[1] The Central Committee is, formally, the "party's highest organ of authority" when the National Congress is not in a plenary session.

Nonetheless, Central Committee plenums function as venues whereby policy is discussed, fine-tuned, and publicly released in the form of "resolutions" or "decisions".

Beginning in 1949 at the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Central Committee gradually transformed from a revolutionary organ to a governing one, though again the day-to-day work and most political power resided with a few leaders, most notably the Politburo, then de facto chaired by Liu Shaoqi, and the Secretariat, then under Deng Xiaoping.

Informal and 'extraordinary' mechanisms were sometimes used for the purposes of discussing party policy, for example, the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference in 1962, meant to be a summation of the lessons of the Great Leap Forward.

The committee was then convened again in October 1968 (12th Plenum) to ratify the decision to expel then head of state Liu Shaoqi from the Party.

[2] The Central Committee membership at the 9th Party Congress in April 1969 was largely handpicked by Mao and a small group of radical allies.

Since economic reforms began in 1978, the Central Committee has usually been composed of the leading figures of the party, government, the provinces, and the military.

An example of this was the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CCP Central Committee in 1978, at which China formally embarked on a project of economic reform.

Deng Xiaoping also attempted to increase the level of "intra party democracy" in the 1980s by introducing so-called "more candidates than seats" election method (Cha'e xuanju).

Since its plenary sessions is a rare event that concentrates almost all of China's top leaders in one location, it could also be seen as a convenient venue for informal deal-making.

In 2003, Hu also cancelled the traditional August leadership retreat at the coastal town of Beidaihe, while giving more media coverage to the Central Committee plenums held in the fall.

This was seen as an indication that Hu wanted to eschew informal decision-making by the handful of elites in favour of "inner-party democracy" involving bodies such as the Central Committee.

[3] This indicated that important personnel and policy decisions continued to be the domain of a small group of elites at the very top of the party hierarchy.

The National Congress is convened only once every five years, so the Central Committee can be called upon in the interim to make extremely far-reaching decisions, or at least legitimize a change in direction mandated by the Politburo or other party leaders.

The Central Committee must also be theoretically convened to prepare for a National Congress; for example, to determine its dates, delegate selection, agenda, and so on.

[12] The first, second and seventh plenums generally deal with procedures around the five-yearly power transition process, containing no major policy announcements.

[12] The seventh plenum, the last held before the end of a Central Committee's term, focuses on preparations for the upcoming Party Congress.

Alternate members attend Central Committee plenary sessions, and can presumably voice their views on issues, but do not have the right to vote.

At party plenary sessions, members of the Politburo seats at the front of the auditorium or meeting hall, facing the rest of the Central Committee.

[citation needed] Alternate members follow a different protocol sequence: they are arranged by the number of votes received when they were elected at the previous Party Congress.

While institutional rules has, since the 1980s, played a major role in the selection of Central Committee members, it does not guarantee that holders of a specific office will gain a seat on the CC.

An individual already provisionally named to a provincial leadership post may also be rejected by the "more candidates than seats" voting method – as appeared to be the case with Li Yuanchao (then Jiangsu party chief) in 2002, and Yang Xiong (mayor of Shanghai) in 2012.

Prominent academics with no political experience and state-owned enterprise chief executives often hold alternate seats on the Central Committee.

Chinese politics analyst Cheng Li noted that this makes the body much more fluid than most national legislatures, for which term limits do not generally apply.