CCP infighting has turned into a bloody free-for-all! 36 centrally managed cadres swept down in half a year — vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission, Politburo members, even the discipline watchdogs got shot! The shooting style has gone from single shots to Gatling strafing — this isn't Xi Jinping's playbook; it's all-out factional warfare inside the Party! The Soviet rule: only those who can't get away flip the table!

This issue's video explores the drastic changes in the CCP's high-level power struggles, pointing out that the purges have evolved from 'targeted shots' in the past to indiscriminate 'Gatling gun sweeps,' affecting multiple unrelated circles. The host analyzes the fundamental reason behind this phenomenon, which is fiscal exhaustion and a sharp decline in land revenue, creating a 'scissors gap' of accelerating economic decline and intensifying political purges. The article reviews the historical patterns of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Romania, and Yugoslavia, suggesting that officials who cannot escape will eventually choose to flip the table and cash out their assets.

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So in the future, when judging the CCP's political situation, just focus on this pair of scissors. The speed at which this scissor gap opens is the speed at which the CCP counts down to its demise. All things are as they are, reject fragmented cognition. Recently, I don't know if you've all felt it, but the CCP's internal situation has become like dogs fighting each other, which is quite interesting. A couple of days ago, I was driving and happened to be listening to Teacher Wang Jian's news, and what did I hear? I heard that the CCP's top brass has started rolling up their sleeves and getting into the fight. So I paid attention and looked into it. How should I put it? In the past, it was like this: let me give an analogy, like lying behind a scope and taking targeted shots, bang, one by one. It was within an industry or a system, one by one. After finishing, they had to catch their breath, rest their feet, and then move to the next. Now, they're not taking targeted shots anymore; they've stood up, grabbed a Gatling gun, and started sweeping, da da da da da, like a Gatling gun. Let's count the number of centrally managed cadres who have fallen in the first half of this year. That is, the circle from deputy ministerial level upwards. In half a year, thirty-eight have been swept away. At this rate, it will definitely reach seventy. Last year's record of sixty-five people is about to be broken. If we also include the two Vice Chairmen of the Central Military Commission and the members of the Central Military Commission, who were separately reported by the Ministry of National Defense, then this is the result of Liu Zhenli and Zhang Youxia's work in the past six months, directly reaching the deputy state level. Moreover, this is not a sporadic movement; it has been going on for several months and is still accelerating. But in today's program, we won't count these pigs. I think to truly understand the CCP's current politics and Xi Jinping's power, you need to look at a few things. Look at what? Look at the shape of the curve formed by the bullet holes, and how the bullet holes are distributed on the wall. And also, what? What is the person firing afraid of? If you understand these things, you will understand what is still happening within the CCP's power structure.

Let's first look at this curve. If you connect the number of officials who fell from power each month over the last three years into a line, these three pieces of information will jump out at you. Of course, the number of officials being eliminated is increasing. In the early years, this circle averaged three to four officials per month, while this year it's averaging six per month. In fact, this increasing number itself, in mathematical terms, means that the first derivative is positive, and the second derivative is also positive. This means that not only is the purge intensifying, but the intensity of the intensification is also getting fiercer month by month. Then there's the last piece of information, the record-breaking June. In this one month of June, eight officials were taken down. If you put this number into the three-year distribution and measure it, this deviation from the average is about three standard deviations. In statistics, such a degree of deviation can no longer be called fluctuation; it is an event anomaly. See that peak? That's the anomalous peak curve. We've finished talking about the curve. Let's look at the distribution. This part is even more intuitive than the quantity, and the key has never been how many were caught, but who was caught. Ah, if you spread out the resumes of those who fell from power in the first half of the year, you'll see at least six unrelated circles firing at the same time. See how the military has been hit? And it's hit the level of vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission. In the financial sector, Ouyang Weimin from the former Development Bank was also arrested. The regulatory system also took a beating, with executives from the social security fund going in one after another. State-owned enterprises were also hit across the board, with the top leaders of energy, nuclear industry, and power sectors being taken down in succession. The most ridiculous thing is what? The most ridiculous thing is that the technocrats from the former State Council system were also hit, and this includes Wen Jiabao's former secretary, and a string of former provincial governors and party secretaries were also taken down. Even figures from the core circle of the CCP's politics have been hit. Even Ma Xingrui, this stupid little brother of Emperor You Xi, who is also a member of the Politburo, has been taken down and officially announced. In fact, these are all fine. What is the most eye-catching? It's the last circle, where people from the Disciplinary Commission and inspection system themselves are also being taken down in succession. Look, the former director of the Central Inspection Office has been taken down, and the deputy secretary of the Heilongjiang Disciplinary Commission has also been taken down. Isn't that fun? It's more fun than a group sport.

