[Yao Yao Jiang] How did Hu Jintao calculate politically? How did Xi Jinping reverse the nation's destiny?

The video analyzes Hu Jintao's decision to voluntarily hand over the positions of General Secretary and Chairman of the Central Military Commission at the 18th CCP National Congress in 2012, arguing that this was not a noble act of high moral character, but a carefully calculated act of cowardice—intended to protect himself and the Communist Youth League faction (Tuanpai), while handing over the tools of power that could have kept Xi Jinping in check. The article reviews the military power dilemma left by Jiang Zemin when Hu Jintao took office, as well as the political maneuvering surrounding the Standing Committee appointments prior to the 18th National Congress. The video points out that Hu Jintao's "complete retirement" (luotui) protected his personal safety and reputation, but also paved the way for Xi Jinping's consolidation of power, ultimately leading to the downfall of the Tuanpai and enabling Xi Jinping to break term limits and usher in an era of dictatorship.

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Hello everyone, I am Yaoyao Jiang. The Party commands the gun, and political power grows out of the barrel of a gun—this is the primary iron law of the CCP's party constitution. Deng Xiaoping stepped back to the second line, yet he clutched the military power tightly for several years. Jiang Zemin handed over the position of General Secretary, but held onto the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission for more than two years before finally letting go. This was because they both understood a fundamental truth: for a leader of the CCP, the bit of military power in your hands not only determines how much political weight you retain after retirement, but it even determines whether you, your entire family, and your entire faction can make a safe landing. Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang were ousted the moment they were stripped of military power. Yet in 2012, Hu Jintao did precisely the opposite, handing over both the General Secretary position and the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission to Xi Jinping in a single day. The official narrative framed this as "taking the overall situation into account" and showing "noble character and high prestige," but I believe these eight words form the most fragile packaging imaginable. Hu Jintao's complete retirement was not a sign of high moral boundaries; rather, it was a cowardly act born of careful calculation. He took his only remaining card capable of reining in Xi Jinping and traded it with his own hands for a dignified farewell speech. What he saved was himself, while he handed away the future of the Tuanpai along with the very instrument that should have kept Xi Jinping in check. To put it bluntly, he simply handed a loyalty oath (toumingzhuang) to the newly enthroned Xi Jinping. In this episode, I will review and calculate this account item by item: what on earth was Hu Jintao afraid of back then?

How was he calculating this abacus? What did this high-minded moral stance bring in return for himself, his family, and the Communist Youth League faction? And what was lost in the process? Ten years later, at the closing ceremony of the 20th National Congress, Hu Jintao was half-carried out of the venue in front of a prolonged camera lens. If he was still conscious at that moment, did he regret this calculation made at the 18th National Congress? And most crucially, if he had not stepped down completely back then, what would today's Xi Jinping and today's China look like? Now, let us return to the late autumn of 2012. On November 16, 2012, the day after the closing of the First Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, the new and old leadership of the Military Commission held an enlarged meeting in Beijing. In front of a room full of senior generals, Hu Jintao praised Xi Jinping as a qualified General Secretary and a qualified Chairman of the Military Commission. Xi Jinping responded in kind with high-level praise, commending Hu Jintao for voluntarily stepping down as Chairman of the Military Commission. This performance officially sealed the handoff of power. Clean, complete, and handing over power right on schedule, Xi Jinping smoothly took over. This narrative sounds very pleasant. When Hu Jintao came to power, Jiang Zemin delayed handing over military power, retaining the chairmanship of the military while transferring party and government power, creating a situation where the General Secretary and the Military Commission Chairman were two different people. Consequently, official media and many commentators described Hu's complete retirement as a moral relay. Hu Jintao had personally suffered from Jiang Zemin's constraints, so he was unwilling to leave the same difficult problem for Xi Jinping. With his own withdrawal, he repudiated Jiang Zemin and left the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with a rule: hand over power right on schedule and do not act as a retired supreme ruler. The problem is that the power transition at the highest level of the Chinese Communist Party has never been about erecting moral monuments or practicing benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness. Turning a life-or-death power calculation into "do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself" precisely obscures what Hu Jintao truly wanted. So, why did Hu Jintao voluntarily hand over this most important power?

