The closed-door meeting of the Central Committee that ended Sunday was the last before Communist Party leader Hu Jintao and other government officials begin to cede power to Vice President Xi Jinping and others at the congress, which opens Thursday. The Central Committee said in a statement carried by the official Xinhua News Agency that it endorsed decisions to expel Bo and former Railways Minister Liu Zhijun from the Communist Party. FILE - In this Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012 file, a Chinese man stands near a screen displaying the Chinese national flag and Chinese paramilitary police men performing a flag ceremony near the Great Hall of the People where the Chinese Communist Party's 18th National Congress is scheduled to begin on Nov. 8 in Beijing, China. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File) Close The leadership transition takes place as slowing economic growth in China is exacerbating public ill feelings over corruption, social injustice and policies that favor state-run companies and the elite over private enterprise and ordinary citizens. Abroad, China's attempts to build good relations with neighbors have been set back by territorial spats with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, and Beijing feels hemmed in by a U.S. push to divert more military resources to Asia. The Central Committee applauded its performance over the past five years. Faced with a complicated international environment and an arduous task of stable reform and development, the entire party under General Secretary Hu Jintao ... withstood the test of all types of difficulties and risks. It said the economy had grown stably and rapidly, there had been major progress on reform and opening-up, and people's living conditions had improved remarkably. The central committee did not signal any shifts in economic policies but said it would continue to shift the growth model to one more driven by domestic demand.