How did Ma Xingrui anger Xi Jinping? The answer is hidden in that inquiry letter | Yao Yao Jiang
The video reveals that the reason for Ma Xingrui's investigation might not be the four charges mentioned in the official notice, but rather his failure to truthfully disclose issues during an organizational inquiry. By tracing problems related to Ma Xingrui's relatives, close staff, personnel appointments, and engineering contracts, as well as the deregistration of a company in 2023, the video attempts to reconstruct the timeline of the inquiry and explain why it became the key factor in Xi Jinping's final decision to abandon Ma Xingrui. The article analyzes Ma Xingrui's family corruption network, including his brother Ma Xingquan, businessman Ma Shaofu, and real estate developer Wang Zhanjiang, and explores how they monetized power through collaborations with institutions like CITIC, Evergrande, and Vanke. Simultaneously, the video also focuses on the movements of Ma Xingrui's close staff, such as Gao Shiwen and Guo Yonghang, and their connection to Ma Xingrui's career. Ultimately, the video concludes that Ma Xingrui's downfall may stem from his choice to conceal information even under the highest level of questioning, an act of 'not coming clean' that crossed the bottom line of Xi Jinping's power system.
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Hello everyone, I'm Yao Yao Jiang. On April 3rd this year, Xinhua News Agency announced that Ma Xingrui was under investigation. We produced an exposé titled
The third crack points to personnel. In the selection and appointment of cadres, Ma Xingrui sought benefits for others, arranged jobs for others in violation of regulations through himself and his relatives and friends, and also used his position to help others with promotions.
This indicates that this personnel network has at least three layers: some people want official positions, some want transfers, and some just want a job that allows them to enter government agencies, state-owned enterprises, or public institutions.
The fourth crack points to enterprises or projects. The notice stated that he sought benefits for others in terms of enterprise operations and project contracting. When viewed together with his relatives, specific relations, and huge amounts of property, a common path for power monetization emerges. The leader himself does not need to establish a company, nor does he necessarily sign contracts personally. He signs with his relations who find businessmen, the businessmen enter the project, and the project then converts the value of power into equity, real estate, or cash. This is what is contained in these four crimes mentioned in the notice.
The notice also mentioned gifts, cash gifts, and transactions involving sex and money, but publicly available information has not yet been able to link these descriptions to specific individuals. The four lines are not four unrelated cases. A relative can convey requests for others, a secretary can arrange meetings with businesses, a promoted cadre can control new project approvals, and a real estate developer can use companies and equity to settle benefits. Therefore, to clarify his specific crimes, it is necessary to first identify the people not named in the notice.
Officials first mentioned relatives. In publicly available information, two other people surnamed Ma appeared around Ma Xingrui: one from his hometown of Shuangyashan, and one active in the business circles of Shenzhen and Chaoshan. These three people surnamed Ma sound like a family list, but after further investigation, we found that only two of them are brothers, and the third person plays a different, more important role.
Ma Xingrui was born in Yuncheng, Shandong in 1959 and grew up in Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang. It is a city that moves like a plum blossom. Mining areas, families, state-owned enterprises, workplaces, and acquaintance societies formed the background of his early life. Later, Ma Xingrui left the Northeast, entered the aerospace system, and then went from Beijing to Guangdong. But as he moved south, his connection with his family and hometown became increasingly close.
The second person surnamed Ma is Ma Xingquan. Caijing magazine referred to him as Ma Xingrui's younger brother in its investigation. After searching the entire internet, we found that this Ma Xingquan is very low-key, and we only found one search result that could verify his relationship with Ma Xingrui: a snapshot donation report from Shuangyashan in 2020. These two pieces of public information from different scenarios corroborate each other, so Ma Xingquan's identity is almost certain. He is not a fellow townsman of Ma Xingrui, nor a distant relative; he is Ma Xingrui's biological younger brother.
Ma Xingquan rarely appears in national media, and his public activities are mostly confined to Shuangyashan. He is an entrepreneur, a local People's Congress representative, and a donor. Such a status seems far from Zhongnanhai, but it has a natural convenience. He can appear in local public activities as a local entrepreneur and has a kinship that others do not have. For those who want to approach Ma Xingrui, he does not need any government position; his name itself is a form of credit.