If he had truly only wanted to establish a systemic norm, he would not have needed to hand over the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission immediately in 2012, as the CCP Constitution has never explicitly limited the term of the CMC Chairman. Furthermore, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin had both provided ready-made precedents. Hu could have easily announced that he would remain in office for a period, claiming to assist Xi Jinping in completing the military transition, and then step down at a later time. Such an arrangement would not have violated any written rules and could have easily been packaged as maintaining stability—'helping him onto the horse and escorting him for a stretch.' Therefore, to see clearly why Hu made this abnormal decision, we must turn the clock back to the months before the 18th National Congress. It was a war without smoke, a final allocation of power among three forces—Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping—centered on Politburo Standing Committee seats, Politburo candidates, and the composition of the Central Military Commission. First, look at the most important Politburo Standing Committee: the 17th Standing Committee had nine members, but by the 18th, it had been compressed to seven. Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang had already been confirmed as the successors for General Secretary and Premier, effectively occupying two seats in advance. In other words, there were only five positions left for the various factions to fight over. Reducing the seats from nine to seven seemed like a simple streamlining of the organization, but the political effect was immediate: those who had hoped to enter the Standing Committee now had to be pushed out. The two most important competitors from Hu Jintao's side were the then-Guangdong Provincial Party Secretary Wang Yang and the Organization Department Minister Li Yuanchao. Wang Yang governed Guangdong and possessed a record of local governance, while Li Yuanchao controlled cadre organization work and had long been regarded as the most capable figure in Hu's camp. If these two had entered the Standing Committee, along with Li Keqiang, Hu Jintao would have retained at least three important leverage points after his retirement. Jiang Zemin's side, meanwhile, had a group of people whose age and seniority had reached the threshold. Zhang Dejiang had long been viewed as a Jiang-faction figure; Yu Zhengsheng had close ties to the Jiang family and a 'princeling' background; Liu Yunshan had long controlled the propaganda system; and Zhang Gaoli, having risen from Shenzhen and Shandong to Tianjin, was also categorized by the outside world into Jiang Zemin's political network. These four shared a common characteristic: they were all born between 1945 and 1947. According to the 'seven up, eight down' rule, the 18th National Congress was their last window to enter the Standing Committee. If they couldn't get in this time, they would be over the age limit for the 19th National Congress five years later. Wang Qishan and Xi Jinping did not belong to any simple factional label. Both had princeling backgrounds. Wang Qishan possessed his own financial and local credentials. Although Xi Jinping had received the support of elders like Jiang Zemin and Zeng Qinghong during the 2007 succession competition, he did not yet have that set of power machinery that belonged entirely to him. Therefore, the Xi Jinping before the 18th National Congress was far from the Xi Jinping of today who can decide the Standing Committee list alone. He had to rely on the balance between the Jiang faction, the Tuanpai (Youth League faction), and the retired elders to complete the succession smoothly. This formed the most critical structure of the 18th National Congress personnel game: three parties each had their own people; no one could fully decide the list, but anyone could stop the others from taking too many positions. And just at the most tense stage before the handover, Hu Jintao lost his chips one after another. In the spring of 2012, the Bo Xilai incident shook the CCP's top leadership. While Bo's ouster cleared away a highly ambitious competitor, it still forced the Jiang, Hu, and Xi factions to redistribute the positions originally arranged around the 18th National Congress. More seriously, in March of the same year, a Ferrari crash involving the son of Ling Jihua, Hu Jintao's most important chief of staff, quickly turned into a political scandal surrounding the cover-up and aftermath. Ling Jihua lost his chance to enter the Politburo before the 18th National Congress and was subsequently transferred away from the General Office. Ling Jihua was no ordinary Tuanpai cadre; he had long served as the Director of the General Office, equivalent to coordinating documents, schedules, confidential matters, security, and the flow of information for the top leadership on Hu Jintao's behalf. Just as Hu was about to retire and most needed someone to coordinate personnel and layout for him, this closest political operator suddenly lost power. Hu Jintao lost more than just a Politburo seat; he lost the executor most familiar with his intentions at the 18th National Congress negotiating table. What happened next shows that in the Chinese politics of that time, among the three forces of Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping, Jiang was still the 'old ginger' (the most cunning). According to reports from Reuters at the time, in the final stages, retired elders expressed strong opposition to both Wang Yang and Li Yuanchao. In particular, Li Yuanchao was accused of promoting too many of Hu Jintao's people during his tenure as Minister of the Organization Department, while failing to adequately look after cadres recommended by retired elders. By the end of October, Wang Yang and Li Yuanchao were ultimately blocked from the Standing Committee. This detail reported by Reuters is important because it tells us that although Hu was still General Secretary, he could not guarantee that his Organization Department Minister would enter the Standing Committee, while Jiang, despite having been retired for many years, could still influence the ownership of the final five seats through elders and former subordinates. On November 15, the seven new Standing Committee members walked out before the reporters: Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, and Zhang Gaoli. The power signal released by the list was very clear: Li Keqiang was the only one of the seven clearly from Hu Jintao's political network, while Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, and Zhang Gaoli were all part of Jiang Zemin's political network. Multiple contemporary studies summarized this result as an overwhelming victory for the Jiang faction at the Standing Committee level. From the perspective of the highest power level, Hu Jintao lost, and he lost very clearly.

