As investor concern grows over an information crackdown in China, another key data source has become mysteriously rarer: readouts from meetings of the nation’s 24 most-powerful men.
Since Chinese President Xi Jinping secured a precedent-defying third term in October, the Communist Party’s top decision-making body has skipped publishing a statement for three separate months. During the Chinese leader’s second term, it took the party nearly five years to miss the same number of statements.
While there is no public mandate for the Politburo to meet monthly, it has done so for 90% of Xi’s decade-plus tenure, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of government statements.