Targeting the Tsinghua Clique, 21st Party Congress Personnel Layout? Aiming at Chen Jining?

The video discusses the recent intensive purges and personnel adjustments by the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against Chen Xi, officials of the Tsinghua faction associated with him, and officials within the organizational system. It analyzes Chen Xi's historical role as Xi Jinping's classmate of 47 years and former head of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee in building the Xi faction's cadre network, and why, as the 21st National Congress approaches, the Tsinghua faction and Chen Jining's potential political influence are seen as a center of power and targeted for suppression.

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Hello everyone, I am Yaoyao Jiang. For those who follow elite CCP politics, Chen Xi is definitely not an ordinary name. During Xi Jinping's decade in power, he long simultaneously held two extremely critical positions: the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee and the Central Party School—controlling cadres on one side and ideology on the other. During the power reorganizations of both the 19th and 20th National Congresses, he provided crucial organizational route guarantees for his patrons to comprehensively enter the core of power. However, just as unusual signals have appeared in recent weeks regarding this Tsinghua classmate who has followed Xi Jinping for more than 40 years. On June 5, at the graduation ceremony of the spring semester of the Central Party School, Cai Qi attended in his capacity as president and presented certificates to the graduates. Yet just half a month earlier, Chen Xi was still the president of the Central Party School; this method of changing personnel without a formal announcement of handover is highly unusual. On June 17, overseas political commentators Cai Shengkun and Director Lu simultaneously disclosed that Chen Xi had been demoted precipitously to the deputy departmental level. One day later, on June 18, Xinhua News Agency issued a State Council appointment and removal announcement showing Cai Qi concurrently serving as president of the Chinese Academy of Governance, with Chen Xi no longer holding the position. If this demotion news is ultimately confirmed, it will signify an extremely rare phenomenon: Xi Jinping is beginning to handle a core figure whom he personally promoted and long trusted in a manner different from expulsion from both party and public office (shuangkai) and transfer to the judicial authorities. Previously, the only similar handling method was former Foreign Minister Qin Gang. Thus, a question arises: why is Xi Jinping dealing with Chen Xi? Why are the people Chen Xi personally promoted and cultivated over the years being purged one after another? Chen Xi has accompanied Xi Jinping for more than 40 years; what massive contributions did he make that made Xi Jinping most reluctant to touch him? But since he was most reluctant to touch him, why did he eventually have to swing this knife at him? Today, we will trace a timeline of personnel purges over the past two years to conduct a political deduction. Xi Jinping has struck down many senior cadres over the past year, but if you place these fallen and adjusted individuals on the same timeline, you will find a group among them whose critical steps in their political careers largely occurred after Chen Xi entered the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, specifically upon becoming its head in 2017.

Let's start with a recent individual. On June 6, 2026, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced that Wei Xiaodong, Chairman of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPPCC, was under investigation. This is the 30th centrally-managed cadre announced by the CCP since 2026. Born in 1961 in Zhangzhou, Fujian, Wei Xiaodong worked in the Office of the Central Commission for Public Sector Reform for a long time, serving as Director of the Comprehensive Department, Director of the Second Department, Director of the Fourth Department, and Deputy Director, without breaking through the vice-ministerial level for many years. His fate took a turn in April 2017, when Chen Xi was serving as Executive Deputy Minister of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, and Cai Qi had just been parachuted into Beijing as Mayor without being a member of the Central Committee, only to be promoted to Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee a month later. It was at this time that Wei Xiaodong, who had long worked in the Office of the Central Commission for Public Sector Reform, crossed systems to join the Beijing Municipal Party Committee as Head of the Organization Department. Why would a cadre from the Office of the Central Commission for Public Sector Reform suddenly enter the Beijing Municipal Party Committee's organization system? Such cross-system personnel transfers cannot happen without the arrangements of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee. Even more notable is that both Wei Xiaodong and Cai Qi are cadres from Fujian. Subsequently, Wei Xiaodong was promoted to Chairman of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPPCC in 2022, entering the ministerial-level sequence. Nine years later, on June 6, 2026, he fell from grace. Following Wei Xiaodong, another personnel change in the university system is equally worth noting. On May 23, 2026, Gong Qihuang was removed from his post as President of Peking University. For the head of a university at this level, adjustments are usually accompanied by the phrase "to be assigned to another post." But this time, those four words were missing from the official announcement. Replacing Gong Qihuang is Gao Song, who is 64 years old, half a year older than Gong Qihuang. Born in 1964 in Putian, Fujian, Gong Qihuang is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and is also a fellow townsman of Chen Xi. He entered the core of power at Peking University starting in July 2017. That year, Chen Xi became Minister of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee and entered the Politburo. In the following years, Gong Qihuang successively served as Provost, Dean of the Graduate School, and Executive Vice President. In June 2022, in one of the last major adjustments to the university system before Chen Xi stepped down as Minister of the Organization Department, Gong Qihuang was pushed into the position of President of Peking University. Less than four years later, in May 2026, Gong Qihuang quietly left his post. And the changes did not happen to him alone. In February 2025, Hao Ping stepped down as Party Secretary of Peking University and was succeeded by He Guangcai, Vice Minister of Education. In September 2025, Ren Yuzhong, Vice President of Peking University, voluntarily surrendered to the authorities. On October 28, 2025, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress decided to remove Hao Ping from his position as Vice Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the 14th National People's Congress.