The third person surnamed Ma is Ma Shaofu. He is not from the Northeast; his public identity points to Chaoshan, Guangdong. Ma Shaofu is active in enterprises and social organizations in Shenzhen and Shantou, served as the Chairman of the Board of Qianhai Zhifu Group, and is a businessman who appears in Shenzhen CPPCC and Chaoshan public welfare activities. He is familiar not with the aerospace industry, but with the intersection of enterprises, finance, chambers of commerce, public welfare, and government.
Someone online, because all three people were surnamed Ma, directly wrote that Ma Shaofu was Ma Xingrui's son, nephew, or a member of the Ma family. However, we have not found reliable information to support these claims. Ma Shaofu has public collaborations with the Ma family, but no confirmed blood or marital relationship.
In February 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak, Shuangyashan lacked protective supplies. Public reports left a vivid scene: Ma Xingquan drove about 3,000 kilometers from the north to Shenzhen to coordinate with Ma Shaofu on overseas procurement of N95 masks. Subsequently, enterprises donated supplies to Shuangyashan. The report also mentioned that during the local flood control efforts in 2009, the two parties also jointly donated supplies and engaged in public welfare activities. Of course, this cannot automatically be equated with any benefit transfer, but these two joint activities at least prove one thing: Ma Xingquan and Ma Shaofu did not just happen to have their names appear on the same list. They know each other and can jointly coordinate funds, enterprises, and cross-border procurement resources in emergencies. One connects Ma Xingrui's family and his hometown in the Northeast, and the other is rooted in the commercial network of Shenzhen and Chaoshan. The abilities of the two complement each other. This is also a point that is easily overlooked when understanding family corruption.
However, Ma Xingquan and Ma Shaofu are still not the direct operators of Ma Xingrui's family corruption. After all, if relatives or related persons directly appear on the shareholder list of a project, the risk is still quite high. Corruption requires more layers of buffer zones to be safe enough. Thus, a fourth person appeared: Wang Zhanjiang.
Wang Zhanjiang's relationship with the three people surnamed Ma before him is subtle, as they were brought together through a shared office location. According to a report by Caixin, Wang Zhanjiang, a real estate developer from Northeast China, established a company called Huasheng Investment Partnership in Shenzhen. The registered address of this company completely overlaps with the address of Ma Shaofu's Qianhai company. While overlapping addresses alone do not prove joint control, in a complex corporate chain, it often serves as a signpost, bringing two seemingly unrelated individuals into the same office space.
The Huasheng Group, later controlled by Wang Zhanjiang, appeared in various transactions related to Shenzhen's urban renewal, CITIC Real Estate, Evergrande, and Vanke. On August 17, 2016, Shenzhen Huasheng Investment Co., Ltd. was established with a registered capital of 100 million yuan. The legal representative and core figure was Wang Zhanjiang. Wang Zhanjiang had primarily been involved in real estate in Northeast China, and public information offered little evidence of his qualifications to manage large-scale urban renewal projects in Shenzhen. However, after his company was established, he bypassed the lengthy process that ordinary developers undertake to find projects, build credit, and secure financing, and quickly entered the final, and most difficult, stage.
On September 14, 2016, less than four weeks after his company's establishment, the Huasheng Group partnered with CITIC Real Estate and others to form Shenzhen Xinghuo Xinteng Real Estate Co., Ltd. For a private company new to Shenzhen, the CITIC name signified central enterprise credit, banking relationships, and government communication capabilities. It also meant that when this company approached residents facing relocation, it no longer appeared as an unfamiliar businessman from the Northeast. The question is, why did CITIC choose Wang Zhanjiang in such a short period? If one only examines Wang Zhanjiang's personal resume, the answer is hard to find.
We must rewind the clock by one year and focus on Ma Xingrui. In March 2015, Ma Xingrui transitioned from his position as Deputy Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission to concurrently serve as Secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee. Four months later, a high-level CITIC team arrived in Shenzhen. In July 2015, CITIC Group Chairman Chang Zhenming, CITIC Bank Chairman Li Qingping, and others met with Ma Xingrui and Shenzhen Mayor Xu Qin. Shenzhen attendees included Municipal Party Committee Secretary-General Guo Yonghang and heads of key departments such as Development and Reform, Finance, Housing, and Finance. CITIC brought representatives from its banking, securities, and real estate business sectors. Their discussions were not merely a courtesy visit but involved subway financing, special fund custody, housing construction, and Qianhai development.