of the plan was that if Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, and Li Yuanchao all entered the Standing Committee, then in the end only Li Keqiang would remain alone, and the Standing Committee would change from 9 seats back to 7 seats. The space for Hu to directly influence top decision-making after his retirement was squeezed to the minimum. But if we shift our gaze from the Standing Committee to the 25-member Politburo, the result is not so simple. Although Wang Yang and Li Yuanchao did not enter the Standing Committee, they both retained their seats in the Politburo. Liu Yandong also continued to stay in the Politburo, and the younger Hu Chunhua entered the Politburo for the first time, taking over Guangdong from Wang Yang after the 18th National Congress. Sun Zhengcai, who was born in 1963 just like Hu Chunhua, also entered the Politburo at the same time and took charge of Chongqing. According to the succession convention that had been operating for several sessions at the time, these two post-1960 cadres were widely regarded as candidates for the sixth-generation leadership. This meant that while Hu lost the Standing Committee in 2012, he did not completely lose the next round. Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, and Zhang Gaoli, who newly entered the Standing Committee, would all step down due to age by 2017. Five years later, a large number of positions in the Standing Committee would open up again, meaning Wang Yang and Li Yuanchao would still have an age advantage, and Hu Chunhua would also have the opportunity to enter the Standing Committee, preparing for the highest power transition at the 20th National Congress in 2022. Standing at the timeline of 2012 and working backward from the final list, this was very likely the compromise that Hu could ultimately accept. The Jiang faction could first take the majority of seats in the 18th Standing Committee to protect their existing interests; Xi Jinping would get the position of General Secretary and smoothly start his first term; while Hu Jintao kept Li Keqiang's position as Premier, and left Wang Yang, Li Yuanchao, and Hu Chunhua in the Politburo, waiting to make a comeback in 2017 and 2022. It was precisely against this background that whether Hu Jintao would continue to serve as Chairman of the Military Commission became the last card that could change the balance. If Hu Jintao kept the military power, he would not only retain a position, but also retain the possibility of influencing military personnel, protecting his own people, and checking the new General Secretary. And if Hu Jintao handed over the position of Chairman of swamps, Xi Jinping could obtain both party and military power at once, while Hu Jintao could only rely on previous personnel arrangements and wait for the next round of succession conventions to automatically materialize. Moreover, from the situation at the time, the outside world speculated that Hu Jintao also seemed to plan to continue serving as Chairman of the Military Commission because just four days before the opening of the congress, during the final moments when Hu Jintao was presiding over the work of the Military Commission, he promoted Fan Changlong and Xu Qiliang to Vice Chairmen of the Military Commission. On the surface, this looked very much like a leader preparing to continue influencing the military, making personnel arrangements for the next Military Commission. So, 11 days later, Hu Jintao suddenly handed over the post of Chairman of the Military Commission as well. Why did he make such an unusual decision?

To answer this question, we must go back 10 years to see what kind of army Jiang Zemin left for Hu Jintao, and why Hu Jintao, after sitting in the position of Chairman of the Military Commission for 8 years, never became a second Jiang Zemin?

The biggest difference between Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao was not who was more reluctant to relinquish power, but who truly had people in the military. Deng Xiaoping could choose not to be General Secretary or President and still determine the highest political direction, not because of a piece of paper appointing him Chairman of the Central Military Commission, but because he had fought in wars and had been in charge of the military for a long time. Those old generals had relationships with him built over decades of fighting on the battlefield. For Deng Xiaoping, the position of Chairman of the Central Military Commission was merely an institutional cover for an authority that had long existed. Even after he retired, a single word from him carried enough weight to overwhelm the entire hall. Jiang Zemin did not have that prerequisite. In 1989, when he was transferred from Shanghai to Beijing, he had never fought in the military, nor did he have a single soldier who was his own man. In the early years, the people who truly had a say in the military were old generals like Yang Shangkun and Yang Baibing. For Jiang Zemin to sit firmly, the first thing he had to do was not to issue orders, but to find a way to seize power from others. In 1992, thanks to the final decision of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin removed the Yang brothers from the military. Remember this step: Jiang Zemin was able to remove his predecessors in the military not because his own fist was how hard, but because he still had Deng Xiaoping standing above him, backing him, and authorizing him. With this Deng Xiaoping card, the generals dared to act, and he had the opportunity to turn someone else's military into his own. However, Hu Jintao did not have this condition. Count

Exactly, Jiang Zemin fully utilized more than a decade, continuously promoting ranks, conferring titles, and placing trusted individuals in key positions. Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou were able to climb to the position of Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission because they followed the path paved by Jiang Zemin. He also banned the military from engaging in business, significantly increased the defense budget, raised salaries for military personnel, and accelerated the modernization of equipment. With one hand he gave positions, and with the other he gave money, turning the military leadership into those dependent on him. Therefore, by the 16th National Congress in 2002, Jiang Zemin dared to hand over only the position of General Secretary without handing over the position of Chairman of the Central Military Commission. This is because the generals who held actual power were those personally promoted by Jiang Zemin. Hu Jintao had to face a predecessor who had retired but whose connections within the military remained intact. In 2004, Jiang Zemin finally handed over the position of Chairman of the Central Military Commission to Hu Jintao. But when Hu Jintao sat in this chair and looked down, the Vice Chairmen were Guo Boxiong, who was in charge of the General Political Department, holding the power to evaluate and promote officers and the political loyalty of the entire military, and Xu Caihou; all of them were Jiang Zemin's people. In the Chinese military, whoever holds the personnel files and the path to promotion is the general truly obeyed by everyone. This is the vast difference between Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin. Sitting in the same chair of the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, for the two of them, it was two completely different matters. Jiang Zemin took over the position with the authorization of Deng Xiaoping, facing a group of veteran officials whose roles were about to end, and he also had more than ten years to rebuild from scratch. However, Hu Jintao took o