Next is the Tsinghua system. On May 21, 2026, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection issued a "double expulsion" (expulsion from both the Party and public office) to Zhang Yaoxue. The next day, the Chinese Academy of Engineering announced its decision to revoke Zhang Yaoxue's title as an academician. Zhang Yaoxue once served as the president of Central South University, but another of his identities was as a professor at Tsinghua University, while also serving for a long time as the director of the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education. The important period of his teaching at Tsinghua highly overlapped with the period when Chen Xi served as the Party Committee Secretary of Tsinghua University. In 2014, Zhang Yaoxue won the first prize of the State Natural Science Award for his "Transparent Computing" project, but this project has always been controversial in the academic community. At that time, Chen Xi was already serving as the Executive Deputy Minister of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee. Zhang Yaoxue was investigated in October 2025. In the "double expulsion" announcement in May 2026, there was a very critical sentence: "seeking benefits for others in work such as cadre selection, appointment, granting of academic titles, and honorary commendations." Cadre selection and appointment means selling official positions, and granting academic titles means selling academician titles. After Zhang Yaoxue, the person we are going to talk about is in a completely different situation. Some of the previous people were fellow townsmen, some were old acquaintances from Tsinghua, and some were important figures in the university system. And the next person is someone Chen Xi personally cultivated and personally handed over to, and he is Li Ganjie. On April 2, 2025, the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee made an extremely rare personnel decision: Minister of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee Li Ganjie and Minister of the United Front Work Department of the CCP Central Committee Shi Taifeng swapped positions. This was not an ordinary departmental adjustment. Both are members of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee. In the history of the CCP, it is extremely rare for members of the Political Bureau to directly swap ministries and commissions. Why make such an adjustment? To understand this move, one must look back at Li Ganjie's career trajectory. Li Ganjie was born in 1964 and majored in nuclear reactor engineering at Tsinghua University. Compared with the previous people, his significance is more special. If Jiang Xiaodong and Zhang Yaoxue represent Chen Xi's layout in local universities and the academic system respectively, then Li Ganjie represents a personnel line that Chen Xi personally cultivated and personally handed over. In June 2017, while Chen Xi was serving as the Executive Deputy Minister of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, Li Ganjie succeeded Chen Jining as the Party Secretary and Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection. It is worth noting that Chen Jining also came from Tsinghua. This handover actually completed a succession of Tsinghua-affiliated cadres in important ministries and commissions. In the following years, Li Ganjie's promotion almost entirely took place during the period when Chen Xi served as the Minister of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee. In September 2021, he transferred from a central ministry to become the Party Secretary of Shandong Province, completing a key step in local governance. In 2022, at the 20th National Congress of the CCP, Li Ganjie further entered the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee and served as a member of the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee. The investigation of candidates for that Political Bureau was presided over by Chen Xi. And the most symbolic step occurred in April 2023, after Chen Xi stepped down as the Minister of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee. This core position in charge of personnel for all Party cadres was finally handed over to Li Ganjie. Looking at this line together, it is very clear: from Minister of Environmental Protection to Party Secretary of a province, then to member of the Political Bureau and member of the Secretariat, and finally succeeding as the Minister of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, Li Ganjie completed all key leaps almost during Chen Xi's tenure. He is the person Chen Xi personally cultivated and personally handed over to.

However, this arrangement lasted only 2 years. On April 2, 2025, Li Ganjie was transferred to the United Front Work Department of the CCP Central Committee. Of course, this is also an important department, but he no longer holds the core personnel appointment and removal power of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). For a cadre who originally served as the head of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, whose age is relatively light among the members of the Political Bureau, and who was considered by outsiders to still have room for upward mobility at the 21st National Congress, the political significance of this adjustment is very obvious. This move is different from the previous few individuals; Wei Xiaodong, Gong Qihuang, and Zhang Yaoxue more represent Chen Xi's personnel layout over the past 10 years. Meanwhile, Li Ganjie's departure means that after Chen Xi stepped down as head of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, the last remaining important arrangement within this power core has also changed. Following Li Ganjie, Xi Jinping's actions did not stop there. Before his departure from the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, another figure worthy of attention was Peng Jinhui, an important deputy cultivated by Chen Xi within the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee. Peng Jinhui is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and has long worked in universities and scientific research systems in Yunnan. In January 2018, he left academia and entered the political arena for the first time, serving as Vice Governor of Hainan Province. In October of the same year, he entered the Standing Committee of the Hainan Provincial Committee of the CCP and concurrently served as Head of the Organization Department. In December 2020, he transferred from Hainan to serve as a member of the Standing Committee of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the CCP and Head of the Organization Department. By May 2012, which was 1 year before Chen Xi left the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, Peng Jinhui entered the central government to serve as Deputy Head of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee. From a university academician to the organization department heads of two localities, and then to Deputy Head of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, several key position adjustments for Peng Jinhui all took place during Chen Xi's tenure as head of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee. On October 30, 2024, Peng Jinhui left the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee and was transferred to serve as Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In terms of rank, this is a promotion from deputy ministerial level to ministerial level, but he is also the first deputy head of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee to be transferred away since Li Ganjie took office as head. Even closer to the core of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee than Peng Jinhui is Cao Xingxin. On September 28, 2024, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced that Cao Xingxin, Deputy General Manager of China Unicom, was undergoing review and investigation. Cao Xingxin's career has been spent almost entirely within the system of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee. He successively served as a cadre, Deputy Director of the Fourth Bureau, Deputy Director of the Civil Servant Management Office, and Deputy Director of the Third Bureau of Civil Servants, and later served as Secretary of the Party Committee and Vice President of the National Academy of Organization Cadres. The National Academy of Organization Cadres is an institution directly affiliated with the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, undertaking cadre training work for the national organization system. In January 2023, just on the eve of Chen Xi's departure from the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, Cao Xingxin was transferred to China Unicom to serve as Deputy General Manager. This adjustment lasted for 1 year and 8 months. In September 2024, Cao Xingxin was investigated, and in February 2025, he was expelled from the Party and public office. In October 2025, the Intermediate People's Court of Binzhou, Shandong Province sentenced him to 12 years in prison for the crime of taking bribes, involving an amount of 26.75 million yuan. The notification of his dual expulsion contained a sentence stating that in the selection and appointment of cadres, he sought benefits for others.

