Few of them knew that serving on the Central Committee would prove to be one of the most dangerous jobs in the China.
They are amongst the highest-profile victims of President Xi Jinping's historic anti-corruption campaign, which has ended the careers of more than 150 government ministers, army generals and state-owned enterprise executives.
They are also unlikely to be the last as a party congress begins deliberations today to appoint a new Central Committee, which will in turn rubber-stamp Mr Xi's second-term leadership team. "I doubt that Xi will stop the campaign as it is popular [with the public]," says Steve Tsang, a Sinologist at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
The anti-corruption campaign has been a potent political weapon for Mr Xi and Wang Qishan, the party's discipline tsar. The two men have used it to help shape the composition of the party's incoming 25-member politburo and seven-seat Politburo Standing Committee, which will be revealed next week.
Since the beginning of this year alone, an unprecedented seven Central Committee members have been detained by Mr Wang's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, compared to four in 2016.
Most significantly, in July Mr Xi and Mr Wang for the first time purged a sitting politburo member, Sun Zhengcai. Installed by Mr Xi's predecessors, Mr Sun, 54, was the politburo's youngest member and therefore in pole position to succeed either Mr Xi or his premier, Li Keqiang, in 2022.
Mr Sun's removal has instead paved the way for one of the president's proteges, 57 year-old Chen Min'er, to join the politburo and possibly even leapfrog onto the Politburo Standing Committee as well.
Qiao Mu, a former Peking University professor now living in the US, says such machinations are the main preoccupation of the party's quinquennial congresses. "Party congresses are held to sort power struggles, personnel arrangements and ideological matters," says Mr Qiao. "They do not discuss detailed policies."
The last member of the 18th Central Committee to be brought down for corruption was Wu Ai'ying, who was removed from her justice minister post in February without explanation. Ms Wu, whose detention on corruption charges was only confirmed at the weekend, will now be subject to the same arbitrary and opaque judicial procedures that hundreds of rights lawyers, labour activists and dissidents endured under her watch.
Other missing members of the party's 18th Central Committee highlight the methodical manner in which Mr Xi has established himself as China's most powerful leader since Deng Xiaoping.
Early victims such as Li Dongsheng and Jiang Jiemin, detained in 2013 and 2015 respectively, were regarded as allies as one of Mr Xi's main political rivals, Zhou Yongkang.
Ling Jihua was the de facto chief-of-staff of Mr Xi's predecessor, Hu Jintao. This humiliation made it difficult for Mr Hu to overshadow Mr Xi's administration much as his own years in power were overshadowed by Jiang Zemin, who headed the party from 1989 to 2002.
Three disgraced members of the 18th Central Committee were also generals in the People's Liberation Army, which has undergone a radical restructuring under Mr Xi. Two other PLA generals and 18th Central Committee members are also reportedly under investigation for corruption.
Xiang Junbo, who headed China's insurance regulator, and Wang Min, party boss of Liaoning province, fell as anti-corruption investigators turned their attention to cleaning up the financial sector and enforcing painful economic restructuring measures on heavy industrial centres such as Liaoning.
Under Mr Wang, whose alleged failings included "dereliction of duty", Liaoning was found to have faked economic data while almost half of the province's national parliament delegates were sacked for allegedly buying their seats.
Additional reporting by Xinning Liu
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017
