On the Eve of Beidaihe, the Model Province of the Xi Faction Falls! Xi Jinping's Confidant and CCDI Member Suddenly Dismissed, New Guizhou Official 'Worships the Temple but Not Xi', Hubei Purges Li Hongzhong's Key Personnel! [Jiang Feng Vision 20260729 Episode 448]
This episode focuses on recent personnel changes and political signals in Guizhou Province. First, Yang Keqin, former president of the Guizhou Medical Association, was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The scale of the announcement regarding his case far exceeded his retired deputy-departmental level status, indicating the complexity behind it. Subsequently, the video analyzes the sudden resignation of Li Yuanping, the secretary of the Guizhou Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, on the eve of the Beidaihe meeting, pointing out that this may be related to his failure to gain the trust of his new master. The appointment of the new discipline inspection secretary, Li Rui, broke with convention; his political stance of "worshipping the temple but not recognizing the person" and his avoidance of the "Two Establishments" are interpreted as significant political signals.
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Hello everyone, welcome to Jiang Feng Vision.
At exactly 10:00 AM on July 28, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission posted a notice: Yang Keqin, former president of the Guizhou Medical Association and former inspector of the Guizhou Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission, was expelled from the CCP.
At 3:15 PM that same day, Xinhua News Agency followed up with a press release, which was simultaneously reposted by all major national portals.
Seeing this, those in the know should have raised an eyebrow. What was Yang Keqin's rank? Deputy-departmental level, and a retired one at that, having been retired for nearly a decade. For a president of a medical association, according to official conventions, when such a cadre gets into trouble, it is usually just a single sentence in the review and investigation section of the provincial discipline inspection commission's website—quietly left to wither away, not even worth a corner in the provincial newspaper.
But this time? The CCDI website issued an official notice, over 600 words long, detailing the disciplinary violations in great length. Xinhua News Agency issued a special dispatch, and Guiyang released the report for national broadcast. A retired deputy-departmental level old man was given the funeral treatment of a provincial-ministerial level "big tiger." When the drums are beaten this loudly, it is not for the Guizhou officialdom to hear; it is for the whole country to hear.
Why beat them so loudly? If you turn the calendar back one page, on the afternoon of July 27, the Guizhou Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection website reported that the newly appointed discipline inspection secretary held his first political study meeting after taking office. If you turn back another half month, on July 13, the Standing Committee of the Guizhou Provincial People's Congress issued a document stating that the former discipline inspection secretary had resigned from his post.
With these three dates laid out on the table, a thread emerges: first change the blade, then make a statement, and finally kill. And after the killing, there is a need to sound the gongs and drums—it is one link after another, timed with a stopwatch.
That is why I say that what was hung out on July 28 was not just a head, but a "letter of submission" (toumingzhuang). Who submitted it? To whom was it submitted? Before the sea breeze of Beidaihe has even started to blow, the blade in Guizhou has already changed masters.
Today, we will flip through these three papers one by one for you. By the end, you will find that Guizhou is precisely the province where such a thing should not have happened. It is precisely because it should not have happened that it is so critical now.
Let's start with Li Yuanping, who was replaced. This person's resume is quite amusing; he graduated from Shanxi Agricultural University with a major in veterinary medicine—properly trained to treat pigs, cows, horses, and sheep. Later, he entered the commodity inspection and inspection and quarantine systems, working his way up to deputy director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, managing import and export food safety and the personnel department. In January 2018, he was parachuted into Gansu as a member of the provincial party committee and head of the organization department, managing cadre appointments. In December 2021, he was transferred to Guizhou to head the provincial commission for discipline inspection and serve as director of the supervisory commission.
Look at this road: first treating cattle, then treating food, and finally specifically treating officials. But do not underestimate him just because of this joke. What was Li Yuanping's status? He was a delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and a member of the 20th CCP Central Committee Commission for Discipline Inspection. Translating these two titles, he was the blade personally deployed into Guizhou at the end of 2021, when the peak of power was held by the figure in Zhongnanhai. Sending a discipline inspection secretary to Guizhou at that time had to pass the discernment of the figure at the pinnacle of the tower; it was not a position for just anyone.
What kind of place is Guizhou? We will discuss it in detail later.