Tracing further back, the earliest node in this timeline is Zhang Jianchun. On June 21, 2024, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced that Zhang Jianchun, former Deputy Head of the Publicity Department of the CCP Central Committee, was undergoing review and investigation. This was the earliest person to fall in this round of cleanup. Zhang Jianchun's experience is very typical; he is not a cadre who grew up in the local system, but rather served long-term within the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, having worked in the cadre office of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, later entering the Organization Department of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CCP as deputy head, and then returning to the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee to serve as a standing committee member of the department and Director of the First Bureau of Cadres. In November 2018, 1 year after Chen Xi served as head of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, Zhang Jianchun was promoted to Deputy Head of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, becoming Chen Xi's direct deputy. In October 2020, he transferred to serve as Deputy Head of the Publicity Department of the CCP Central Committee until he was investigated in June 2024. According to subsequent judicial determinations, Zhang Jianchun's bribe-taking amount reached 55.06 million yuan, spanning from 2004 to 2024, a period as long as 20 years. The notification also mentioned that he used his position's convenience to seek benefits for others in matters such as promotion. If these seven individuals are placed on the same timeline, the sequence is very clear. In June 2024, Zhang Jianchun was investigated; in September 2024, Cao Xingxin was investigated; in October 2024, Peng Jinhui left the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee. In April 2025, Li Ganjie was transferred away from the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee. In October 2025, Zhang Yaoxue was investigated. In May 2026, Gong Qihuang left office; in June 2026, Wei Xiaodong fell from power. Over 2 years, the local systems, university systems, Tsinghua system, and the interior of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee—figures related to Chen Xi's 10-year organizational line have successively experienced changes. And right at the end of this timeline, anomalies began to appear for Chen Xi himself. On June 5, 2020, he no longer attended graduation ceremonies in the capacity of President of the Central Party School. On June 18, Xinhua News Agency announced the State Council's appointment and removal decision that Chen Xi no longer serves as President of the Chinese Academy of Governance. Meanwhile, multiple overseas reports circulated that Chen Xi had been precipitously demoted to the deputy departmental level. If this news is ultimately confirmed, a question naturally arises: over these years, one by one, individuals promoted, cultivated, and arranged into key positions by Chen Xi have successively gotten into trouble. Now that the peripheral figures have basically been dealt with, how exactly will Xi Jinping handle Chen Xi, the person who controlled the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee for 10 years and personally built this cadre system?

The outer feathers are being plucked one by one, but Chen Xi himself has not yet been placed under investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. His handling involved quietly stepping down as president of the CCP Central Committee Party School, followed by an official removal procedure through the State Council, while overseas reports circulated about a precipitous demotion. Why was it handled this way? To answer this question, we must return to Qinghua University 47 years ago. In 1975, Xi Jinping obtained a recommendation to enter Qinghua University. That year, he was 22 years old. His father, Xi Zhongxun, was still labeled as a member of an anti-party clique and imprisoned in Luoyang, while Xi Jinping was assigned to the Basic Organic Synthesis major in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Qinghua University, becoming a worker-peasant-soldier student. In the same year, Chen Xi was recommended from the Fuzhou University Machinery Plant to enter the Department of Chemical Engineering at Qinghua University. The two entered the school in the same year, were in the same class, shared the same dorm with upper and lower bunks, were both born in 1953, and were both sports fans. In the Qinghua University of that era, worker-peasant-soldier students made up the majority. Xi Jinping and Chen Xi lived in that dorm from 1975 until 1979, for nearly four years. To understand the political significance of this relationship, one must first look at the dates when the two joined the party. Xi Jinping's party admission predated his entry into Qinghua. In 1969, when he went to Liangjiachao in northern Shaanxi to work as an sent-down youth, affected by his father's anti-party clique case, he wrote multiple party membership applications; the first nine were not approved until January 10, 1974, when the Xiewenan First Commune formally approved his party application. In 1975, when Xi Jinping obtained the recommendation to enter Qinghua, he was already a party member. That same year, Chen Xi entered the Department of Chemical Engineering at Qinghua as a worker-peasant-soldier student, in the same class and dorm as Xi Jinping. In the Qinghua University of that era, Xi Jinping, as a student with a relatively long party standing, entered the student party branch work and served as branch secretary. In November 1978, Chen Xi joined the party at Qinghua. According to multiple overseas media reports, Xi Jinping, who had served as branch secretary of the Qinghua student party branch that year, officially participated as an introducer in Chen Xi's party admission process. In other words, when Chen Xi joined the party at Qinghua, Xi Jinping signed for him. Therefore, this relationship was not only that of classmates, but also of party comrades. This political trust, carried over from that dorm at Qinghua, was the true starting point of their relationship spanning over forty years.

In March 1979, the two left Qinghua at the same time. Chen Xi returned to Fujian and became a teacher in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Fuzhou University. That summer, he tested back into Qinghua to pursue graduate studies. The first thing he did after reporting back to Beijing was to visit Xi Jinping, who was already wearing four military uniform pockets and working as a secretary in the General Office of the Central Military Commission. Over the next twenty-odd years, the two followed completely different trajectories. Xi Jinping went to Fujian, starting as vice mayor of Xiamen and governing for 17 years until becoming governor of Fujian, while Chen Xi remained at Qinghua University, successively serving as secretary of the Communist Youth League Committee, head of the Party Committee Student Work Department, and deputy secretary of the Party Committee. From 1998 to 2002, Xi Jinping studied for a doctorate in law at Qinghua. During these four years, Chen Xi happened to be promoted from deputy secretary of the Qinghua Party Committee to executive deputy secretary, and subsequently promoted to party secretary. In other words, during Xi Jinping's entire period of doctoral study at Qinghua, Chen Xi was at the core of the Qinghua Party Committee.

