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Were the Behind-the-Scenes Bosses of Tong Liya and Li Sisi Arrested at the Same Time? The Two Become Companions in Misfortune! Is Xi Jinping Pressuring the Slaves to Consume 60 Trillion? Prisons and Detention Centers Rapidly Built Across China; A Massive Scandal of "Power-for-Sex Transactions"! (Old Beijing Teahouse / Episode 1687 / July 16, 2026)

1# · OP Author：老北京茶館 - 幽默時政 Published：2026-07-17 09:24 Replies：0 Views：288 Permalink：fanzei.net/d_2224x2

This episode mainly reviews the major political earthquake within the CCP, where former Politburo member Ma Xingrui was expelled from the Party and public office (shuang-kai) for involvement in "power-for-sex transactions," triggering a public opinion storm surrounding actress Tong Liya and former CCTV host Li Sisi. At the same time, the program focuses on the public mockery sparked by the State Council's issuance of the "15th Five-Year Plan for Expanding Consumption," the cover-up of a major fire at a shoe factory in Jinjiang, Fujian, that killed 28 people, and the reality of local governments continuously investing in the expansion of detention centers and prisons to strengthen stability maintenance (weiwen).

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On July 14, 2026, a heavy thunderbolt struck the CCP political scene. The party leader, Xi the Steamed Bun (Xi Baozi), swung hard to strike his own "Xi faction" members to death. Ma Xingrui, a former member of the CCP Central Committee Politburo and former Party Secretary of Xinjiang, was officially announced to be expelled from the Party and public office and transferred to the judiciary. The wording in the official announcement was extremely lethal; besides pointing directly to "engaging in family-style corruption," it also added a pink-tinted charge of "engaging in power-for-sex and money-for-sex transactions," which instantly drew public attention to the erotic fog behind the backbone of power. In this high-level earthquake, a top-tier actress whose name has repeatedly been intertwined with Ma Xingrui was once again pushed to the forefront of public opinion. Who is she? She is Tong Liya, an actress hailed as one of the "Four Beauties of Xinjiang." With Tong Liya on the scene, don't think this show is lively enough—no, there is something even livelier, because Li Sisi, a former female host of CCTV who once dominated the stage of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, also has a role. How should I put it? Whenever "power-for-sex transactions" are involved, there is bound to be a huge scandal behind it. Today, I will tell you the details. Let's get back to the point and start with the first male lead who fell from grace and was expelled: the "imperial brother-in-law" Ma Xingrui.

Ma Xingrui is a recognized technical official within the CCP system. As an aerospace rocket expert, he served as the director of the China National Space Administration. He started his career at the prestigious Harbin Institute of Technology, rose steadily from Shenzhen to Governor of Guangdong Province, and finally broke protocol to take charge of Xinjiang at the end of 2021, joining the Politburo the following year. He had the ideological sentiment of someone who had traveled north and south, was both "red and expert," and was tough in both professional and official circles. Didn't some people say that when Ma Xingrui accepted media interviews back then, he spoke eloquently, far better than the "Steamed Bun" (Xi Jinping) who couldn't leave his little notebook? If you don't believe it, look here. But, even for such an eloquent "aerospace young marshal," the speed of falling from the clouds was also at an aerospace level. The four characters "power-for-sex transactions" in the official announcement completely tore off the elegant mask of this technocrat. It turns out that this guy was full of lewdness and indecency, which is truly disgraceful.

