The Two Safeguards (两个维护, liǎng gè wéihù) is a paramount political discipline doctrine of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that obliges every Party member, organ, and cadre to "resolutely safeguard General Secretary Xi Jinping's status as the core of the Party Central Committee and the core of the whole Party" (坚决维护习近平总书记党中央的核心、全党的核心地位) and to "resolutely safeguard the authority of the Party Central Committee and its centralized, unified leadership" (坚决维护党中央权威和集中统一领导). The formula crystallized at the 19th Party Congress in October 2017 and was codified into the revised Party Constitution at that congress. It builds on the earlier designation of Xi as the Party's "core" (核心) at the Sixth Plenum of the 18th Central Committee in October 2016, and was elevated to a binding discipline by the Central Committee's "Opinions on Strengthening the Party's Political Construction" issued in February 2019.
Procedurally, the Two Safeguards operates as the apex norm within a layered hierarchy of Party discipline. It sits atop the "Four Consciousnesses" (四个意识 — political, overall-situation, core, and alignment consciousness) and the "Four Confidences" (四个自信), and is enforced through the revised Regulations on Disciplinary Actions of the CCP, most recently amended in December 2023, which classify failure to uphold the Two Safeguards as a violation of "political discipline" (政治纪律) — the gravest of the six categories of Party discipline. Cadres are required to demonstrate adherence through formal mechanisms: democratic life meetings (民主生活会), criticism and self-criticism sessions, written loyalty pledges, and the annual reporting of personal political stance to higher Party committees.
Enforcement runs through the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and its provincial and ministerial counterparts, together with the inspection teams (巡视组) dispatched by the Central Leading Group for Inspection Work. Inspection reports since 2018 routinely cite "insufficient implementation of the Two Safeguards" as a leading finding against provincial Party committees, state-owned enterprises, and central ministries. The CCDI's annual plenum communiqués — including those of January 2022, January 2023, and January 2024 — have placed the Two Safeguards first among all disciplinary priorities. Sanctions range from intra-Party warning (警告) and serious warning (严重警告) through removal from post (撤职), probation (留党察看), and expulsion (开除党籍), often paired with criminal referral to the National Supervisory Commission.
Contemporary applications are extensive. The expulsion of former Justice Minister Fu Zhenghua in September 2022 cited his failure to uphold the Two Safeguards, as did the case against former Public Security Vice-Minister Sun Lijun the same year. Provincial inspection reports on Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, and Henan between 2020 and 2023 directed local Party committees to "deeply implement" the doctrine. The State Council Information Office, the People's Liberation Army's Central Military Commission Political Work Department, and the All-China Federation of Trade Unions have each issued internal study programs structured around the formula. The People's Daily and Qiushi (求是), the Party's theoretical journal, publish recurrent commentary reinforcing the doctrine, including Xi's own January 2022 Qiushi essay on political construction.
The Two Safeguards is distinct from, though often paired with, the Two Establishes (两个确立) — the formal "establishment" at the Sixth Plenum of the 19th Central Committee in November 2021 of Xi's core status and of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guiding ideology. Whereas the Two Establishes is a declarative historical resolution, the Two Safeguards is an operative behavioral command. It also differs from the broader "Four Consciousnesses," which describe internal mental dispositions rather than enforceable acts, and from democratic centralism (民主集中制), the Leninist organizational principle from which it descends but which formally permits intra-Party debate prior to decision.
Edge cases and controversies have emerged around the doctrine's scope. Scholars including those at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) and the Brookings Institution have noted that the Two Safeguards effectively closes the space for collective leadership norms that prevailed under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, when no single leader was designated "core" with comparable codification. The 20th Party Congress in October 2022 further entrenched the doctrine by amending the Party Constitution to incorporate the Two Establishes alongside it. Critics within the Chinese diaspora — and the rare internal dissent such as the 2020 essay by retired professor Cai Xia — have characterized the framework as a personalist concentration inconsistent with the post-Mao reforms of 1980–1982. The doctrine has also been extended extraterritorially through United Front and overseas Party-cell guidance, raising consular and counter-intelligence concerns in jurisdictions including Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
For the working practitioner — desk officer, embassy political section, or analyst — the Two Safeguards functions as a diagnostic tool. Its invocation in a Chinese official's speech, an inspection report, or a state-enterprise communiqué signals the political weight attached to a directive and the personal stakes for the speaker. Its omission, conversely, can indicate bureaucratic distance. Tracking the frequency and contextual placement of the phrase in Xinhua dispatches, provincial Party plenum reports, and PLA political work documents offers a measurable proxy for elite cohesion and for the durability of Xi's command authority — a metric now standard in China-watching since 2017.
Example
In September 2022, the CCDI announced the expulsion of former Justice Minister Fu Zhenghua, citing his failure to "resolutely implement the Two Safeguards" alongside corruption charges, illustrating the doctrine's use as the lead political indictment.