In November 2008, Chen Xi suddenly left Tsinghua University, where he had worked for many years, and was appointed as the Deputy Party Secretary and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Education. That year, he was 55 years old, officially entering the political arena from his position as a university Party Secretary. On the surface, this move seemed sudden, but Desmond Shum, author of the book *Red Roulette*, who did business in Beijing for a long time and served as a member of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPPCC before leaving China in 2015 and currently residing in the UK, once said on Twitter: Chen Xi's transfer from Tsinghua was a personnel arrangement made by Xi Jinping five to six years before he took power. The goal was for Chen Xi to fill in his resume at the central government level before Xi Jinping truly took full control, so that when that day arrived, Chen Xi could logically take charge of personnel power. Let's look at this timeline. In October 2007, Xi Jinping entered the Politburo Standing Committee at the 17th National Congress of the CCP and was widely regarded as the successor. In November 2008, Chen Xi entered the Ministry of Education to fill in his resume at a central ministry. In September 2010, Chen Xi was transferred to be the Deputy Party Secretary of Liaoning Province, preparing for a promotion to the ministerial level. However, between September 2010 and the convening of the 18th National Congress in 2012, a problem arose. Although Xi Jinping became Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission in October 2010 and his status as successor had become clear, he had not yet officially taken power. Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao, and other political forces were still in office. At that time, Xi Jinping did not have enough influence to make an overly obvious, exceptional arrangement for Chen Xi. If Chen Xi were promoted directly to Party Secretary or Governor of Liaoning, such a transfer would require entering higher-level personnel procedures and would also disrupt the existing local power structure. After all, Chen Xi came from a background as the Tsinghua Party Secretary and had no local roots in Liaoning; forcing such a move would have met with great resistance. But Chen Xi had to complete a key step before the 18th National Congress in 2012: to reach the ministerial level and enter the 18th Central Committee as a ministerial-level official. If he were only the Deputy Party Secretary of Liaoning, according to internal Party conventions, he would at most be able to enter the Central Committee as an alternate member at the 18th National Congress, and it would be almost impossible for an alternate member of the Central Committee to directly enter the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee as Executive Deputy Minister after the 18th National Congress. Therefore, Xi Jinping chose a very clever position: Party Secretary of the China Association for Science and Technology. In April 2011, after staying in the position of Deputy Party Secretary of Liaoning for only seven months, Chen Xi was transferred back to Beijing to succeed Deng Nan, the second daughter of Deng Xiaoping, as the Party Secretary of the China Association for Science and Technology. The China Association for Science and Technology, like the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the All-China Women's Federation, and the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, is a national mass organization led by the CCP Central Committee. Its greatest characteristic is that it does not hold real local administrative power, does not require local power adjustments, and does not touch the interests of local factions. This position allowed Chen Xi to complete his promotion to the ministerial level while avoiding potential political resistance. In November 2012, at the 18th National Congress, Chen Xi was elected as a member of the 18th Central Committee in his capacity as the ministerial-level Party Secretary of the China Association for Science and Technology. Five months later, just five months after Xi Jinping took power, Chen Xi entered the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee to serve as Executive Deputy Minister. Looking back at this line—from the Ministry of Education to Liaoning, the China Association for Science and Technology, and then to the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee—almost every step was preparation for the next. The entire layout was interlocking. Even before Xi Jinping had truly taken power, he had already built every step of the ladder in advance for his personnel chief of the next 10 years.

Next came the 10 years during which Chen Xi repaid Xi Jinping for his patronage. To understand what Chen Xi did in the CCP Central Committee Organization Department over these 10 years, we must first return to a fundamental fact. In November 2012, Xi Jinping was elected General Secretary at the 18th National Congress, but his power structure within the party was not yet the one-man supremacy structure it is today. At that time, the Politburo Standing Committee had seven members, and Xi Jinping was only one of them. Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, and Zhang Gaoli each had their own long-standing political resources and factional backgrounds. The Jiang faction was still there, and the Youth League faction formed during the Hu Jintao era was also still there. Although Xi Jinping had his own former subordinates, both in terms of number and political rank, they were not sufficient to completely change the highest-level power structure in a short period of time. For Xi Jinping to allow his own people to occupy dominant positions in the Central Politburo at the 19th National Congress five years later was not something that could be accomplished with a single word. Cadre promotion within the party has a set of strict organizational procedures. For a local sub-provincial cadre to enter the Central Politburo, they need to go through multiple key steps such as becoming a Central Committee member, a local chief official, and a ministerial-level post. The assessment, recommendation, and organizational procedures at these steps largely go through the CCP Central Committee Organization Department and the Politburo Standing Committee, and are ultimately decided through consultations at the highest level. The Organization Department cannot decide who joins the Standing Committee, but from local sub-provincial official to Central Committee member, and then to Politburo member—this stage, which is the most critical springboard before entering the Standing Committee—is where the role of the Central Committee Organization Department is extremely important. Xi Jinping handed this passage over to Chen Xi, and the most typical example is Cai Qi. When the 18th National Congress was held in November 2012, Cai Qi was still a "shuangfei" cadre. The so-called shuangfei means someone who is neither a Central Committee member nor an alternate Central Committee member. Within the CCP, this meant he had not even entered the pool of candidates for the central political elite. However, Cai Qi had a very deep relationship with Xi Jinping. Cai Qi entered the Fujian Provincial Party Committee General Office to work in 1983 and later became the mayor of Sanming. In 1985, Xi Jinping went to Fujian to work, and the two began a long period of working together. Afterward, Cai Qi followed Xi Jinping's political trajectory to Zhejiang, successively serving as the deputy secretary of the Quzhou Municipal Party Committee and the secretary of the Taizhou Municipal Party Committee. Gaining a closer relationship was one thing; whether one's party seniority and rank were sufficient was another. In April 2013, Chen Xi entered the Central Committee Organization Department to serve as executive deputy head. Only seven months later, Cai Qi was promoted to executive deputy governor of Zhejiang Province. In March 2014, Cai Qi entered the General Office of the National Security Commission of the Central Committee as full-time deputy director. In April 2015, he was promoted to executive deputy director of the National Security Commission Office, becoming a ministerial-level cadre. Subsequently, in October 2016, he was parachuted into Beijing, successively serving as deputy party secretary, vice mayor, and acting mayor of Beijing. In January 2017, he officially took office as mayor of Beijing. Just four months later, in May 2017, Cai Qi was directly appointed as party secretary of Beijing without even being a Central Committee member, which was extremely rare in CCP history. By the time of the 19th National Congress in October 2017, Cai Qi officially entered the Central Politburo. From 2013 to 2017, in a mere 4 years, an originally shuangfei cadre went through five critical leaps and directly entered the Central Politburo. This kind of speed could not be achieved through ordinary personnel turnover. Behind every step, the Central Committee Organization Department had to complete political screening and nomination procedures, and Cai Qi was not the only example. Li Qiang was the provincial party committee secretary-general during Xi Jinping's tenure as Zhejiang Provincial Party Secretary and one of Xi Jinping's most important chief aides. In June 2016, Li Qiang was transferred to serve as Jiangsu Provincial Party Secretary. In October 2017, he was promoted to member of the Central Politburo, and that same month was parachuted into Shanghai to serve as party secretary. There is also Huang Kunming, an important former subordinate of Xi Jinping from his Fujian and Zhejiang periods. In December 2013, he was transferred from Zhejiang Provincial Propaganda Department Head to Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department. In October 2017, he entered the Central Politburo while concurrently serving as the head of the Central Propaganda Department. Cai Qi, Li Qiang, and Huang Kunming all completed their critical leaps during Chen Xi's tenure at the Organization Department and directly entered the Central Politburo at the 2017 19th National Congress. The paths of the other two individuals were slightly longer, but their starting points were also within Chen Xi's tenure at the Organization Department. Wang Xiaohong was a former police system subordinate of Xi Jinping from his Fuzhou period. In May 2016, he became Vice Minister of Public Security. In March 2018, he was promoted to Deputy Party Secretary of the Ministry of Public Security and Executive Vice Minister in charge of daily operations. In November 2021, he became the Party Secretary of the Ministry of Public Security, and in June 2022, he was promoted to Minister of Public Security. Several critical leaps also occurred during Chen Xi's tenure as head of the Organization Department. In October 2022, at the 20th National Congress, he entered the Central Politburo. Then there is He Lifeng, an old colleague of Xi Jinping from his Xiamen period. In February 2017, he became the director of the National Development and Reform Commission, and five years later, at the 20th National Congress in 2022, he similarly entered the Central Politburo. These five individuals all share a common characteristic: at the 18th National Congress in 2012, they were either still shuangfei cadres or merely local sub-provincial officials. However, through the critical groundwork laid during Chen Xi's tenure at the Organization Department, by the time of the 19th National Congress in 2017 or the 20th National Congress in 2022, all of them had entered the Central Politburo. This is the specific organizational path by which Xi's affiliates entered the highest layers of power on a large scale at the 19th and 20th National Congresses.

