BEIJING: The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee convened a meeting on Thursday to discuss and plan the Party’s efforts to improve conduct, build integrity, and combat corruption for the year 2026.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting.

In 2025, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Xi at its core, discipline inspection and supervision authorities at all levels intensified their efforts to improve conduct, build integrity, and combat corruption, maintaining a tough stance against corruption, said the meeting, noting that new progress and results had been achieved.

The meeting said discipline inspection and supervision bodies in 2026 must advance full and rigorous Party self-governance with higher standards and more effective measures to provide a strong guarantee for the economic and social development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030).

Prior to the meeting, Xi presided over a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, where reports were heard on the work of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Commission of Supervision for 2025, as well as preparations for the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

The session is scheduled for Jan. 12-14, 2026.

China strongly urges U.S. not to implement negative China-related provisions in defense policy bill

China strongly urges the United States to abandon zero-sum mindset and ideological bias and refrain from implementing the negative China-related provisions in its defense policy bill, a spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress said on Thursday, in response to the U.S. side recently signing into law the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026.”

Noting that the Act passed by the U.S. Congress was signed into law, spokesperson Xu Dong expressed China’s strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the negative content targeting China.

He criticized the Act for continuing the usual tune of containing China, hyping up “China threat,” blatantly interfering in China’s internal affairs, and undermining China’s core interests.

“We urge the U.S. side to view China’s development and China-U.S. relations objectively and rationally, work with China in the same direction, and jointly implement the important consensus reached by the Chinese and U.S. heads of state at the Busan meeting,” Xu said.

He added that should the United States insist on proceeding unilaterally, China will take firm measures in accordance with the law to resolutely safeguard its national sovereignty, security and development interests.