In public reports, Ma Xingrui welcomed increased investment from CITIC in Shenzhen, and the Shenzhen side expressed its support for CITIC's development. This meeting does not prove that Ma Xingrui and Wang Zhanjiang knew each other, nor does it prove any personal connection between him and Hu Donghai, who later took over the project. However, it confirms a crucial background: thirteen months before the company's establishment, Ma Xingrui had personally brought CITIC Group into Shenzhen's policies for financing, housing, and Qianhai development. We have no written note from Ma Xingrui to CITIC, nor do we know what happened outside the meeting room, but the public timeline presents an abnormal node that requires explanation: Ma Xingrui was in charge of Shenzhen, and CITIC's senior management, along with its banking, real estate, and securities sectors, entered his reception hall. A year later, through that overlapping registered address, Wang Zhanjiang, who entered our view, established Huasheng Investment in Shenzhen. Strangely, less than four weeks after its establishment, this company co-founded a project company with the central enterprise CITIC and received crucial credit endorsement for entering Shenzhen's urban renewal market.
The person who represented CITIC Real Estate at the project level was named Hu Donghai. Hu Donghai had a military background in his early years and later worked for a long time within the CITIC system, serving as Party Secretary and Chairman of CITIC Real Estate. His value was entirely different from Wang Zhanjiang's. Wang Zhanjiang was familiar with private real estate developers, adept at using flexible corporate nesting to acquire projects and equity, while Hu Donghai brought the CITIC name, capital, channels, and credit for interacting with local governments.
At the initial stage of Xinghuo's establishment, the chairman was Wang Jianyu. Public company information shows that Wang Jianyu had previously held positions in several Huasheng Group companies. By April 2017, Hu Donghai replaced Wang Jianyu as chairman. This change is interesting: initially, someone with a Huasheng background was in charge, and a few months later, the chairman of CITIC Real Estate personally stepped forward. The central enterprise transformed from an endorsement on the shareholder list to the dominant player showcasing the project company externally.
Following the CITIC line further up, Wang Zhanjiang's background emerges with another explanation. Some public articles state that Wang Zhanjiang received help from Jilin businessman Luan Zhongjie in his early years. The company also connects to the Zhongjiu Group. If this relationship can be further substantiated, then Wang Zhanjiang would not only be entering CITIC Real Estate controlled by Hu Donghai but also a much larger peripheral network of CITIC.
Wang Zhanjiang once headed the Construction Bank and later served as Chairman of CITIC Group. Wang Qishan also served as President of the Construction Bank, and his long-time secretary, Zhou Liang, later entered the financial regulatory system. Therefore, the outside world began to refer to Wang Zhanjiang as Wang Qishan's man. However, to date, we have found no public evidence of direct interaction between Wang Zhanjiang and Wang Qishan or Zhou Liang. What can be confirmed is that he entered the CITIC network through Hu Donghai. This network partially overlaps with Wang Qishan's past financial network, but they cannot be directly equated.
Wang Zhanjiang needed CITIC because the old city renovation was not a clean plot of land auctioned publicly. It involved the planning of Yuan Quanli's factory tenants, demolition compensation, and government approval, any of which could drag on for years. It is difficult for an outsider businessman to make everyone believe that the project can be completed without a credible partner. And Hu Donghai also needed Wang Zhanjiang because the organizational procedures of central state-owned enterprises were not suitable for handling these complex and ambiguous interest relationships at the earliest stage. The abilities of the two men were combined, and a structure emerged: private companies found projects at the front end, central state-owned enterprises provided credit, financial institutions provided funds, etc., the value of land and planning was re-evaluated, and then the project equity was transferred to larger developers. Profits did not have to wait until the building was completed, but could be realized in advance through equity transfer before the project truly started.
The Yuemeng Industrial Zone in Xinqiao Street, Bao'an District, Shenzhen, perfectly illustrates the clever design of this structure. In 2016, this old urban area was included in Shenzhen's urban renewal plan for renovation, mainly for residential functions. The value of the urban renewal plan lies in the possibility of changing the use of originally inefficient industrial land. Whoever can obtain the rights and interests before the plan is realized can grasp the most lucrative price difference.