There is a classic saying in the CCP's party-building theory: "Once the political line is determined, cadres are the deciding factor." To put it more colloquially, Xi Jinping determined his own political direction, while Chen Xi was responsible for implementing this political line into the cadre system. More accurately, Chen Xi did not directly place the Xi faction into the Standing Committee, because the final decision on Standing Committee candidates was never made by the Organization Department, but rather by the highest-level political arrangements. What Chen Xi provided was the organizational channel for them to enter the Politburo and qualify for competition for the Standing Committee. In this sense, Chen Xi was the executor of the organizational line behind the rise of the Xi faction at the 19th National Congress and the Xi faction's comprehensive control of the Politburo Standing Committee. In October 2017, the 19th CCP National Congress was held, and Chen Xi himself completed a leap at this party congress, being promoted to member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and Secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, succeeding Zhao Leji as Minister of the Organization Department of the Central Committee. Moreover, he received an additional, very special title: President of the Central Party School. This title is very special; according to the long-standing practice of the CCP, the President of the Central Party School had always been concurrently held by a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. From Zeng Qinghong and Hu Jintao to Liu Yunshan, all held this position while serving on the Politburo Standing Committee. However, after the 19th National Congress, Chen Xi held the position of President of the Central Party School while only being a member of the Politburo. This was the first time in nearly 30 years since 1989 that a non-Politburo Standing Committee member served as President of the Central Party School. Xi Jinping downgraded this position; he no longer needed a Politburo Standing Committee member to hold it concurrently, and a Politburo member like Chen Xi was enough, because he trusted Chen Xi. This trust became even more apparent after the 20th National Congress. In October 2022, the 20th CCP National Congress was held. Chen Xi was already 69 years old that year. According to the unwritten rule of "seven up, eight down," he should have retired from the Politburo. He did indeed step down from his positions as a member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. Furthermore, he was not even included in the 20th Central Committee; Chen Xi's name was not on the list of 20th Central Committee members. However, he still did not step down from his position as Minister of the Organization Department. A person who was not even a Central Committee member, and whose party rank was merely that of an ordinary party member, continued to serve as the Minister of the Organization Department, holding the power over all personnel appointments in the party. This arrangement was extremely rare in the history of the CCP. It was not until April 2023 that Chen Xi officially stepped down as Minister of the Organization Department, but he still retained the position of President of the Central Party School, which continued until June 5, 2026.

During his 10 years at the Organization Department, Chen Xi did more than just arrange cadre positions; he also changed the rules of operation for the cadre system. In March 2019, the "Regulations on the Selection and Appointment of Party and Government Leading Cadres" were revised. The first sentence of the first article clearly incorporated the principle of "the Party manages cadres." At the same time, the regulations made an important adjustment, changing "public selection and competitive appointment" from a method of cadre selection and appointment to a method for generating candidates during the cadre initiation stage. In plain terms, this meant reducing the weight of public examinations and competitive procedures while strengthening the weight of inspections and gatekeeping by the organization department. In September 2022, more than a month before the 20th National Congress, the "Regulations on Promoting Leading Cadres to Move Up or Down" were revised. Article 5 listed seven circumstances under which timely adjustments should be made, and the two at the top were "insufficient political ability" and "wavering ideals and beliefs." Looking at these two institutional revisions together, one thing was accomplished: Xi Jinping's political standards and loyalty requirements for the cadre system were further institutionalized. Chen Xi did not just put the people Xi Jinping needed into positions; he also wrote the standard of loyalty itself into the party's system and the party's organizational line. Looking back at their 47-year relationship: bunkmates in the Tsinghua Chemical Engineering Department in 1975; when Chen Xi joined the party at Tsinghua in 1978, Xi Jinping participated as a reference; from 1998 to 2002, while Xi Jinping was pursuing his doctorate at Tsinghua, Chen Xi was in charge of the Tsinghua Party Committee; in 2008, before Xi Jinping had officially taken power, he had already begun paving the way for Chen Xi to enter the central government; in 2013, Chen Xi entered the Central Organization Department and began to control Xi Jinping's most important personnel channel; from 2013 to 2017, he helped core figures of the Xi faction such as Cai Qi, Li Qiang, and Chen Min'er complete the critical leap before entering the Politburo. By the 19th National Congress, the Xi faction had entered the Politburo on a large scale, and by the 20th National Congress, six out of the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee were from the Xi faction. Chen Xi is not an ordinary subordinate around Xi Jinping; he is one of the most important builders of Xi Jinping's ruling system. That Xi Jinping can be the "one-man supremacy" today is largely due to Chen Xi's great contributions. This is why, even today, Chen Xi is the person Xi Jinping is least willing to move. But the problem lies exactly here: the ruling system he built for Xi Jinping has also become his own system, and he has thus become an object for Xi Jinping to purge.