officials, yet there was no one above him to provide backing. If they truly wanted to purge Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, the figure blocking their path was none other than Jiang Zemin, who was still alive and acting as the paramount ruler behind the scenes. Moreover, Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou were not aging generals nearing the end of their roles; they were currently in office, holding power, with a full 10 good years ahead of them. When Jiang Zemin was young, he was a subordinate of others, while Hu Jintao wanted to take action against the close confidants of his own superiors. One person had authorization and time, while the other was isolated and helpless. Victory and defeat were already decided the day Hu Jintao sat in that chair. As for the Military Commission Chairman's office at the August 1 Building that outsiders often mentioned, it was entirely an illusion. Guo Boxiong, Xu Caihou, and their network of connections that had spread throughout the military were the reality. What Jiang Zemin actually left to Hu Jintao was not a title delayed by 2 years, but a machine that had been running on its own for a long time and completely refused to acknowledge a new master. So, during the 8 years that Hu Jintao sat in the position of Military Commission Chairman, could it be that he never tried to replace Jiang Zemin's people with his own?

He tried. And this machine rendered his orders null and void time and again, leaving him, the nominal commander-in-chief of all three armed forces, completely unable to command the military? The answer lies in the following few very specific scenes of losing control.

Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou were eventually brought down one after another. When mountains of evidence were laid out, the senior military ranks, critical posts, and various resources in the army during those years could practically be said to have been priced commodities in their hands. But what speaks even louder than corruption is: where on earth was Hu Jintao, the nominal commander-in-chief, left hanging? Two scenes actually make this very clear.

The first scene is the J-20. In January 2011, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was visiting Beijing, and China's J-20 stealth fighter just happened to make its first public test flight at that exact timing. Gates subsequently met with Hu Jintao and brought the matter up directly. According to observations by US officials present, Hu Jintao and the civilian leaders around him appeared to be unaware of the specific arrangements for this test flight. A project as massive as the J-20 certainly could not have bypassed the highest leadership entirely. Hu Jintao perhaps simply did not know the exact day it would fly, but this alone was already enough to tell the story. Choosing such a sensitive juncture as a US visit to China, the Chinese military arranged a provocative event carrying extremely strong political signals, yet Hu Jintao, as the top leader, had no way to explain what was going on. A Military Commission Chairman who could genuinely command the military would not appear in front of a foreign visitor as if he found out what was happening in his own house a step later than the other person.

The second scene is the Gu Junshan case. Gu Junshan served in the General Logistics Department for a long time, and the scale of corruption uncovered later was astonishingly large. At the time, Hu Jintao issued directives time and again stating that the case must be investigated, but the case was still blocked step by step by protective umbrellas within the military. What was truly glaring was not whether Hu Jintao signed off on the directives or not, but rather why, as the Chairman of the Military Commission and commander-in-chief of the three armed forces, his directives were issued repeatedly. It was not that Hu Jintao did not know the military was rotten, nor that he did not take action. The problem was that his words could not make it out of Zhongnanhai; directive after directive was issued, yet down below, there were people who dared to stall, dared to stall, and dared to pretend they saw nothing. If the investigation were truly dug deeper, once it reached Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, Hu Jintao would have to have a showdown with the entire military. Therefore, Hu Jintao's choice was often to stop at the appropriate point and never flip the table. The immediate risk was temporarily suppressed, but that cancer remained entirely intact.

This completely aligned with his consistent style throughout his 10 years in power. In 2008, commemorating the 30th anniversary of reform and opening up, he said a phrase that later spread across the country: unswerving, unremitting, no tossing about. "No tossing about" referred to the national path, but applied to his own operational power, it was similarly a way of survival centered on seeking stability, never pushing conflicts to the point of having no way out.

By 2012, it was not as though Hu Jintao made no final arrangements. On the eve of the 18th National Congress, Fan Changlong and Xu Qiliang were promoted to Vice Chairmen of the Military Commission. Xu Qiliang entered the Military Commission from the position of Air Force Commander during his tenure, and Fan Changlong's exceptional promotion was also approved under his presiding over the 7th Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee. In terms of influence, Hu Jintao certainly had influence over this new Military Commission, but influence is one thing, and allegiance is another. The logic is very concise: Hu Jintao handed the Military Commission chairmanship over to Xi Jinping with his front foot, and Fan Changlong and Xu Qiliang had to work under Xi Jinping with their back foot. Their future official posts, political safety, and performance evaluations were all tightly gripped in the hands of the new General Secretary and Military Commission Chairman, so how much relevance could they still have to a Hu Jintao who had completely retired? Subsequent events also corroborated this point; Xu Qiliang participated fully in Xi Jinping's military reform after the 19th National Congress and continued to serve as Vice Chairman of the Military Commission, indicating that he placed his trust in Xi Jinping rather than Hu Jintao.