In December 2016, Shenzhen Xinqiao Industrial, under the Huasheng Group, acquired 71% of the equity of a Shenzhen company holding the Yuemeng project. In May 2017, he acquired the remaining 29%. At this point, the Huasheng Group had controlled all the rights and interests of the project. But only three days later, the project was transferred to Evergrande. Three days is not even enough for a large real estate company to complete an ordinary due diligence, but it is enough for an old renovation project to complete the change of control.
The funds used by Evergrande for the acquisition were not just its own money. Behind the relevant transactions, a merger and acquisition fund established by China CITIC Bank appeared, with a scale of 40 billion. The first batch of funds, 16.281 billion yuan, was used to acquire Shenzhen Xinqiao. Thus, CITIC's role formed a closed loop: CITIC Real Estate provided project credit for Huasheng, and the CITIC Bank system provided funds for the subsequent acquisition. Wang Zhanjiang controlled the equity, and Evergrande became the buyer. Central state-owned enterprises and financial institutions appeared at both ends of the transaction simultaneously.
And if we pull the camera back to Ma Xingrui, the time relationship is even clearer. The Yuemeng project entering the plan, the establishment of Huasheng, and Xinghuo Xinteng obtaining CITIC's endorsement all occurred in 2016 when Ma Xingrui served as the Secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee. The acquisition of all project equity and its transfer to Evergrande three days later occurred after he had just left Shenzhen to serve as Governor of Guangdong Province. Although his administrative position changed, his influence on Guangdong and Shenzhen did not disappear on the day of his departure, but rather strengthened.
The link between Wang Zhanjiang and Ma Xingrui's core circle appeared in several seemingly inconspicuous details: the registered address of his Qianhai Zhongsheng company overlapped with Ma Shaofu's Qianhai Zhifu. Ma Shaofu and Ma Xingrui's younger brother Ma Xingquan had joint public welfare activities for two consecutive years. It is not a judicial judgment that can prove bribery, but it has connected four originally scattered names: Ma Xingrui, Ma Xingquan, Ma Shaofu, and Wang Zhanjiang. Further down is the company jointly operated by Wang Zhanjiang and Hu Donghai, and further down are the subsequent buyers such as Evergrande and Vanke. Power, relatives, shareholders, and the signboard of central state-owned enterprises thus appeared on the same timeline. The relatives and specific related persons mentioned by the channel also had recognizable real outlines for the first time.
This chain of interests did not disappear with Ma Xingrui's departure from Shenzhen. In October 2023, Huasheng Investment entered bankruptcy proceedings. The administrator received about 200 volumes of accounting books and three sets of bank account information, but some audit and capital verification materials were missing. 67 years ago, those companies that were quickly established, increased capital, and transferred finally left behind an empty shell that needed liquidation, and also left incomplete answers in the account books.
In 2024, CITIC listed its 40% equity in Xinghuo Xinteng for transfer, but the reserve price was only one cent. At that time, Xinghuo Xinteng's book assets were about 5.52 million yuan, but its liabilities exceeded 24.51 million yuan. The transfer conditions also specifically required the transferee to stop using CITIC's name and logo. In 2016, a CITIC name could help new companies gain credit, and when CITIC withdrew 8 years later, the first thing it wanted to recover was this name. From obtaining the endorsement of a central state-owned enterprise within four weeks to taking down the central state-owned enterprise signboard for one cent, Xinghuo Xinteng completed a full cycle. The value of the front-end project was quickly realized, but the back-end company was left with only liabilities. However, after the old renovation project was obtained, the risk did not disappear out of thin air, it had to fall on the balance sheet of the next buyer. So, the first large-scale buyer was Xu Jiayin, who had just committed more business and resources to Shenzhen.