The reasons why Xi Jinping must investigate Chen Xi must be peeled back layer by layer. The surface reason is negligence in personnel selection, but the underlying reason is that Chen Xi did something Xi Jinping could never tolerate: in the process of helping Xi Jinping build a cadre system, he also accumulated a political asset for himself. Let us first look from the first layer downward. During his 10 years in the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, Chen Xi handled and inspected a large number of officials under central management. As mentioned earlier, among the people pushed up by Zhang Jianjun, Xiao Dong, and Chen Xi, quite a few later ran into problems, plus Qin Gang and Tang Renjie in the civilian system. A certain independent political commentator said in a tweet on June 17 that the handling of Chun Qi was not an issue of corruption, but rather of political stance and negligence in personnel selection. While these four words have a literal basis, there is a problem here: for a person who has controlled the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee for 10 years, because the people he promoted later ran into problems, normal intra-party handling would be an organizational talk or an intra-party warning, and it would not be a cliff-like demotion to the deputy departmental level. This level of severity cannot be explained by the four words "negligence in personnel selection." This level of severity has only one possibility: Chen Xi did something that made Xi Jinping feel that he was no longer loyal to him. What Chen Xi did during his 10 years in the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee was not just execute Xi Jinping's personnel arrangements; he also did another thing, which was to operate a faction for himself, but this matter did not start from his very first day entering the Organization Department. Let us pull the time back to see that Chen Xi entered the Organization Department in 2013 to serve as executive deputy minister. From 2013 to 2017, those 5 years—that is, before the 20th National Congress—he mainly worked to push Xi's cronies into the Political Bureau of the 20th National Congress. This was a meritorious service established for Xi Jinping. However, the situation changed after the 19th National Congress. Xi's cronies had already entered the Political Bureau member level on a large scale. The next step online was the Political Bureau. Chen Xi could not get a hand in the Standing Committee step, because the personnel decision-making power of the Standing Committee was in the small circle of the current members of the Political Bureau, and the Minister of the Organization Department had no right of recommendation. However, he still held a huge power in his hands, which was the inspection, vetting, and recommendation of officials from the deputy ministerial level to the full ministerial level. This level covered provincial party secretaries, governors, ministerial heads, deputy ministers, and the heads of a large number of sub-national level institutions of the Central Committee. Chen Xi used the 5-year period from 2017 to 2022 to begin pushing another group of people into these positions. This group of people shared a common label: the Tsinghua faction.

In June 2017, while serving as executive deputy minister of the Organization Department, Chen Xi saw his Tsinghua alumnus and reactor engineering professional Li Gang succeed Chen Jining as Minister of Environmental Protection. In October 2017, he had Hu Heping, whom he had single-handedly promoted during his tenure as Tsinghua Party Secretary, promoted to Party Secretary of Shaanxi Province. In January 2018, Chinese Academy of Engineering academician Jin Hui was transferred across provinces to serve as Vice Governor of Hainan Province, and in October was further promoted to member of the Standing Committee of the Hainan Provincial Party Committee and head of the Organization Department. In September 2021, Li Guojie was promoted from Minister of Environmental Protection to Party Secretary of Shandong Province. In May 2022, Peng was promoted to Deputy Minister of the Organization Department, entering Chen Xi's own core system. In June 2022, Chen Xi's fellow townsman from Putian, Fujian, was provided to be promoted to President of Peking University. In October 2022, Chen Jining was directly promoted from Mayor of Beijing to Party Secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, and at the same time entered the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. In the same month, Gan Jie was also promoted to member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. In April 2023, Chen Xi's last move before stepping down was to hand over the position of Minister of the Organization Department to Li Ganjing. These were all layouts completed by Chen Xi in his second 5 years, plus the organizational system he established internally within the Organization Department through another line, sending Zhang Jianchuan, Cao Bin, surnamed Xiao Dong, and Peng Jinhui—none of these people came from Tsinghua, but were all promoted and cultivated by Chen Xi all the way within the organizational and personnel systems such as the Organization Department, the Office of the Central Commission for Establishment, and the former National Civil Service Bureau. With the two lines added together, the Tsinghua faction was a network formed by alumni relations, while the organizational system line was a network formed by long-term official relations. One relied on a shared educational background and the other relied on a shared official career path, and the two veins ultimately converged on Chen Xi.

Let us look again at the scale achieved by this system after the 20th National Congress. After the 20th National Congress, there were two Political Bureau members from the Tsinghua system in the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee: Li Guojie and Chen Jining. Although Chen Xi himself stepped down as a member of the Political Bureau at the 20th National Congress, he still concurrently served as President of the Central Party School, and continued to serve as Minister of the Organization Department until April 2023. This meant that during the transitional phase after the 20th National Congress, the Tsinghua system actually possessed two incumbent Political Bureau members at the same time, plus a major personnel housekeeper who controlled the Organization Department and the Central Party School. Putting these positions together, the actual influence of the Tsinghua faction in the highest-level personnel system of the CCP had become an important political force besides Zhejiang and Fujian. First was the Zhejiang gang, commonly referred to as the Zhijiang New Army; second was the Fujian gang, the so-called Minjiang New Army; and third was the political network cultivated by Chen Xi for many years through his Tsinghua background and organizational system. And this was precisely where the problem lay: all of this was originally built on the high degree of trust given to Chen Xi by Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping needed Chen Xi to help him complete his cadre layout, and needed him to send a batch of crony cadres to key positions, but in the process of completing this task, the resources held in Chen Xi's hands gradually formed political assets belonging to him.