Everyone, please savor this round of sweeping purges by the CCP's great revolving wheel of power. Just tell me, is the scope wide or not? What are the Disciplinary Commission and inspection system? Aren't these Emperor You Xi's guard dogs? There are only two explanations for attacking the guard dogs: either the master has started to doubt his dogs, or others are attacking the dogs without even looking at the master's face. Ah, this makes sense, doesn't it? The circle of technocrats from the previous administration is also worth a closer look. At the beginning of January, the former minister of water resources, Tian Xuebin, was directly taken down. He served as Wen Jiabao's chief secretary for many years, and then followed that string of former provincial governors or party secretaries, all of whom were old people who had already retired to the second line and were of no use. Like the former Hubei Governor Wang Xiaodong, the former Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee Secretary Nian Yihong, and the former Inner Mongolia Party Secretary Sun Shaochi, as well as the Minister of Emergency Management Wang Qiangxi, who was taken away while still in office. In fact, these people had long lost any real power and were purely entertainment bureaucrats. According to the old rules of the CCP, these people were considered to have landed safely. Now, even the landing zone is being shelled. As you can see, to what extent has this dispersion reached? So is this still a targeted strike? This is a damn sweep! Ah, but I am still happy to see it. Let the human brains fight the dog heads. It's best if both their skulls are smashed and Emperor You Xi is also stunned.

Looking at the lens extended ten years further, ah, this turn becomes even clearer. Over the past decade, Emperor You Xi's (Xi Jinping's) approach had a fixed pattern: vertical slicing, ah, meaning dealing with one system at a time. Ah, you see, first the education system had a round, then the financial system also had a separate anti-corruption year, then the medical industry was also targeted for half a year. The military purges were the same. Look at the Rocket Force, it also had a separate period for concentrated arrests. So what was the previous method of arrest? It was like cutting tofu, piece by piece. Ah, when cutting this piece, other pieces were temporarily safe. Now, that's no longer the case; now whole sections are collapsing. This method can explain one thing: this isn't Emperor You Xi, that damned idiot, wielding the knife himself. It's highly likely that infighting has begun within the CCP. You can tell from the major anomaly in the purges of the last few months compared to the purges of the past decade. This method is completely inconsistent with Xi Jinping's usual purging habits; it was very clear before, it was vertical slicing. Now what is it? Now it's indiscriminate sweeping, across systems and across fronts. Yesterday they hit finance, today the military, tomorrow they'll hit their own disciplinary committee. There was also a very thought-provoking transition in the middle: at the beginning of this year, when they dealt with Zhang Youxia, at least one could discern the meaning or logic of

How do the central and local governments compete? Well, they compete vertically. You see, taxes are being backdated, while fiscal powers are being pushed down. Meanwhile, fiscal revenues are being collected upwards. Localities are also not idle in their competition with each other. The old version of 'mending the pen after the sheep are lost' is out of date. Now, they directly load a truck of meat in Guangxi, destination Foshan. The driver can reach Henan with a single foot on the pedal, then report themselves, forcing the cargo owner to appear before the high court. We've discussed this before: local governments are not only fighting each other, but they are also not sitting idly by; they are also competing with the central government. Look at this: 16 provinces and 175 counties directly intercepted and misappropriated central government subsidies. What were they used for? To pay off local debts and issue salaries to civil servants. The subsidies that farmers should have received were delayed for an average of one year, and in some cases up to nine years. Isn't this like an owner who can no longer pay wages, and employees start reaching into the cash register themselves? Have people considered a question? What is the main driver of political chaos in the CCP? Just talking about the economy is too broad. Today, we will upgrade the granularity and see what the main component is that is causing the great infighting within the CCP. The main component that pushes the CCP from internal friction to great infighting is the fiscal curve, transmitted through the intermediary of finance. And the main components of the CCP's fiscal curve are land and taxes. As everyone knows, revenue from land alone has dropped by 70% in five years. Let's look at the mathematical shape of this fiscal curve. It's exactly a mirror image of the curve of officials falling from grace. The first derivative is positive, and the second derivative is also positive, still accelerating upwards. This fiscal curve has a negative first derivative and a negative second derivative, and is accelerating downwards. Some might say, isn't the general public budget still increasing? Look at what's increasing, and you'll understand: it's all unsustainable revenue. What does it include? Stamp duty contributed by shareholders and a large number of fines. We calculated before that the general public budget revenue and government fund revenue, under the pressure of the CCP's national security and backdated investigations, increased by only 0.9% when combined. This is the epitome of the CCP's finances. Furthermore, the growth rate of local fiscal expenditure is frozen at around 0.6%.