This was Hu Jintao's most helpless predicament. He could squeeze a few people into the new Military Commission before stepping down, but he could not make these few people stake their own political futures on a retired old man. Therefore, on the eve of the 18th National Congress, the Military Commission chairmanship in Hu Jintao's hands was a self-contradictory entity. Nominally, he held the most vital power in the entire CCP, but in reality, that military did not belong to Hu at all, and for the most part remained within Jiang Zemin's sphere of influence.

So the question arises: if Hu Jintao had continued to hold onto the position of Chairman of the Central Military Commission after stepping down as General Secretary, could he have become a second Deng Xiaoping or a second Jiang Zemin? Or would he have ended up as a mere figurehead commander? Next, we will lay out the established facts on the table and conduct a deduction based on premises and evidence. History cannot be hypothesized, but to understand Hu Jintao's calculations, we must use hypothesis to run through a simulation.

Suppose that in November 2012, Xi Jinping had taken over as General Secretary, but Hu Jintao had kept the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission in his hands, just as Jiang Zemin had done back then. What would have happened next? As long as Hu Jintao remained Chairman of the Central Military Commission, he and Xi Jinping would have automatically become two centers of power. But this is precisely the worst-case scenario.

First, how would the generals have chosen sides? Orders would come from Hu Jintao today, and promotions would come from Xi Jinping tomorrow. No one would refuse either of them to their face; they would only express their support while dragging their feet, watching as the strength of both sides ebbed and flowed. And in the midst of waiting and watching, people's hearts always flow toward the person who can decide tomorrow. Thus, no matter how Hu Jintao moved, it was a dead end. If he had kept the position but not exercised power, the Chairman of the Central Military Commission would have become an empty shell, with generals bypassing him day by day to pledge loyalty directly to Xi Jinping. In the end, he would have had to hand over power anyway, only changing from a voluntary "naked retirement" to being hollowed out and then purged.

So, if he had really used the power of the Central Military Commission Chairman to adjust generals, promote anti-corruption, and foster his own trusted people—that is, the same set of tactics Jiang Zemin used on him—then he would have stepped on Xi Jinping's lifeline on the very first day. Xi Jinping wouldn't even need to accuse him of clinging to power; as long as he repeatedly recited the Party's centralized and unified leadership, the Chairman responsibility system, and absolute loyalty of the military, then every one of Hu Jintao's independent arrangements would have been conveniently interpreted as splitting the Party and setting up a rival power base. He had hoped to use his retention of power for self-protection, but instead, he would have personally confirmed the charge of sabotaging the transition of power.

What is even more fatal is that if Hu Jintao had done this, he would have forced two groups of people who were originally at odds onto the same boat. What the old network of Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou cared about was never any particular leader, but their own official positions and personal interests. Once Hu Jintao displayed a posture of thoroughly investigating military corruption, they would have immediately had a reason to lean toward Xi Jinping. When it came to the new General Secretary, Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, and Xi Jinping would have reached a certain consensus: as long as Hu Jintao was taken down first, it would be beneficial for both sides. The probability of a temporary alliance would be frighteningly high; it would simply be a new era of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

And Xi Jinping still held a card that could be fatal in one blow: military corruption. Who could this bill be charged to? The buying and selling of offices by Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou mainly expanded during the eight years when Hu Jintao was Chairman of the Central Military Commission. If Hu Jintao had honestly accounted for this, it could have been written as the Vice Chairman hollowing out the Chairman, ruining the military, while Hu Jintao remained a victim. But once Hu Jintao stood in the way, the narrative would have immediately flipped: you were Chairman of the Central Military Commission for eight years, how did you let the military become such a mess, and what were you doing? This card wouldn't even need to actually put Hu on trial; as long as the corruption was pinned down as a mess left over from the Hu era, the moral high ground he stood on would have collapsed overnight.

At this point, the fire would have been unstoppable. The Ling Jihua affair had already been exposed; Hu's closest team was not monolithic. The promotion of Tuanpai (Youth League faction) cadres and the business dealings of the Hu family could all have been dragged under the magnifying glass together. In the high-level struggles of the CCP, what is lost in the gamble is never just one official position, but the lives and fortunes of the entire network.

Therefore, if Hu Jintao had not retired, the most likely outcome would have been a downhill road that became narrower and narrower. And if Hu Jintao had dared to stand up to Xi Jinping and form two centers of power, it would have caused the generals to collectively wait and see. Then, Xi Jinping, under the banner of military anti-corruption, would have united all available forces to trace the dirty water of corruption directly back to Hu Jintao. In the end, Hu, along with his family and the entire Tuanpai, would have been liquidated.

At this point, the true face of the multiple-choice question in front of Hu finally surfaced. It was never about having power if he stayed and having no power if he left, but rather whether to walk off the battlefield himself now, or to fight a battle that was almost impossible to win and eventually be dragged off the battlefield by others. At the end of every path was a single word. So the question arises: since he had to hand over power anyway, why did Hu Jintao choose the cleanest way to go? This cannot be seen just by looking at the power on the chessboard; one must also look at the temperament Hu Jintao had cultivated over the past 10 years and see what he thought this retirement could exchange for.