On November 4, 2015, Ma Xingrui met with Xu Jiayin in Shenzhen, with Guo Yongheng still by his side. Evergrande brought not only its real estate team but also heads of its finance, health, and internet sectors. In his public remarks, Ma Xingrui expressed hope that Evergrande would increase its investment in Shenzhen and stated that Shenzhen would provide support in areas such as headquarters economy, financial innovation, and healthcare. This meeting took place nine months before the establishment of the company. At the time, Xu Jiayin was looking for a new capital story for Evergrande. Guangzhou had made Evergrande a national real estate enterprise, while Shenzhen possessed the stock exchange, financial institutions, and higher valuations. In 2016, Evergrande initiated its plan to return to the A-share market by backdoor listing through Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Real Estate & Properties Group Co., Ltd. (Shenzhen SEZ Real Estate). It successively introduced three rounds of strategic investors, raising 30 billion, 40 billion, and 60 billion yuan, totaling 130 billion yuan. In exchange, Evergrande committed to performance targets and buybacks. The Huasheng Group, controlled by Wang Zhianjiang, also entered this capital feast. Shenzhen Qixiang Investment appeared on the list of potential investors in the second round, investing 5 billion yuan in Evergrande Real Estate, holding approximately 1.6% of the shares. The shareholders behind Qixiang were previously controlled by the Huasheng Group. For a private investment company that was not long established and whose core business was urban renewal projects, being able to invest 5 billion yuan in Evergrande's potential investor list warrants further inquiry.
The answer may not necessarily be its own 5 billion yuan in cash. Those three rounds of potential investors included financial institutions, local state-owned capital, and supply chain enterprises. Fund arrangements might have included financing, nominee shareholding, and structured transactions. What we can confirm is that the Huasheng Group was simultaneously involved in two important channels for Evergrande: selling Shenzhen urban renewal projects to Evergrande on one hand, and becoming a shareholder of Evergrande Real Estate as a strategic investor on the other. These two channels mutually supported each other, with land and projects on one end, and capital and equity on the other. For Evergrande, the Huasheng Group was both a seller and a capital partner. For the Huasheng Group, Evergrande was both a buyer and a platform for transforming project profits into capital relationships. However, the backdoor listing of Shenzhen SEZ Real Estate ultimately failed. By November 2020, Evergrande announced the termination of the restructuring. The exit of strategic investors and their shareholding arrangements were subsequently readjusted. Just a few months before Evergrande officially defaulted, in June 2021, the Huasheng Group transferred all its equity in Shenzhen Xinghai Investment to Shenzhen Chengyao Investment. Chengyao belongs to another set of capital relationships. The transaction risk continued to shift from the Huasheng side to the next buyer. What is most noteworthy here is not the change in corporate registration, but the timing.
The previous players acquired projects during the peak liquidity of the real estate market, transferred the projects, and entered as strategic investors. After Evergrande's breach of contract and failed restructuring, and before the exposure of its debt pressure, they gradually exited through equity transfers. The projects remain, the debts remain, and the receivables remain, but those who originally turned political resources into projects are now outside the risk zone. The Yuemeng Industrial Zone was later named Evergrande Times of Light by Evergrande, with plans to list in 2021. After Evergrande's default, the project was temporarily suspended until it was taken over by Shenzhen Anju Jianyue in 2023 and is scheduled to open in 2025. For ordinary homebuyers, this is a property that is several years late. For the earliest project holders, the profits may have already been realized during the equity transfer in 2017. The Huasheng Group also acquired another urban renewal project in Longgang, Shenzhen, through complex project company equity operations, and transferred it to Vanke and its peripheral platforms. CITIC Pacific Special Steel played a high-profile role in the bid for the project. Thus, the same structure was repeated with different buyers: the relationship network and project company controlled the front end, the central enterprise brand provided credit, and large developers took over the projects, along with the financing and settlement risks.
By 2025, the risks finally appeared in Vanke's annual report with a series of difficult-to-ignore figures. Vanke's receivables from Shenzhen Chengyao Investment reached 5.353 billion yuan, meaning this amount was already considered almost unrecoverable in accounting terms. In the same year, Vanke's parent company reported a net profit loss of approximately 88.556 billion yuan. This 5.3 billion yuan became a clear facet of the huge losses. At this point, the meaning of undertaking business and engineering projects reported in the case of Ma Xingrui becomes more specific. Who could enter before the planning was realized? Who could borrow the credit of central enterprises and banks? And who could sell the equity to larger buyers? Publicly available information confirms that Evergrande and Vanke became buyers of projects or equity and later bore the risks. Whether they were involved in the Ma Xingrui case currently has no judicial conclusion. What is truly abnormal is that a group of businessmen lacking Shenzhen experience stood at the entrance of the projects. Returning to Ma Xingrui's timeline, the answer still revolves around the same core. In 2015, he met with CITIC senior management and Xu Jiayin. In 2016, Shenzhen, under his leadership, accelerated financial services for urban renewal and the headquarters economy to the highest speed. In the same year, Wang Zhianjiang's company was established and received cooperation from CITIC, after which the Huasheng Group sold projects to Evergrande and entered Evergrande's strategic investment.