Well, now let's look at the document from July 13. The 24th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th People's Congress of Guizhou Province stated in the original text: "Accepting Li Yuanping's request to resign from the position of Director of the Guizhou Provincial Supervisory Commission." I will read this sentence twice, and you should savor the two words in it: request to resign.
Ladies and gentlemen, the language of the CCP's officialdom is a precise science, and every word has a registered permanent residence. There are only two normal ways for a provincial discipline inspection secretary to leave office: one is retiring honorably upon reaching the age limit, and the other is receiving another appointment, either a promotion or a lateral transfer, immediately followed by the appointment to a new post.
What about Li Yuanping? Born in November 1962, he is 63 years old this year, exactly two years away from the 65-year retirement line for ministerial-level cadres. His term as a member of the Central Committee Commission for Discipline Inspection would not end until 2027. Before reaching the age limit and before his term ended, without any new destination or follow-up, the term used was a personal request to resign.
Would a provincial discipline inspection secretary nearing 63 voluntarily request to resign? This is akin to a casino boss who is running the game smoothly suddenly standing up and saying, "Everyone, I'm not playing anymore," tossing down his cards and walking away. Do you believe he was tired and wanted to go home to hold his grandchildren?
More interestingly, Li Yuanping's work in Guizhou over the past few years was far from mediocre. On the contrary, he handled a momentous case during his tenure—the Sun Zhigang case. Sun Zhigang, the former party secretary of the province, fell from power in 2023 and was sentenced to death with a reprieve in 2024, with no commutation or parole. This was one of the most severe sentences handed down among provincial and ministerial-level officials in recent years.
The preceding and succeeding investigations and probes were handled by Li Yuanping's blade, followed by the province-wide promotion of reform driven by the Sun Zhigang case, digging up a huge network by following the vine, which was also a situation he presided over. In other words, this was a blade that had just performed a great service, and the edge was still warm.
What is the common sense of officialdom? The blade of a meritorious official is either continued to be used or promoted to Beijing. There is no logic of resigning mid-term and going home just as the Beidaihe period arrives after finishing the merits. The person alights from the vehicle before the book of merits is even closed.
In the dictionary of the discipline inspection system, resigning mid-term without a designated destination has only one explanation: the master of this blade no longer trusts it, or more accurately, the old master can no longer protect it, and the new master cannot trust it.
Here I will plant a question without answering it yet: to move a member of the 20th CCP Central Committee Commission for Discipline Inspection, whose hands must the procedure pass through? The Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee? The Central Committee Commission for Discipline Inspection? Then let me ask, today in 2026, whose hands actually hold the official seals of these two government offices? The answer to this question is the key to the entire political shift in Guizhou.
When the blade is pulled away, who will take over? At the same meeting of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress on July 13, Li Rui was appointed as the deputy director and acting director of the Provincial Supervisory Commission. The leadership resume column on the website of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervisory Commission was subsequently updated: Li Rui currently serves as a member of the Standing Committee of the Guizhou Provincial Committee of the CCP, secretary of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, and acting director of the Provincial Supervisory Commission. Note that another title is still hanging behind: Secretary of the Zunyi Municipal Party Committee.
Li Rui was born in 1967, a native of Fenyang, Shanxi, with a doctorate in engineering and a senior engineer title. He worked in engineering in Gansu for a long time, serving as the director of the Lanzhou New Area Management Committee and the director of the Gansu Provincial Department of Transport, originating from building roads and bridges. In October 2020, he crossed provinces to be promoted as vice governor of Guizhou, and in 2022, he became a member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee and secretary of the Zunyi Municipal Party Committee.
His resume is a completely clean technocrat. There is nothing unusual about the person, but what is unusual is this succession method. Everyone, please remember that the CCP has an iron rule: provincial discipline inspection secretaries have always been parachuted in from the center for cross-region exchanges, and local cadres are never used. Why? The fear is that the blade and the flesh will grow together; locals investigating locals ultimately leads to everyone being connected by marriage.
Look at Guizhou's previous few predecessors: Xia Huimin was parachuted in from the position of executive vice governor of Gansu. Li Yuanping was parachuted in from the position of head of the Gansu Provincial Organization Department. As an aside, Guizhou's discipline inspection secretaries seem to be specially imported from Gansu; this is already the third batch. When there is an opportunity later, we will specifically chat about this Gansu pipeline.