It is not that Hu Jintao did not understand power struggles. Someone who could fight his way from Gansu, Guizhou, and Tibet all the way to the Standing Committee, and sit as General Secretary for 10 years surrounded by Jiang Zemin's old subordinates, is definitely not a brainless "nice guy." His greatest skill was precisely identifying danger, controlling risk, and finding a way down for himself before the situation completely spiraled out of control. This is the other side of "no tossing about."

It is not that Hu Jintao did not take action. He dealt with Chen Liangyu; he also used institutional procedures to suppress Bo Xilai. But if you look back, you will see that the targets of his actions were, without exception, individuals who had already shown obvious problems and on whom the high-level leadership could reach a consensus, and he never declared war head-on against Jiang Zemin's entire network. He only attacked single targets he was sure of, and never tried to flip the whole table.

He could have remained Chairman of the Central Military Commission, but that was the very table he had to leave, because there were no more separate targets and no ready-made consensus. If he lost that fight, he would have had no retreat. This was precisely the kind of battle Hu Jintao was least willing to fight and least capable of fighting in his entire life. He saw more clearly than anyone that he was neither Deng Xiaoping nor Jiang Zemin. The position of Central Military Commission Chairman in his hands might not have been enough to let him win, but it was enough to make him an opponent that Xi Jinping could not tolerate. However, seeing the situation clearly is one thing, but having the courage to take that risk is another.

What Hu Jintao lacked was never intelligence, but something else: the courage to stake his family and the entire Youth League faction on a battle that was huge but had to be fought by someone. He did not dare. He lacked the courage. Once the odds of winning were insufficient, the first thing he would always protect was himself and his family. As for the fate of the Youth League faction five or ten years later, he pushed it aside and staked everything on a set of conventions. This was not high moral integrity, but a retreat after careful calculation. He traded the future of his entire faction for a decent exit for himself.

So, what did this retreat actually get for Hu Jintao? At least four things, and they were all tangible. First, saving his life. He handed over both party power and military power completely at once, which was equivalent to telling Xi Jinping in front of everyone, "I will not interfere with your path." Even after Xi Jinping took office and purged the old Jiang faction, he did not touch Hu Jintao, who had completely retired and had nothing left in his hands.

Second, reputation. Jiang Zemin clung to military power and left behind a reputation for being power-hungry. Hu Jintao did the opposite, turning a retreat forced by an inability to win into a display of putting the big picture first and high moral integrity. If Xi Jinping were to openly attack Hu Jintao later, he would have to weigh how to explain away those eight characters.

Third, extending the lives of his own people. Li Keqiang had already entered the Standing Committee, Wang Yang and Li Yuanchao remained in the Politburo, and Hu Chunhua was groomed as the successor for the next generation. As long as the rules of the past 20 years regarding retirement and intergenerational succession could continue to function, Hu Jintao would not need to be in office himself to watch his people move up step by step in 2017 and 2022.

Fourth, forcing those old guys to retire together. If he had kept the Central Military Commission chairmanship, Jiang Zemin would have had an excuse to continue pointing fingers as an old leader. By leaving cleanly, he gained the leverage to demand that Jiang Zemin and other elders also pull back their hands. So, not long after the 18th National Congress, Jiang Zemin's protocol ranking in official reports was noticeably lowered, placing him alongside other retired leaders. This may not have been a black-and-white negotiated exchange, but it was precisely the effect gained by his "naked retirement": I left cleanly, so you shouldn't linger at the poker table either.

In the end, what Hu Jintao gambled on was that as long as he left the Beijing positions and the convention of intergenerational succession in place, he would gradually send these people up without needing to sit at the poker table himself. Returning to the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission at the beginning, he and Xi Jinping flattered each other in front of a room full of generals; that was not just a formality, but a confirmation of a deal after both had calculated their accounts. Hu Jintao traded an endorsement for decency and safety, and Xi Jinping traded the highest level of praise for a start without trouble. Two compliments turned a clash that could have overturned the table on the spot into a decent handover where both sides saved face.

For Hu Jintao himself, this step in 2012 was probably correct, but he overlooked the most fatal point: he staked his retreat on those rules, but handed the power to enforce those rules directly to Xi Jinping. A convention that can only rely on the successor's voluntary compliance is not a system at all; it is just an IOU, an IOU that the other party can choose to default on whenever they want.

For the first few years, it seemed Hu Jintao had bet correctly. The Jiang faction that had constrained him was cut off one by one, and Li Keqiang and Hu Chunhua remained steadily on their intended tracks. But precisely because this deal looked smoother at the beginning, the subsequent reversal was all the more resentful. To speak of the smooth part first, in those initial years, the first to fall were the networks left behind by Jiang Zemin. Before 2014, Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Xu Caihou was investigated; in 2015, Guo Boxiong was investigated. These two men, whom Hu Jintao could not move even after 8 years as Chairman of the Central Military Commission, were both taken down one after another by Xi Jinping. During the same period, Zhou Yongkang of the political and legal system was also placed under investigation and eventually sentenced to life imprisonment. Anti-corruption here was simultaneously a power purge; Xi Jinping used one corruption fact after another to dismantle the forces that had entrenched themselves in the oil, Sichuan, and political and legal sectors during the Jiang Zemin era. And these were precisely the people who had tied Hu Jintao up so he couldn't move.