Ma Xingrui does not need to appear on every contract; he wields the city's power that makes these contracts possible. The real estate chain has explained relatives, associates, and projects, but a more significant point within the channels was not attributed to individuals: Ma Xingrui condoned his close staff, some of whom have seriously violated discipline and law, and are even suspected of crimes. Following his attempts to salvage the situation, we found three individuals in different states of evidence. One is under investigation, one has disappeared from the public system, and one is only identified by name in Hong Kong media. The first person is Gao Shiwen. In March 2007, he joined the General Office of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation as a deputy division-level secretary. That year, Ma Xingrui became the group's general manager and party secretary. In 2008, Gao Shiwen served as deputy director of the General Manager's Office and secretary. In 2010, he was promoted to director of the General Manager's Office, deputy director of the Secretary's Office, and director of the Office. All three changes occurred while Ma Xingrui was in office. The general office at a central state-owned enterprise headquarters is not merely a logistics department for scheduling. It handles leadership directives, party group meetings, cadre materials, reports from subordinate units, and external visits. Gao Shiwen's rise from a secretary serving the general manager to director in charge of the office meant he transitioned from following an individual leader to being at the information gateway of the group.
This process is clear in his public resume, yet there is no material evidence of any exchange of benefits having occurred. In 2014, Gao Shiwen transferred to become vice president of Aerospace International. In 2016, he entered the Jiangxi local system, later rising from deputy mayor of Ganzhou to mayor of Fuzhou. By early 2020, he began to be absent from public activities in Nanchang. His personal resume was removed from the Nanchang Municipal Government website. However, as of now, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission have not issued a formal investigation notice, so we can only say he has disappeared from the public system, not that he has fallen from grace. The second person is Guo Yonghang. Ma Xingrui took office as Shenzhen Party Secretary in March 2015. Two months later, Guo Yonghang, the former Party Secretary of Yantian District, was promoted to member of the Standing Committee of the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee and Secretary-General. The formal decision-making power for the Standing Committee rests with the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, not solely with the Shenzhen Party Secretary. However, for a new Party Secretary to immediately form his core team, and for the Municipal Party Committee Secretary-General to be appointed without the Shenzhen Party Secretary's full knowledge or consent, is almost impossible within the CCP's personnel logic. Guo Yonghang subsequently appeared in two key meetings.
In July 2015, he accompanied Ma Xingrui to meet with senior executives from CITIC Group, CITIC Bank, and the real estate and securities sectors. In November of the same year, he appeared again at a meeting between Ma Xingrui and Xu Jiayin. In other words, Guo Yonghang was present at the meetings with two of the most important entrances to the real estate chain in this period: CITIC and Evergrande. He may not have participated in every subsequent transaction, but he was one of the individuals in Ma Xingrui's power center who best understood these policy signals. In 2018, Guo Yonghang left Shenzhen to become Party Secretary of Zhuhai. He was later promoted to Vice Governor of Guangdong, Mayor of Guangzhou, and Party Secretary of Guangzhou. On March 27, 2020, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission announced that he was under review for discipline and supervision, seven days before Ma Xingrui's downfall. Guo Yonghang's issues have not been detailed by the authorities, but he is the one with the most confirmed evidence among the three individuals. The third person is Li Guanglu. Hong Kong's Ming Pao named this person after the announcement of Ma Xingrui's disciplinary notification, calling him a close personal secretary who had long followed Ma Xingrui. Why would a secretary become an important interface in a power network? Because for companies wanting to meet the Party Secretary, materials must first go through the office; for subordinate cadres wanting to inform the leadership of something, information also goes through the office first.