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Providing a steady stream of laughter. Speaking of this, we must mention Old Ma's Xinjiang period at the peak of his power. Why mention this period? Because during this time, Tong Liya had a mysterious intersection with a rising star in the political arena. Who is Tong Liya? A beauty from the Xibe ethnic group in Xinjiang, she was admitted to the Xinjiang Arts University in 1999. In 2000, at the age of 17, she entered the Xinjiang Song and Dance Troupe as a professional dancer, and is known as one of the "Four Beauties of Xinjiang." With her superb dancing skills and pure, delicate appearance, Tong Liya made a name for herself on the Xinjiang stage in her early years. Later, she was seconded to Beijing, and in 2003 she officially left Xinjiang to join the China National Song and Dance Troupe. Later on, she was admitted to the Department of Performance at the Central Academy of Drama, transitioning to film and television. Her representative works include "Beijing Love Story," "The Ordinary World," and "The Journey of Flower." In 2011, she married Chen Sicheng. After their divorce in 2021, she raised her son Duoduo alone. In recent years, she has focused on her self-created dance poetry drama "Far Away, Right Here" for national tours, boasting extremely high commercial value. Originally, whatever she did turned out successful, living a full and busy life with a fully booked schedule, poetry, and distant horizons, enjoying a peaceful and quiet existence. As a result, bad luck struck when Ma Xing瑞's Shuangikai (simultaneous expulsion from the Party and public office) was officially announced. Goodness me, this Shuangikai was no small matter; it brought to light a case of "power-for-sex transactions." Therefore, as soon as the official announcement was released, netizens immediately made a sharp U-turn and steered their helm straight toward Tong Liya's household, even waving the small flags of a tour group. The slogan at the top was, "Looking for the Imperial Concubine," and this person was supposedly the imperial concubine. Tong Liya didn't say two words before directly pulling out the top trending news search from October 2, 2024: Tong Liya is in a divorced and single state, has never engaged in any immoral behavior violating private ethics, and has no so-called "backer" or "privilege." She said she was busy with performances from morning till night, having no idle time to cater to someone who had been Shuangikaied. The crucial thing is that trying to prevent the mouths of netizens is like trying to prevent the flow of a river. Silence might have been fine, but the moment she responded, all kinds of informants came crawling out. For instance, the "Presidential Briefing" account claimed that Tong Liya's ex-husband Chen Sicheng is sensible, knows how to behave, and how to handle things, voluntarily stepping aside and offering his own woman to a big shot because the big shot liked her; otherwise, how could little Chen have achieved success so quickly? Relying on "Detective Chinatown," supervising "Manslaughter," and "Lost in the Stars," Chen Sicheng topped the box office rankings for Chinese film history directors in 2025 with a total box office of 15.2 billion RMB. The "Presidential Briefing" analyzed that perhaps Tong Liya also understood that Chen Sicheng could make big money, allowing her son to live a better life, which is why Tong Liya later lent her efforts to several films directed by Chen Sicheng. So, was the big shot behind Tong Liya recently investigated? Why is Tong Liya's Weibo feed currently frozen at 3 days ago? Don't you find the paparazzi's investigations so unpredictable that people can't guard against them?

Commentator "Asia Financial" stated that Ma Xingrui was Shuangikaied, with one of the officially announced charges being "transactions involving power, sex, and money." Given that Ma Xingrui spearheaded Shenzhen Metro's investment in Vanke and had close dealings with Xu Jiayin, Ma Xingrui is most likely a regular guest of the Evergrande Song and Dance Troupe. Anyway, over the past few days, rumors about two actresses have been flying all over the place: Tong Liya and Zhang Ziyi. Although it remains uncertain whether Tong Liya is connected to Ma Xingrui, the fact that Tong Liya could squeeze Li Sisi out of her hosting spot on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala indicates that the big shot behind her wields immense influence. Tong Liya also has the folk nickname "Madam," and judging by the timeline, Tong Liya's heyday was from 2018 to 2022, with the promoter behind her possessing massive clout. Speaking of Tong Liya squeezing Li Sisi out of the Spring Festival Gala microphone, one has to let out a long sigh. Li Sisi truly faced misfortune upon misfortune: having her host status snatched away was a minor matter, but her husband's family collapsing was a huge deal. This happens to be the second major case among the common folk: Cai Fuchao, former deputy head of the Publicity Department of the CCP Central Committee and former director of the State Administration of Radio and Television, was suspected of serious disciplinary violations and illegal acts due to a slip of the tongue, and is currently undergoing investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Cai Fuchao is Li Sisi's father-in-law. Li Sisi met Cai Fuchao's son while studying at Peking University, later marrying him and bearing two sons. As a result, in 2020, Li Sisi—who had hosted the television Spring Festival Gala for many years—suddenly vanished, while Tong Liya, an actress by trade, unexpectedly crossed over to join as a female host for that year's gala. At the time, some people were wild-guessing: was Li Sisi's father-in-law knocked down by the big shot behind Tong Liya? And now, rumors are swirling that the big shot behind Tong Liya, Ma Xingrui, has also been officially announced as Shuangikaied, and furthermore, he was punished by Emperor Steamed Bun (Xi Jinping) at almost the exact same time as Li Sisi's father-in-law. Who could hear this compiled anthology without letting out a long sigh of "how unpredictable worldly affairs are"?