Now, let's put these two lines on the same graph, and the show begins. One is accelerating upwards, and the other is accelerating downwards. What does it form? It forms an opening pair of scissors. This pair of scissors is not a coincidence. There is a transmission shaft connecting these two lines, and it's bidirectional. Let's first look at how the economy pushes politics. The first piece of evidence is the time lag. The land revenue line peaked and began to decline in 2021. The line of officials falling from grace began to rise in 2023, is projected to break records in 2025, and is exploding this year. There is a gap of about two years in between. This two-year period was not a transmission failure; it was because the CCP still had some reserves to cushion the blow, some carried-over funds to adjust, and could still issue bonds. At that time, the CCP's fiscal pressure was still buffered by its reserves, so it hadn't directly transmitted to the negotiating table. Now, it's highly likely that the reserves have been depleted. At this point, the transmission shaft begins to engage properly. Therefore, every downward step directly pushes up the opposite line. Ah, do we see this mechanism? Every time the fiscal curve drops a level, the tacit understanding of infighting dies down a layer. Then, a group of people lie flat. When they can't lie flat anymore, they start harming each other. What about distant-sea fishing, backdated taxes, and intercepting subsidies? These tricks are all being used. With each round of mutual harm, the CCP's internal conflict intensifies by one degree. The number of fabricated cases and accountability measures increases, and the water level of the falling officials curve is pushed up. In other words, the more desperate the finances, the more the threshold of security for various factions within the CCP shrinks. It's the same for the 'fucking idiots.' Their thinking shifts from targeted shots to indiscriminate shooting. So, the width of the bullet holes from this indiscriminate shooting is essentially another reading of the degree of economic despair.

Let's look at how reverse politics backfires on the economy, which is actually more brutal. The more vicious the infighting within the CCP, the more intense the indiscriminate crackdowns, the more hesitant officials become to act, and the wider the area of lying flat or passive obedience becomes. The more your policies are implemented with a discount, the more severe it will be, because the power to act rests with the local authorities, and the only fuel the central government has to drive local action is money. China is now aggressively doing what, like investigating social security for the past ten years? The more you do this, the less willing businesses are to invest and hire people. The result is that those who can flee accelerate their departure, and this is how we get negative growth in social financing and loans. Moreover, the more widespread the practice of saving every penny becomes, the more fragmented the execution and offensive capabilities of the grassroots become. Offensive capability, for China, has been shattered into a quantum state. I can only say that these things will all backfire and hit the tax base, and as the tax base shrinks, the fiscal curve will fall another level, pushing up the tilted curve on the other side by one notch. So it criticizes this structure, the economy for politics, and politics gnawing back at the economy, with both curves chasing each other to steepen, and the gap between the scissors widening. This positive feedback system has no option for a soft landing; there are only two outcomes: either external intervention, or a direct snap. Where will the snap occur? To put it bluntly, it's a matter of the fiscal deficit. This deficit will sooner or later hit the wrong people. As you follow this curve downwards, there are two layers of people cushioning the fall. The first layer is the CCP's fiscal dependents, tens of millions of mouths, and the salaries of these people are the bottom line for the CCP's daily operations. The CCP's audit report shows that sixteen provinces and 175 counties have misappropriated central subsidies to pay salaries. What does this mean? It means that many local governments are already stretching themselves to reach this line. Once salaries can no longer be paid, the state of the bureaucratic system will shift from lying flat to disbanding. What's the difference between lying flat and disbanding? Lying flat means not working, but still obeying; disbanding means truly going their separate ways to find their own paths. At that point, no one will be there to enforce whatever the CCP says. Let's move down another layer, and what's beneath that? It's the funding for the stability maintenance system and the military. The salaries of police and soldiers are the last lock of this regime. In fact, in the final moments of historical authoritarian regimes, it's never the common people on the streets who pull the trigger. Most likely, it's when the money for salaries runs out. At that point, the armed forces start to calculate their own accounts. Romania's 48 hours is a ready template. So, going forward, when you judge the situation, you look at whether grassroots salaries can be paid or not. Also, whether the salaries of the military, police, state security, and special forces have been discounted. As soon as the first line breaks, it's the beginning of the CCP's bureaucratic system disbanding; and if the line below breaks, it's the real countdown to the regime's collapse. You can see the water levels of these two lines in the fiscal data in black and white.