Yet this time, all the rules were broken, and a local standing committee member was transferred in situ. Even more astonishingly, the hat of the secretary of the Zunyi Municipal Party Committee had not even been removed, and the title of director of the Supervisory Commission still had the word "acting" hanging in front of it. Count how many hats Li Rui currently has piled on his head: a member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee, secretary of the Zunyi Municipal Party Committee, secretary of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, and acting director of the Provincial Supervisory Commission. Four hats piled on one head—can he bear the weight?
Here there is also a place name worth savoring. Before Li Rui entered the provincial capital to take over the blade, where was he holding down the fort? Zunyi. What kind of place is Zunyi in the dictionary of CCP party history? In January 1935, the Red Army's Long March reached this small town in northern Guizhou and held a meeting, transferring military command from the hands of one faction to another. Textbooks call this a life-and-death turning point. To put it bluntly, Zunyi is the sacred site of leadership changes and the veteran brand of seizing power in the CCP's party history.
Ninety-one years later, a secretary of the Zunyi Municipal Party Committee entered the provincial capital carrying the official seal of the municipal party committee to take over the province's blade handle. Sometimes, the screenwriter of history is too lazy to change the set, directly reusing even the place names.
Whether they can suppress it or not doesn't matter; what matters is why they are in such a rush? A normal power handover is like planning a wedding—invitations are sent out three months in advance, and the bride and groom rehearse three times. What did this one look like? It looked like an amphibious landing: plant the flag first, take the ground, and worry about the troop designations later. They were in such a rush that they couldn't even wait for the customary time it takes to parachute someone in from the central government. They were in such a rush that they preferred to break a century-old rule of cross-region rotation just to complete the handover on the same day.
What kind of day makes them rush like this? Look at the calendar. The knife changed hands on July 13. What is a little over two weeks away from that? August 1st, Army Day, closely followed by the Beidaihe meeting. Before the elders go swimming in the sea every summer, there is one thing that must be settled first: make sure whose hands the knife on the shore is being held in.
Finally, let me hand you a thought-provoking detail. I won't draw any conclusions; you can ponder it yourselves. From 2018 to 2021, Li Yuanping served as the head of the Organization Department in Gansu, specifically in charge of cadres. And what about Li Rui? In October 2020, he was promoted across provinces from the post of Director of the Gansu Provincial Department of Transport to Vice Governor of Guizhou. In other words, when the person who handed over the knife was in charge of official appointments in Gansu back then, the person who received the knife happened to leave the province from under his jurisdiction. Both of them are also fellow provincials from Shanxi—one from Huaiyin and the other from Fenyang, inside and outside the Yanmen Pass. Is this a case of acquaintances easily facilitating a handover, or some other procedure? We don't know; we just think it's a small world after all.
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Well, let's pull back and continue talking about this Guizhou official. When a new official takes office, what is the first thing they do? They don't hand in their homework before lighting the fire.
On the afternoon of July 27, Li Rui's first political statement after taking office arrived. The website of the Guizhou Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision published: Li Rui, member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee, Secretary of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, and acting director of the Provincial Commission for Supervision, presided over a collective study session of the theoretical learning center group. What did they study? On the surface, they studied the Party-building ideology of that person. Official bureaucratic articles are usually scrolled past by ordinary people after reading the headline, but we are here to inspect official bureaucratic articles. Come, let's break down this draft and weigh it sentence by sentence.
"Consistently upholding the highest principle of Party leadership is present; focusing on the Two Upholds to strengthen political supervision is present; ensuring that the decrees of the CCP Central Committee flow smoothly and that orders are strictly executed is present." Fine, all the required parts seem to be there. Then I ask you, what about another term? Where did that term go? The Two Establishes.
Not a single word of it is in the entire text. New friends who don't watch our show often might ask, "Old Jiang, aren't the Two Establishes and the Two Upholds just part of that same set of cliché rhetoric? How much difference can missing one make?" Ah, the difference is huge. This is the essence of officialdom's dog whistle. Let me give you a three-minute crash course. The Two Establishes, in full, are establishing the core position of Comrade Baozi and establishing the guiding position of Baozi Thought. See clearly, there are names and faces here, recognizing a specific person. This is an exclusive authentication seal written into the resolution of the 20th National Congress, a pledge of allegiance to an individual.
