1. China's Communist Party expelled Liu Jianchao, former head of its International Department and a veteran diplomat once prominent in Beijing's foreign-policy establishment, after a disciplinary investigation found he committed serious violations of discipline and law [para. 1]. The decision was announced Thursday in a communiqué from the fifth plenum of the 20th Central Committee, which approved a Central Commission for Discipline Inspection report and confirmed an earlier Politburo decision to expel him [para. 2]. No allegation details were disclosed; the phrase commonly refers to corruption and other official misconduct [para. 5].
2. The announcement was the first public report on Liu in over a year [para. 3]. Liu, 62, was last seen as International Department head in late July 2025, when he visited Singapore, South Africa and Algeria [para. 3]. The department is a ministerial-level party organ managing ties with foreign political parties, running alongside but distinct from the Foreign Ministry's state-to-state diplomacy [para. 4]. His last reported meeting was July 30, 2025, in Algiers [para. 7]. By September 30, 2025, Liu Haixing had become the new department head [para. 8].
3. Born in February 1964 in Dehui, Jilin, Liu joined the Foreign Ministry in 1986 after graduating from Beijing Foreign Studies University and studied international relations at Oxford the same year [para. 9]. From 2002 through early 2009, he served as Foreign Ministry spokesman, presiding over roughly 300 press briefings, and became director general of the Information Department in 2006 [para. 10]. At a 2008 briefing following an Iraqi journalist throwing shoes at President Bush, he said national leaders deserved basic respect and joked about watching who was untying shoelaces [para. 11].
4. In 2009, Liu became ambassador to the Philippines amid South China Sea tensions, handling the 2010 Manila hostage crisis involving Hong Kong tourists, and was appointed ambassador to Indonesia in 2011 [para. 12]. After returning to Beijing in 2013 as assistant foreign minister, he took an unusual path for a career diplomat: in 2015 he was named vice minister-level official at the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention and led the CCDI's international cooperation bureau and fugitive-recovery office [para. 13]. He participated in bringing back fugitives abroad, including the 2015 handover of Yang Jinjun from the US after 14 years on the run [para. 14].
5. In 2017, Liu moved to Zhejiang as provincial party discipline chief and head of its supervisory commission during a state-supervision overhaul; less than a year later he returned to Beijing as deputy director of the Central Foreign Affairs Office [para. 15]. He was promoted in May 2022 to head the International Department, succeeding Song Tao, and was elected to the party's 20th Central Committee that year [para. 16].
6. Liu drew particular attention during a January 2024 US visit, meeting then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken and participating in Track 1.5 dialogue discussions [para. 17]. At the Council on Foreign Relations, he said China did not seek to overturn the existing international order or build an alternative [para. 17]. In March 2024 at a Singapore forum, he said mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation were the foundation for constructive US-China relations, and that goodwill steps of any size should be taken while even small damaging actions avoided [para. 18][para. 19]. In July 2025, he joked at a cultural dialogue forum that he had planned to give attendees Labubu collectibles but found them impossible to buy [para. 20].
7. Liu was a delegate to the party's 19th and 20th national congresses, a member of the 19th CCDI and a member of the 20th Central Committee [para. 21]. His expulsion follows the removal of numerous senior officials in an extended anticorruption campaign [para. 21]. Chinese disciplinary cases generally proceed from an internal party investigation to possible prosecution by state authorities; the communiqué did not indicate whether his case would be transferred to prosecutors [para. 22].
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