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Critics say Xi's purges reveal a ruthless drive for absolute loyalty and total control of the military.
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With Xi Jinping firmly at the helm, the National People's Congress, which concluded on Thursday, is an annual statement on where China is headed - and how it plans to get there.
But absent from the meticulously choreographed proceedings were some of Xi's formerly trusted confidants, and other high-ranking officials - about 100 delegates were not present for the opening session, all swept up in a relentless wave of recent dismissals.
The empty seats tell a different story to the steady, unified governance that Xi and the Chinese Communist Party seek to project.
They are the starkest evidence of Xi's sweeping anti-corruption campaign which began when he was appointed general secretary of the party in 2012.
More than a decade on, it shows no signs of slowing down. Why?
Back in 2012, corruption really was a problem in China.
The Communist Party is a massive institution, with more than 100 million members and millions of officials. "So it's not surprising there are people who will make mistakes or who are corrupt," says Professor Kerry Brown of King's College London.
Still, corruption had become endemic. Officials are not paid very well, Brown explains, and the system is run by "a small political elite with an enormous amount of power".
Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao called corruption a corrosive challenge that would "cost the party the support of the people". So Xi made it his mission to stamp it out.
What followed were a slew of shocking arrests. In 2012-2013, an embezzlement and murder scandal brought down Bo Xilai, a rising star in the party who was tipped to be Xi's main rival for the top job. In 2014 the man who once headed China's vast security apparatus was arrested, and two years later, Hu's top aide was jailed for life for corruption.
From government ministers to village chiefs, no-one
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