A secretary can judge which visit needs to be arranged, which document should be prioritized, and which of the leader's comments can be understood as a clear directive. Power exists not only in formal directives but also in these processes of sorting, relaying, and hinting. More importantly, secretaries are often sent to external positions to become local officials. Guo Yonghang went from Municipal Party Committee Secretary-General to Zhuhai Party Secretary, and Gao Shiwen went from a central state-owned enterprise office to a local mayor, demonstrating that information and trust around a leader can be converted into new administrative positions. After discussing the affairs of Ma Xingrui's close associates, let's look at a more secretive piece of information: the inquiry letter. Imagine a scenario where a letter from the central organizational supervision system arrives before Ma Xingrui, requesting a written explanation of a certain personal issue. He reviews the organization's response, signs his name, and the letter is sent back to Beijing. Years later, a sentence abruptly appears in his disciplinary notification: "When questioned by the organization, he did not truthfully explain the problem." So, what was the problem? What was the answer? Outsiders have no way of knowing. But one thing can be confirmed: Ma Xingrui was a centrally managed cadre, and later became a member of the Political Bureau.
Regarding the issue of this level of cadre, the inquiry should have come from the disciplinary inspection or organization system at the central level. However, the notification used the term "organizational greetings" without disclosing the specific organ, so we cannot definitively identify the sender as the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. This letter is important not because it proves Ma Xingrui had committed a crime at the time, but because it proves that the supervision system, before a formal investigation was launched, had already captured information that reached the central authorities and was serious enough to require Ma Xingrui to provide a written explanation. The date of the inquiry was not disclosed, but a company owned by Ma Xingrui's younger brother provides a noteworthy time node. Beijing ZhanYing Information Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2016. Previous public reports we have uncovered state that the chairman of this company was Ma Xingquan, Ma Xingrui's younger brother. By February 2023, the company first announced the loss of its business license and employee seals in the Legal Daily. Approximately three months later, the company was deregistered. For a company that had been operating for many years, this action of first clearing its licenses and seals before exiting the industrial and commercial system at least confirms that the company voluntarily completed the deregistration procedures in 2023.
Company deregistration itself, of course, does not prove that Ma Xingrui received the inquiry. Companies may exit due to lack of business, shareholder arrangements, or ordinary operational reasons. However, once the date falls in 2023, the series of events that followed cannot be ignored. From April 6th to June 25th, the Fourth Central Inspection Team was stationed at China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. Ma Xingrui worked there for over twenty years and served as the group's general manager and party secretary from 2007 to 2013. The inspection team was examining the cadres, projects, and management systems he had previously overseen. Two months later, on August 26, 2023, Xi Jinping concluded his trip to South Africa and returned to China. He did not return directly to Beijing but made a stop in Urumqi. Xinhua News Agency specifically reported that this was a special arrangement during his return journey. Xi Jinping listened to reports on the work of the Xinjiang Party Committee and the Production and Construction Corps. Ma Xingrui was present. This was only thirteen months after Xi Jinping's last visit to Xinjiang. This was not a major celebration for the autonomous region's anniversaries, nor a routine inspection, but a highly focused political briefing. The peculiarity of this stop was not that Xi Jinping had never been to Xinjiang, as he had conducted formal inspections there in 2014 and 2022.
Rather, it was the timing, route, and format of his visit that were highly unusual. Having just returned from an overseas trip, he made a temporary stop in Urumqi, without a lengthy itinerary, and specifically listened to Ma Xingrui's work report. During his speech, he called for strengthening the political development of the cadre team and deeply advancing the anti-corruption struggle. Cai Qi and other central core staff also attended. The public reports do not state whether Xi Jinping asked about the inquiry during that meeting. However, if the inquiry did indeed occur around 2023, then this special arrangement provides a possibility consistent with the logic of power. Ma Xingrui is an official cultivated by Xi Jinping for 10 years from the aerospace system, and one of the highest-ranking officials from the aerospace sector. If such a trusted person had suspicious issues, the top leader personally listening to his explanation is precisely the unique operational mode of CCP politics. Let us make a bold assumption: Xi Jinping learned of the organizational inquiry into Ma Xingrui and, for political considerations, heard Ma Xingrui's explanation of innocence in person during this special trip, and believed him. In that case, the subsequent notification of "not truthfully explaining the problem" would carry far more political weight than a simple cover-up.