After all is said and done, Old Ma and Peng Liyuan's confidants are falling from grace one by one. What are the melon-eaters pondering? When will the backlash reach Steamed Bun himself? Will the list of Ma Xingrui's power-and-sex transactions be officially announced? Are the rumors about Tong Liya the truth or a blunder? An eternal mystery—tea lovers must conduct a public opinion poll. Do you think the official authorities will release the specific list of Ma Xingrui's power-and-sex transactions? 1. Yes, the anti-Xi faction will continuously leak information to make it a reality. 2. No, the "power-and-sex transactions" of fallen corrupt officials in the CCP never have a follow-up. 3. The current situation cannot be described; anything is possible.

With the economy of the Party-state in a comprehensive depression and consumption remaining sluggish, the CCP is truly desperate. Consequently, on July 13, the State Council issued a special document, unprecedented in nature, incorporating consumption into the Party's Five-Year Plan, titled "The 15th Five-Year Plan for Expanding Consumption." Pay close attention here: this is not a promotional document jointly released by various departments like the Central Bank, the NDRC, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce, the Financial Regulatory Administration, the CSRC, the SAMR, the MIIT, or the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, nor is it a "trade-in" program for specific industries or provinces. Instead, it was issued directly by the CCP State Council under the name of a Five-Year Plan, elevating its status significantly above previous "action plans" or "measures." For instance, last year's document was called the "Special Action Plan to Boost Consumption," in 2024 it was the "Action Plan for Large-scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-in," and in 2023 it was "Measures for Restoring and Expanding Consumption." This year, it has been upgraded to "The 15th Five-Year Plan for Expanding Consumption." They have truly racked their brains to squeeze out the remaining savings from the common people. However, the eyes of the masses are sharp; a single comment from a netizen exposed the truth: between handing out money and going crazy, they chose to issue a document. While issuing the document, they painted a grand picture, touting "major benefits," "strategic pillars," and a "6 trillion yuan cake," aimed primarily at fooling people in advance. The document claims that by 2030, China's total retail sales of consumer goods—the hard indicator for measuring how much money the public spends—will reach 60 trillion yuan. From catering and lodging to housekeeping services, from elderly care and childcare to performing arts and sports, and even mentioning "AI + consumption," it covers almost every aspect of social life, swearing to comprehensively "increase the resident consumption rate." Given the CCP's tendency to "only sing the praises of economic brightness," let's look at what the consumption data looks like after the Party's beautification and inflation. In May, the total retail sales of consumer goods, also known as the social retail total, saw a 0.6% decline, the lowest since the lifting of pandemic restrictions. It is estimated that Xi the Steamed Bun was furious: where did this un-Party-like -0.6% figure come from? Do they not want to keep their official positions? This figure must turn positive in June. Sure enough, statistical data must be loyal to the Party. Through the efforts of the National Bureau of Statistics staff to inflate the numbers to cater to Xi the Steamed Bun, social retail achieved a 1% growth on paper in June. Generally speaking, social retail must outperform GDP to be considered in a state of normalized growth. If we follow the 5% GDP growth set by the Steamed Bun, social retail should ideally show 6% to 8% growth. Now, the Bureau of Statistics is bragging about a mere 1%-2%, clearly bullying the public who do not understand economics, while those who do are gagged. In the 2000s, before the Steamed Bun took power, China's social retail growth rate remained at around 15%. Once he took power and began personally directing and deploying everything, the growth rate gradually dropped to around 8% between 2013 and 2019, effectively cutting it in half. After 2020, with the pandemic and the real estate collapse, the Steamed Bun slammed on the reverse gear, and social retail growth falling below GDP became the norm. Some have calculated that for social retail to reach 60 trillion by 2030, the average annual growth would only be 3.7%, a figure that still falls within a period of economic downturn or structural adjustment. You see, even CCP experts understand that the economy will not improve by 2030, but to keep the Steamed Bun happy, they must produce "The 15th Five-Year Plan for Expanding Consumption" and push for a virtuous cycle where the public is "willing, daring, and able to consume." The result was immediately exposed by netizens. Look at the lives of the 600 million people in the Party-state and ask them if they can achieve the two words "consumption." Look here. After watching the video, netizens sighed; at first glance, they didn't understand what the cake was made of, but upon closer reflection, it turns out they are making me into the cake. They send the patient to the ICU, performing CPR, electric defibrillation, and adrenaline, but they refuse to loosen the hand gripping the patient's throat. Others say they are improving consumption, expanding consumption, supporting consumption, developing consumption, and promoting consumption—as for where to get the money to consume, that is your own business. In fact, when facing deflationary pressure and insufficient household consumption, other countries have long provided the answer: giving money to the people or providing other forms of subsidies, as well as guaranteeing social welfare. But in the Party-state, they absolutely refuse to copy this homework. Why? Because it is equivalent to cutting the flesh of the CCP's interest groups. Over the years, Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized at meetings large and small that they must not engage in Western-style "welfarism," claiming that high welfare breeds "lazy people" and those who want something for nothing, and that once welfare benefits are raised, they cannot be lowered, thus preventing the country from "falling into the welfare trap" and "preventing high welfare from raising idlers." In short, 107 yuan per month for rural elderly in the Party-state is considered high welfare by the Party-mother, while Party officials get a 20,000 yuan pension, and a minor illness is enough to make a worker "in difficulty." In this great Eastern power, can you not be impressed?