As for Xi Jinping, he also did one thing that Hu Jintao wanted to do but couldn't.

Not only did he replace personnel, but he also overhauled the skeletal structure of the military. After the reforms spanning 2015 and 2016, the original four general departments—the General Staff Department, General Political Department, General Logistics Department, and General Armaments Department—were abolished overnight and replaced by 15 functional departments directly under the Central Military Commission. The seven military regions were also redrawn into five theater commands. The official authorities of the Chinese Communist Party later admitted that the power of the old four general departments was too concentrated, effectively forming an independent leadership layer between the Military Commission and the troops, usurping many of the Commission's functions and powers. Put plainly, this institutional move exposed why Hu Jintao had found it so difficult to wield power back then. Between him as the Chairman of the Military Commission and the troops stood the four general departments, firmly holding personnel and resources while remaining impenetrable! And what about Xi Jinping? He forcefully dismantled the four general departments, making the new functional departments directly accountable to the Central Military Commission. The lesson he learned from his predecessor was not that one should retire when the time comes, but rather that the chair of the Military Commission must never again be reduced to an empty title hollowed out by an intermediate layer.

Let us look back at the party: the personnel left behind by Hu Jintao were all still around for a while. Li Keqiang became Premier of the State Council, Wang Yang and Liu Yandong served as Vice Premiers, Li Yuanchao was Vice President, and Hu Chunhua governed Guangdong while remaining one of the youngest members of the Political Bureau. Yet not only did the Youth League faction (Tuanpai) not collapse, but they seemed to be gathering strength, waiting for the 19th National Congress to make a major push online. Thus, it was easy to draw an optimistic conclusion: that Hu Jintao had helped Xi Jinping clear out the Jiang faction, only for the power to shift entirely to Xi, and that the Jiang faction would naturally share power and govern jointly with people like Li Keqiang and Hu Chunhua. Hu Jintao used Xi Jinping’s hands to finish what he had left undone during his own tenure. However, the greatest peril was hidden precisely within this temporary success. Hu Jintao assumed that once Jiang's camp was eliminated, the Youth League faction would become the new balancing weight. Yet Xi Jinping had no obligation whatsoever to maintain any power-sharing arrangement between the Jiang and Hu factions.

The reversal began from within the Communist Youth League itself. At the end of 2015, the Central Inspection Group stationed itself inside the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League. In the inspection feedback published in 2016, the Youth League Central Committee was explicitly criticized for the weakening of Party leadership, alongside a string of ailments: bureaucratization, administrative tendencies, elitism, and entertainment-oriented tendencies. The reform plan for the Communist Youth League that followed closely behind aimed to streamline institutional编制, adjust organizations, and push personnel toward grassroots and temporary postings. Around this time, the budget of the Youth League Central Committee was drastically slashed. While official circles could spin these reforms as improving efficiency and broadening youth representation, their political impact was unmistakable. During Hu Jintao's era, the most critical invisible function of the Youth League was to pave a fast-track upward pipeline for young cadres lacking red-family backgrounds. Hu Jintao, Li Keqiang, and Hu Chunhua had all walked this very path. Therefore, when the Youth League Central Committee’s institutional budget and its function of supplying cadres were compressed together, what was struck down was not merely a youth organization, but the entire assembly line by which the Youth League faction mass-produced the next generation of cadres. Disciplining a single Youth League official meant losing just one person, but cutting off this pipeline ensured that the faction could never breed newcomers again.

Before the 19th National Congress in 2017, this shift finally reached the highest level of personnel. Sun Zhengcai was suddenly placed under investigation in July and subsequently expelled from the Party. Sun Zhengcai and Hu Chunhua were born in the same year and both entered the Political Bureau together at the 18th National Congress in 2012, having long been viewed by the outside world as the two candidates for the sixth-generation succession. With his downfall, the original double insurance was halved. Looking then at the roster of the 19th Politburo Standing Committee published afterward, Hu Chunhua was absent. According to the succession path of the Chinese Communist Party, the next generation of leaders generally had to enter the Standing Committee 5 years in advance to gain experience. Yet among those seven members on the Standing Committee in 2017, not a single person's age and resume matched the old rule for succeeding in 2022. Wang Yang finally made it onto the Standing Committee, indicating that the Youth League faction had not been completely wiped out, but Li Yuanchao exited the Political Bureau, Hu Chunhua remained in the Political Bureau but failed to enter the Standing Committee, and Sun Zhengcai had fallen from grace altogether. Of the fallback arrangement Hu Jintao made for himself in 2012, very little was left that could be cashed in by 2017. Hu Jintao had originally assumed his people would step up level by level along that established staircase, but Xi Jinping directly dismantled the very next step leading to the highest tier. Hu Chunhua was still at the poker table, but his position was no longer that of a traditional successor.