It implies that a cadre who was long trusted and even entered the Politburo not only allegedly profited from his power but also may have continued to conceal it even after the highest level had inquired. Coincidentally, several originally separate investigation lines began to approach the systems where Ma Xingrui had worked in the past. In September 2023, China Evergrande announced that Xu Jiayin was subjected to compulsory measures in accordance with the law on suspicion of violating laws and committing crimes. In December, Wu Yansheng, Ma Xingrui's former subordinate during his tenure at China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, was stripped of his position as a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Entering 2024, several more cadres from the aerospace and military industrial sectors have exited public office. We cannot prove whether these cases provided direct evidence implicating Ma Xingrui to the investigators, but they each touched upon three important scenarios in Ma Xingrui's career: Shenzhen, Evergrande, and aerospace. It was once rumored that materials provided by Xu Jiayin involved Ma Xingrui, but we cannot independently verify this claim. Let's continue with our previous assumption: if, after Xi Jinping's personal questioning of Ma Xingrui, the investigations into a series of corruption cases still uncovered irrefutable evidence of Ma Xingrui's corruption, this would be an unbearable betrayal for Xi Jinping.
He could tolerate corruption among his own people, but not disloyalty. Coupled with the fact that cases in the space system would continue to be prosecuted beyond 2024, more evidence emerged. At this point, the decision by an enraged Xi Jinping to remove Ma Xingrui had already been made. If this judgment holds, then Ma Xingrui likely faced questions from the central authorities as early as 2023 and temporarily retained political trust through some explanation. Subsequently, the multi-domain anti-corruption efforts revealed irrefutable evidence of Ma Xingrui's problems. In this context, the meaning of the words "failed to truthfully explain the issues" in the disciplinary notice can be understood. After Ma Xingrui's disciplinary notice was released, many people noticed a problem. The crimes listed in the notice, including relatives profiting from his influence, indulging his close staff in arranging jobs for others, interfering in cadre promotions, and helping businesses secure contracts, and accepting gifts and money. In the context of the CCP officialdom, almost none of these can be considered rare; in fact, they are standard for fallen CCP officials. These are not new forms of corruption suddenly created by a Politburo member, but rather long-standing endemic problems within this power system.
Even more abnormal is that the notice did not describe Ma Xingrui as a two-faced person, nor did it state that he was disloyal or dishonest to the Party, nor did it use political characterizations like "loss of integrity." In other words, the authorities did not portray Ma Xingrui as Xi Jinping's political enemy. It can be said that until his downfall, he was still someone personally cultivated by Xi Jinping for over a decade and promoted all the way to the Politburo. So why was this person, who committed many mistakes that other officials also make, ultimately expelled from the Party and the government (shuanggui) and handed over to the judiciary? The answer likely lies in that letter. What Ma Xingrui truly overstepped was likely not the economic red lines that everyone in the CCP officialdom knows and often crosses, but another line within Xi Jinping's power system. He could be a problematic insider, but not an insider who, when questioned by the highest authority, still refused to reveal the truth, making the highest leader feel deceived. Therefore, failing to truthfully explain the issues during the organizational inquiry was likely the key factor in Xi Jinping's final decision to abandon Ma Xingrui, and the missing piece of the puzzle in this "tears-shedding execution of Ma Xingrui." At the beginning of the program, we attempted to reconstruct Ma Xingrui's four major offenses from a vague disciplinary notice. In the end, we found that relatives, personnel arrangements, and engineering projects only explained what Ma Xingrui did.
However, the inquiry letter, which lacked a date, content, and issuing authority, explained why Xi Jinping could no longer protect him. What exactly was asked in this letter, we may never know, but Xi Jinping clearly no longer believed Ma Xingrui's answer from that time. This is perhaps the real reason for Ma Xingrui's expulsion from the Party and the government. Alright, that's all for today. Please turn on your notification bells so you don't miss our programs. If you haven't subscribed yet, please subscribe to our channel. If you are able, please become a member to support the development of our small channel. Please like, comment, and share! I am the demon from Kao Zhong Logic, and we'll see you next time!