The next more critical question is: after Chen Xi retired, did this political asset disappear with his departure? The answer is no. Chen Xi stepped down as head of the CCP Central Committee Organization Department in April 2023, but he did not truly leave the center of power; he still retained his status as president of the Central Party School and continued to enjoy deputy national-level treatment. Meanwhile, the most critical position of head of the Organization Department was handed over to Li Ganjie, a trusted direct protégé from the Tsinghua University nuclear reactor specialty whom he had personally cultivated and handed over to. This meant that although Chen Xi nominally withdrew from the Organization Department, he could still continue to influence this core power department—which controls the selection and appointment of cadres nationwide—through Li Ganjie. Looking at the two years after Chen Xi's retirement, a large number of Tsinghua-system cadres continued to appear in key positions, and Peng Qinhua also remained in the position of deputy head of the Organization Department until he was transferred away in October 2024. The personnel network previously established by Chen Xi did not immediately collapse with his retirement, and his influence from the past 10 years still remained within the Organization Department. Could Xi Jinping accept this situation for long? At first, he could. There are two reasons: first, the 20th National Congress had just concluded, and large-scale personnel adjustments still required a team of people familiar with the rules and the cadre system to execute them. Letting Li Ganjie continue to control the Organization Department was conducive to the smooth completion of the cadre layout after the 20th National Congress. Second, the more realistic reason was the 47-year relationship between Chen Xi and Xi Jinping, starting from their upper and lower bunks at Tsinghua University in 1975, and through decades of mutual political support later on. This relationship was not one where an ordinary superior-subordinate dynamic could be instantly cleared out; regardless of emotional or political costs, there was no need to purge Chen Xi's people.

However, by 2025, the situation began to change, because at this time what Xi Jinping was considering was no longer the wrap-up after the 20th National Congress, but the layout before the 21st National Congress. If Chen Xi continued to influence the Organization Department through Li Ganjie, then the cadre arrangements for the future 21st National Congress and the future candidates for the central high-level leadership—if Chen Xi continued to influence the Organization Department through Li Ganjie, then the cadre arrangements for the future 21st National Congress and the candidates for the future central high-level leadership, if Chen Xi continued to influence the Organization Department through Li Ganjie, then the preparations for the candidate selections for the future high-level leadership in the upcoming 21st National Congress might still carry Chen Xi's own coloring. For Xi Jinping, who had already achieved a high degree of centralized power, this was unacceptable. Thus, on April 2, 2025, that rare personnel adjustment occurred: Li Ganjie left the Organization Department to swap posts with Shi Taifeng. Shi Taifeng had no factional ties to Chen Xi; he had once served as a deputy when Xi Jinping concurrently held the post of president of the Central Party School, and was therefore regarded as a candidate more directly belonging to Xi Jinping. Li Ganjie was transferred from the Organization Department—which held immense cadre power—to the United Front Work Department, which has no cadre appointment and dismissal authority. On the one hand, this severed Chen Xi's path to continuing to influence the Organization Department through Li Ganjie; on the other hand, it also cut off the possibility of Li Ganjie continuing to use the organizational system to make a run at the 21st Politburo Standing Committee in the future. This was also the first time in the history of the CCP that a post swap occurred between two Politburo members; in order to sever this organizational route left behind by Chen Xi, Xi Jinping even broke past personnel arrangement conventions.

Next, we will discuss the most dangerous step of the layout made by Chen Xi. Chen Jining was born in 1964 with a background in environmental engineering from Tsinghua University, and he truly entered the field of vision of the CCP's top leadership when Chen Xi served as the secretary of the Tsinghua University Party Committee. In February 2006, Chen Jining served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Tsinghua University Party Committee and vice president, directly becoming Chen Xi's deputy. During those years when Chen Xi served as the Tsinghua Party Secretary, he publicly praised Chen Jining many times in front of CAE members, considering him a very capable young man. These details were later recorded in overseas biographies. Over the next dozen years, almost every critical leap for Chen Jining heavily overlapped with the stages when Chen Xi held organizational personnel power. In 2012, Chen Jining was promoted to president of Tsinghua University. In January 2015, Organization Department Deputy Head Wang Er went to the Ministry of Environmental Protection to announce Chen Jining's appointment as Party Secretary of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which occurred precisely during Chen Xi's tenure as Executive Deputy Head of the Organization Department. In May 2017, Chen Jining served as acting mayor of Beijing, and officially became mayor of Beijing in January 2018. In the final round of major personnel adjustments before the 20th National Congress in 2022, he was promoted directly from Beijing mayor to Shanghai Party Secretary, while also entering the Politburo.

This step is the most sensitive part of Chen Xi's political layout, because in the political system of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the position of Shanghai Party Secretary has never been an ordinary local post; it has long served as a springboard for entering the top leadership. Since the reform and opening up, Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji, Wu Bangguo, Huang Ju, Xi Jinping, Yu Zhengsheng, Han Zheng, and Li Qiang have all served as Shanghai Party Secretary before entering the Politburo Standing Committee. The only exception was Chen Liangyu, who fell from power in September 2006, one year before the 17th National Congress. By dealing with Chen Liangyu, Hu Jintao effectively weakened the Jiang faction's personnel layout for the 17th Congress. The importance of this history lies in the fact that it provides a very clear logic of CCP power: before a party congress, the figures and positions that influence the future composition of the Standing Committee often undergo a reshuffle in advance. Removing a Shanghai Party Secretary is never just about handling a local official; it often signifies an adjustment in the top-level power structure. Therefore, when Chen Xi placed Chen Jining in the position of Shanghai Party Secretary in 2022, looking at it through this historical path, Chen Jining, at age 63, will fully meet the age requirements for the Standing Committee when the 21st National Congress is held in 2027. The historical probability of him moving from Shanghai Party Secretary to the Politburo Standing Committee is extremely high.