Once a successor failed to appear belatedly, the real issue was no longer whether Hu Chunhua could rise to power, but whether Xi Jinping was actually prepared to hand over power in 2022. The answer to this question quickly surfaced with the constitutional amendment of 2018. In March 2018, China amended its constitution to remove the provision stating that the President and Vice President shall not serve more than two consecutive terms. The General Secretary and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission had never had the same written restrictions, but the presidential term had always been the clearest institutional marker for a 10-year handover of power since Deng Xiaoping. By deleting it, Xi Jinping publicly removed the final legal obstacle to his departure from the presidency in 2023. Placing the failure to arrange a successor in 2017 alongside the elimination of presidential term limits in 2018, the direction had become unmistakably clear: Xi Jinping had no intention of stepping down.

The future successors reserved by Hu Jintao in 2012 found themselves in an awkward state at this time. Li Keqiang remained premier, but his decision-making space was increasingly encroached upon by party institutions personally led by Xi Jinping. Although Wang Yang entered the Standing Committee, he did not become a core of power capable of counterbalancing Xi Jinping. Hu Chunhua served as vice premier, but could only continuously emphasize his loyalty to Xi Jinping while awaiting a next round that was no longer certain to exist. By 2022, all the suspense of the 20th National Congress was revealed at once through the name list. Li Keqiang and Wang Yang were both 67 years old; according to the past convention of "retiring at 67 and staying at 68" (seven up, eight down), they originally had a chance to stay on, but neither entered the 20th Central Committee. Hu Chunhua, at 59 years old, retained his identity as a Central Committee member but stepped down from the Political Bureau. There was no longer any figure in the 20th Standing Committee who could be clearly regarded as Hu Jintao's political successor. Xi Jinping continued to serve as general secretary and chairman of the Central Military Commission, securing his third term.

Ten years ago, the two positions handed over by Hu Jintao were not transferred to the next generation according to the 10-year rhythm of the Hu era. It was precisely at the closing session of the 20th National Congress that Hu Jintao was escorted out of the venue by staff members. Xinhua News Agency explained that he was feeling unwell. Why the staff took him away actually does not matter at all. What mattered was that the name list had long been settled. Whether Hu sat in that podium chair or not, the fates of Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, and Hu Chunhua would not have changed. The political future he preserved 10 years ago through a complete retirement had been thoroughly wiped from the name list by Xi Jinping. A former leader who voluntarily handed over all his power ended up having someone else decide whether he could even continue sitting in that seat as a spectator, down to the very end. No special design was needed; this in itself was the most thorough humiliation.

Stepping aside indeed bought a considerable degree of personal safety. After retiring, Hu rarely intervened in politics publicly and did not become the target of investigations like Zhou Yongkang, Guo Boxiong, or Xu Caihu, nor did Hu's family face public political liquidation. In this sense, the primary objective Hu sought to protect in 2012 was achieved, but the upper limit of this protection was also laid bare before his eyes. Hu Haifeng served in local posts in Zhejiang for a long time, serving as the party secretary of Lishui from 2018 to 2024, until finally moving to Beijing in 2024 to serve as vice minister of civil affairs. This resume is not enough to prove that someone was deliberately punishing the Hu family, but it is enough to prove another thing: Hu Jintao's complete exit did not win him any conspicuous political care. Landing safely was almost all he got in exchange for prematurely handing over military power.

For the power system of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the consequences were the most profound. Hu Jintao's complete surrender proved the rules through personal concession. Xi Jinping used Hu Jintao's concession to prove that as long as the current leader is strong enough, the rules can be reinterpreted at any time. This does not mean that everything in China from then on must be blamed on Hu Jintao. Xi Jinping's ambition was not given to him by Hu, and Xi was bound to seize military power sooner or later. Hu Jintao did not create this era of dictatorship, but he cleared away the biggest rock on the starting line for Xi Jinping.

In the 40 years of reform and opening up, the only political progress the CCP accumulated was that supreme power was no longer lifelong, along with collective leadership. This was already pitifully thin. Yet Hu Jintao's weak personality and excessive calculation pushed this progress almost overnight back to the starting point. And all of this is currently just beginning. When all is said and done, the calculation Hu Jintao made for himself in 2012 perhaps really was not wrong. The mistake was that he turned an optimal solution for an individual into the worst beginning for the entire country.

While preparing this episode, flashes kept recurring in my mind of Hu Jintao being half-supported and half-dragged, turning back step by step as he was led away from the venue on the podium of the 20th National Congress. His peers within the party watched him with numbness. As he passed behind Li Keqiang, he even patted Li Keqiang on the shoulder. Li Keqiang did not turn back. I want to ask Li Keqiang a question: Do you regret it? Ten years ago, what he handed away was the residual political warmth that 40 years of reform had painstakingly accumulated—the route of retreat the country had originally reserved for itself. He once called everything looking at the overall situation and lofty moral integrity. Yet looking back 10 years later, this was never any lofty moral integrity; it was a pledge of allegiance he personally handed to an era of dictatorship.

Ha, that is all for today. Please open the little bell, dear viewers, so you won't miss our programs. Viewers who haven't subscribed yet are also requested to subscribe to our channel, and those with the means are welcome to join as members to support the development of our small channel. Please like, leave comments, and forward. I am Logic's Goblin from my last textual research, see you in the next episode!