and technology, defense, law enforcement, education, propaganda, culture, health, sport, social management and new forms of employment.
Procedure and discipline
Delegates are chosen through a process described as bottom-up and top-down combined, with repeated deliberation and layer-by-layer selection. Huanqiu said candidate vetting uses more candidates than slots and advance notice, and that the election meetings themselves use multi-candidate voting with a margin of more than 15 percent.
On discipline, the notice stresses strict political, organizational and election rules, oversight of the whole process and zero tolerance for violations. It cites vote-buying cases in Hengyang in Hunan, Nanchong in Sichuan and Liaoning as cautionary examples. How the provincial election schedules will be made public was not stated in the report we reviewed, so it cannot be confirmed.