Even more noteworthy is that the path from Shanghai Party Secretary to Premier of the State Council has been taken by Zhu Rongji and is currently being taken by Li Qiang. In other words, Chen Jining succeeding Li Qiang as Premier in the future is not an unfounded imagination, but a possibility that exists within the realistic political path. This directly touches the interests of the Zhejiang faction and the Fujian faction. If the position of Premier changes after the 21st National Congress, who succeeds Li Qiang will directly determine whether the Zhejiang faction can continue to maintain its core status within the State Council system. Within the Fujian faction, whether it is Cai Qi, Li Feng, or Wang Xiaohong, they all face issues of age and succession pipelines. In other words, if there is competition for the Premier position at the 21st National Congress, the Zhejiang faction cannot produce a clearly suitable next-generation candidate, and the Fujian faction also lacks a strong contender, but the Tsinghua clique has a Shanghai Party Secretary, Chen Jining, in its hands. This means that through 10 years of layout via the Organization Department, Chen Xi not only formed a talent network for the Tsinghua clique but also placed a piece on the power map of the 21st National Congress that could influence the Standing Committee's composition in advance. This is why the Zhejiang and Fujian factions cannot remain indifferent to this. For these two factions, which have become the main bodies of the establishment, if the Tsinghua clique continues to expand to the highest level, it means the emergence of new power competition. To block Chen Jining, the most direct method is not to move against Chen Jining himself first, because he is already a current member of the Politburo, and the political cost of directly dealing with an official of this level is extremely high. Therefore, one must start from his political roots, and Chen Xi is the root of this tree.

In 2006, the history of Hu Jintao weakening the Jiang faction's layout for the 17th Congress by dealing with Chen Liangyu presents a similar political logic today. The difference is that back then it was Hu Jintao moving against the Shanghai faction, while today, if we follow this deductive logic, the target has become the Tsinghua clique that Chen Xi has managed for many years. Therefore, over the past two years, from Zhang Jianyuan and Cao Xinxing to Jin Hui and Gong Qinwei, a series of figures within Chen Xi's network have met with trouble one after another, finally extending to the rumor in June 2026 that Chen Xi himself was subjected to a cliff-like demotion; only then did this thread truly close. There is another signal worth noting: sources within the Great Firewall have revealed that Chen Jining's wife has been investigated. This news has not been confirmed through public channels, but in the history of high-level CCP politics, when investigations are launched against senior officials, family members often become an important direction for breakthroughs. In the Zhou Yongkang case, the first to be dealt with was his son Zhou Bin; in the Bo Xilai case, the first to enter the judicial process was his wife Gu Kailai. If the news about Chen Jining's wife is eventually confirmed, it may mean that the political pressure on Chen Jining is no longer confined to the periphery but is gradually closing in on him personally.

Speaking of this, we need to broaden our perspective a bit further. What is Chen Xi's situation essentially in the vertical coordinates of CCP history? It is not simple anti-corruption, nor is it an ordinary personnel adjustment, and certainly not a personal grudge. In this narrative logic, he represents a very fundamental political change in the Xi Jinping era. In the past, the top leaders of the CCP needed to rely on factions to consolidate power, but after Xi Jinping completed the high concentration of power and established one-man supremacy, the factions themselves became objects that needed to be eliminated. Looking back at the eras of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao, they all had their own political foundations. Deng Xiaoping promoted reform and opening up and needed the reformists as an executive force; Jiang Zemin entered the central government from Shanghai, and the Shanghai faction became his core support; Hu Jintao grew up from the Communist Youth League system for a long time, and the Youth League faction became his main political resource. Why didn't they take the initiative to purge their own factions on a large scale? The reason is simple: under the relatively collective leadership political structure of the past, if a top leader did not have his own political team, his policies could not be pushed forward, and his political influence could not be continued. Factions were a part of power operation in that era and also the leader's own political reliance.

However, the Xi Jinping era has changed. After more than a decade of anti-corruption campaigns, military reforms, and the realignment of intra-party power, Xi Jinping has established an unprecedented level of personal authority. Under this structure, he no longer needs to rely on a specific faction to balance other forces within the Politburo like past party leaders did; what he demands is absolute loyalty from everyone. Consequently, things that were once considered political assets have begun to transform into risks under the new political logic. For an official to have their own alumni, networks, local teams, organizational systems, and personal connections might have been a normal political phenomenon during the eras of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao, but today it may imply a center of influence independent of the supreme power. This is the core of Chen Xi's issue; this step is a red line, and this is the political logic behind why Chen Xi had to be investigated and dealt with. This logic also explains why Xi Jinping ultimately turned against those closest to him who had made the greatest contributions—whether it is the remaining Chen Xi from the Tsinghua clique or others who followed him for a long time and rendered meritorious service. As long as they form a political center independent of the supreme power, they become targets for punishment.

At this point, the three questions raised in this episode have all been answered. First, why were Chen Xi's followers systematically cleared out one by one over the past two years? Because this is not an isolated anti-corruption case, but a systematic clearance chain moving from the periphery to the core, from Zhang Jianchun, Cao Bin, Peng..., Jinhui, to Gongjiwei Xiaodong, all ultimately pointing to Chen Xi himself. Second, why was Xi Jinping most reluctant to move against Chen Xi? Because the two share a 47-year relationship, because Chen Xi participated in the earliest critical turning points of Xi Jinping's political career, and even more so because, after Xi Jinping came to power, Chen Xi undertook the task of reshaping the cadre system and helping arrange the organizational route tasks for the 19th and 20th National Congresses. Third, why was it ultimately necessary to move against Chen Xi? Because while executing this task, he also formed the Tsinghua organizational system and a future political layout represented by Chen Jining. For Xi Jinping, who has achieved a high degree of centralization, no second power center can be allowed to exist long-term. If the news of Chen Xi being subjected to a precipitous demotion is eventually officially confirmed, it will become a highly symbolic political event since Xi Jinping took power. It signifies that the targets of the purges are no longer just peripheral officials, but are beginning to touch those who once helped Xi Jinping climb to the pinnacle of power and participated in constructing this system.

As for where this political adjustment will head next, we can still observe two windows: one is the subsequent developments related to Chen Jining and his family, and the other is the lead-up to the 20th National Congress regarding Shanghai, a critical location that has historically determined the direction of top-level power. Well, that is all for today. Please remind viewers to hit the bell icon so you won't miss anything, and for viewers who haven't subscribed yet, please subscribe to our channel. Friends who are able to do so, please join as members to support the development of our small operation. Creating content through burning the midnight oil is not easy, so please like, leave a comment, and share! I am S, examining logic and pressing forward, see you next time! Good!