To ensure their own personal safety, the party-state's working cattle and horses have taken going to work to a whole new level, bringing their own life-saving equipment and carrying fire extinguishers while working. Recently, videos posted by multiple accounts on Douyin show that in shoe and garment factories in Fujian, workers are carrying fire extinguishers while working, you just look at this. After watching the video, one is left speechless. The working cattle and horses already have it hard enough, why do they still have to carry heavy loads while moving forward? It turns out this is the aftermath of a major fire that recently broke out at a shoe factory in Jinjiang, Fujian. At noon on July 9, a sudden and massive fire broke out at Huiteng Footwear Company in Chendai Town, Jinjiang City, Fujian. It was the noon lunch break at the time, and there were many workers coming and going. According to Xinhua News Agency, the ignition point was the first-floor cutting workshop, where a large amount of raw materials for shoemaking were piled up, such as mesh fabric, sponge, cardboard boxes, composite fabrics, etc., as well as glue and hot-melt adhesive, all of which are flammable materials. Later, when a survivor was interviewed, they said that in this fire, the vast majority of the victims were sewing workers on the 4th floor. Although workers usually leave for lunch around 11:50 AM to 12:00 PM, because the sewing workshop implemented a piece-rate wage system, there was no uniform lunch break time. When the fire broke out, there were more than 100 workers in the 4th-floor sewing workshop, and many of them did not have time to evacuate. A witness from a nearby shop said that when the fire first broke out, many people were trapped on the roof of the factory building, but by 2:00 PM there was no one left on the roof. Bystanders told him that seeing the fire grow larger, many people hid in the rooftop water storage tank. This witness said that at around 4:00 PM that day, the fire was brought under control, and firefighters successively went upstairs to search and rescue. Subsequently, he saw about 20 firefighters surrounding the rooftop water storage tank at the scene, successively pulling out bodies from it, putting them into bags, and carrying them down the building. By visual estimation, the water storage tank was about a dozen square meters. During the time he observed, firefighters pulled a total of six bodies out of the water storage tank. Afterwards, relevant personnel did not allow them to continue watching from surrounding rooftops. He said that when they went downstairs, firefighters were still pulling people out. Yet, afterward, information released by the Quanzhou Municipal Government showed that when the Huiteng Footwear fire broke out, there were 239 people at the scene, and the accident caused a total of 28 deaths. The number of injured was not announced, nor was the list of victims published, presumably fearing that having a list would make it easy to expose the falsehoods. Netizens unanimously stated that 28 is just a fraction of the real number. Speaking of why the number 28 was cooked up, it is because in the administrative regulations of the Chinese Communist Party, "30 deaths or more" is judged as a particularly major accident, which is the threshold for the highest-level accident. Once this threshold is crossed, it will trigger an emergency response and investigation at the State Council level, so the local government tightly capped the death toll at 28. After the incident, the entire factory neither suspended operations nor underwent rectification. Netizens calmly stated that, without a doubt, it was the factory management paving the way with money once again. The leaders eat and drink as usual, while the leek employees are burned or die as usual, and the fire safety regulatory department's slush fund gets another injection of income. Therefore, how can ordinary people still believe in any fire safety laws and regulations? They can only rely on self-rescue, which led to the scene where factory bosses forced employees to carry fire extinguishers while working, euphemistically claiming it was for the sake of the employees' lives and safety. To sum it all up, in the jungle society of the CCP's country, the bottom-tier mutual harm mechanism cultivated by the Party forces the lowest-level working cattle and horses to bear all the rotten things. Can you stand this formidable country?