This pair of scissors, in fact, has appeared before. If you look at the data, the two curves have shaken hands three times in history, and the posture of shaking hands was different each time. Let's start with the Soviet Union. What was the situation then? It began in 1986 when oil prices were halved, and the Soviet Union's hard currency income evaporated by half overnight. Five years later, the political curve reached its end, and the Soviet Union was gone. What's most worth noting is the way it collapsed. It wasn't that the common people stormed the Kremlin and took down Gorbachev. It was the Soviet elites themselves who dismantled the system. Why? Because only by dismantling the system could their power be turned into legitimate property. What does that mean? You'll understand from later research. In the 1990s, nearly 80% of Russia's political elite came from the old bureaucracy, including Putin himself. So, the Soviet Union wasn't overthrown; it was divided and cashed out by those within. The Romanian case was even more remarkable. Ceaușescu tightened the nation's belt and paid off foreign debt, and he squeezed for eight years. The economic curve was directly pressed to the ground and rubbed. The foreign debt was paid off completely, not a penny left. However, only eight months after paying it off, the regime was gone. The trigger was simple: this idiot ordered the army to fire on its own people. The Minister of Defense died in his office that day for refusing the order. Some say it was suicide, others murder, but it remains an unsolved case to this day. But that's no longer important. On the day he died, almost the entire Romanian army defected en masse. It took no more than two days, and three days after the Minister of Defense's death, Ceaușescu and his wife were executed. The Yugoslavian case was another way of dying. What was the situation then? The various republics completely fell out over the dispersal of debt. The central government of Yugoslavia was completely hollowed out and became an empty shell. The regions first became feudalized and then disintegrated.

If you stack these three cases together, you can extract two patterns: the economic curve leads the political outcome by five to nine years. In other words, the economic scissors don't cut the political system instantly. What is the economy? The economy is a slow burn. In other words, the real trigger is only one of two things: either the barrel of a gun is ordered to fire on its own people, or the soldiers themselves don't get paid. However, most of the time in history, it's the latter that pulls the trigger. Because conscience, you can say you can do ideological work, but you can't do that with unpaid wages, right? If you're not paid, you just want to hit them. But at the motivation level, they are actually quite similar. Why did many elites of the CPSU collectively turn to Yeltsin at that time? There's another pattern in the Soviet precedent that others haven't mentioned. In fact, Soviet bureaucrats in the 1980s were the same as today; they couldn't get out, let alone freely exchange rubles. But precisely because they couldn't get out, dismantling the system and turning power into legitimate assets within the country became the only way out for the CPSU elites at that time. Those who flip the table are always those who can't run away. Now, it's bad that my brother likes to collect rebels and arrests people in China at every turn, even sending people to monitor them and sealing off all avenues for assets to leave the country. Well, I can't express admiration for this idiot's courage. The tighter the foreign exchange controls and the more sealed off the path for asset flight, the more likely it is to replicate the Soviet precedent. The CCP's so-called political loyalty is also based on the expectation of corruption, which in turn is based on fiscal matters. If, while fiscal expectations are being transmitted, China also increases the penalty function, do you think these people will have the urge to pack up the CCP regime and cash it out? Who is most like the CPSU? It's the late Qing Dynasty. Didn't the entire national class of the late Qing Dynasty sell Puyi and Empress Longyu to the Republic of China? However, that transaction was done very poorly. Where did it go wrong? It went wrong because the price was agreed upon, but the Republic of China refused to honor the contract and even let Sun Dianying dig up Cixi's tomb, which led to Puyi's subsequent actions. We won't elaborate on this.

Alas, so we think, the CCP officials sit in the CCP, alas, to expand the corrupt funds, this script, isn't it moving? To use the CIA's advertisement, it's 'you no longer have to live in fear,' isn't it moving? It's better to act than to be moved! This is a sheep's wool, he who strikes first gains the advantage, he who strikes later suffers disaster, brothers. So in the future, when judging the CCP's political situation, just keep an eye on this pair of scissors. The speed at which the gap of these scissors opens is the speed of the CCP's countdown. Alright, that's all for today, I hope you enjoy the show, stay healthy, and have a good life. If you want to support Huotou and join the member channel, welcome to the show every driver's voice, welcome to join Hairrentong. See you next time.