Recently, the Ministry of Public Security of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) once again endorsed China as the "safest country in the world." Bizarrely, however, publicly available financial bonds and project plans in places like Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Jiangsu show that local authorities are still investing funds to relocate and expand detention centers, holding centers, and prisons, with investment scales ranging from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of yuan. Therefore, the so-called "continued improvement" boasted by the Party-state does not mean that the people are truly living and working in peace and contentment, but rather that it is achieved by arresting all unstable elements. On July 12, CCTV cited data from the Ministry of Public Security stating that from January to May this year, the number of criminal cases filed by public security organs nationwide decreased by 16.1% year-on-year, public order cases decreased by 10.6%, the public security situation in China "continued to improve," and the public's sense of security "steadily increased." A Chinese rights defense lawyer using the pseudonym Dong Bin recently accepted an interview with Epoch Times and stated that the officially released data severely contradicts the situation he has encountered. He said that this is simply lying with eyes wide open, and they always claim criminal cases are declining. When I went on business trips to Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang earlier, family members of defendants told me that the detention centers are packed with people, and people have to sleep on their sides; if someone wants to turn over, everyone has to turn over together because there are simply too many people. Therefore, many places are expanding detention centers and prisons. China's prisons and holding centers are the most numerous in the world, without exception. Look right here. Do you understand now? Since the prisons and detention centers are so crowded, it is necessary to build new ones, expand them, or remodel them. In 2026, the Zhejiang Provincial Government Work Report listed the "Relocation Project of Wenling Detention Center and Holding Center" into the list of special support projects. In 2025, the budget for the "Relocation Project of Guangzhou First Detention Center" was 125 million yuan, listed as a municipal key investment project, and Guangzhou's expenditure under the "prison" category also increased from 440 million to 480 million yuan. Mr. Shen, a rights defense lawyer from Sichuan, told Epoch Times that Sichuan has more than thirty prisons, among which Chengdu Prison is undergoing comprehensive remodeling and expansion, and Jintang Prison and Chuanxi Prison are also expanding. The people detained the most are of two kinds: first, corrupt officials, and second, those charged with "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," usually starting from two to four years. According to official data, the total number of prisoners currently detained in Chinese prisons is between 1.6 million and 1.7 million, while civil servants with official establishment within the CCP system number around 7 million to 8 million, public institutions have about 38 million, and plus the executives of central and state-owned enterprises, it is a huge number. Recently, Zhang Xiang, the chairman of the state-owned enterprise "Hunan Fengrun Agricultural Development Company" in Xihu Management Area, Changde, Hunan, made it to the trending searches due to a video of him accepting bribes. He accepted gifts with such practiced and smooth ease, look right here. After watching this video, you instantly understand the painstaking efforts of the Party. With the CCP's finance collapsing, harvesting the leeks of corrupt officials and building prisons is imperative. Speaking of the crime of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," whether it is petitioners, dissidents, grassroots rights defenders, or online speech offenses, everyone can be rounded up. Recently, natural and man-made disasters have piled up in the Party-state, followed by online stability maintenance, post deletion, and account banning; one careless move makes you a welcome target of the detention center. Some netizens said that with severe disasters in various places now, what those at the top fear most is ordinary people filming the scene and posting it online—where waterlogging is neglected, where rescue is untimely, and which local official failed to show up. Now, not only are videos deleted, but even who filmed it, who forwarded it, and what was said in chat groups are being investigated. Sure enough, solving the person who raises the problem is simpler and much more cost-effective than solving the problem itself. This is China. Let me remind tea friends once again

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