And what about the Two Upholds? They uphold the authority and centralized, unified leadership of the CCP Central Committee. Who is the CCP Central Committee? The CCP Central Committee is a temple. Today, this Buddha is worshipped in the temple; tomorrow, another one is replaced, but the temple remains the same temple. Not a single punctuation mark needs to be changed in the phrase upholding the CCP Central Committee. Therefore, the difference between these two phrases is that one recognizes a person, while the other worships a temple.
This trick is not being performed for the first time in the history of the CCP. Back then, Hua Guofeng's "Two Whatevers"—"We will resolutely uphold whatever decisions Chairman Mao made, and we will unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave." That was also about recognizing a person. Later, when Deng Xiaoping wanted to move against Hua Guofeng, the first thing he moved against was not the person, but these few words. In the newspapers, the "Two Whatevers" were criticized first, denounced as ideological rigidity, and only then did the person step down.
Power transitions in the CCP have always been preceded by discourse. First, excise your exclusive vocabulary from the documents, and then politely invite you off the podium. Once the words are gone, how long can the person still hold on? That's just a matter of counting down the clock.
Today, the collective evaporation of the "Two Establishes" in documents everywhere follows the old path of criticizing the "Two Whatevers" back then. It's just that this time, they are too lazy to even criticize it in the newspapers; they just deleted it silently and with tacit mutual understanding.
Now when you look back at Li Rui's draft, a discipline inspection secretary who has just taken over the hilt of the knife makes his very first political statement, only worshipping the temple and not recognizing the person. In the language system of the CCP, what does this equal? It equals taking that personal authentication seal out of his pocket in front of officials across the province, putting it into the drawer, and locking it with a click.
That is not all. On the same day, July 27, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) posted a whole series of articles featuring statements from discipline inspection cadres across the country. From Ningxia, Xiamen, Suzhou, and Hubei. Whose drafts still contained the "Two Establishments"? Whose drafts had already been scrubbed clean? It was clear at a glance. What does this indicate? This is not a matter of individual phrasing habits; this is a national standardized test, and there is only one question: picking a side. And Li Rui handed in the standard answer.
So, friends online are arguing about who Li Rui actually belongs to. Is he a former subordinate of some old leader? I tell you all, you are looking at the resume in the wrong direction. In the CCP officialdom, your background is written in your file, but your master is written in your drafts.
After the statements were made, the head was hung out the very next morning. Yang Keqin.
Some persistent friends checked the data and might say, "Old Jiang, that's not right. The case of Yang Keqin was not handled by the new discipline inspection secretary. Look, he was placed under investigation in January this year. His old colleague, Yang Hong, deputy director of the National Health Commission, was already taken in on January 5. Going further back, Yang Hui, party secretary of the National Health Commission, was investigated in June 2024. This case is an old account; what does it have to do with Li Rui, who only took office on July 13?"
Good question. Let us honestly explain Yang Keqin's criminal record to you. Yang Keqin served as deputy director of the Guizhou Provincial Health Department starting in November 2001, soaking in the Guizhou health system for a full fifteen years. In 2014, he was promoted to deputy party secretary and deputy director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission. In 2016, he stepped back to the second line as an inspector. In 2017, he obtained a lucrative retirement position—president of the Guizhou Medical Association—and held it until he was investigated.
What were the charges in the official report? "Taking advantage of his position to seek benefits for others in the purchase and sale of hospital drugs and medical equipment, and illegally accepting huge amounts of money and property. Furthermore, he did not stop after retirement; he continued to use old connections to profit, engaged in power-for-sex trades, and resisted organizational investigation."
Translated into plain language, he was an old borer who had been clinging to the assembly line of drug and medical device procurement in Guizhou for over twenty years. How does this assembly line operate? Friends who have worked as pharmaceutical representatives all understand. An imported CT machine has an ex-factory price of 10 million, but the hospital's account dares to write 20 million. Where did that 10 million in the middle go? From the agent to the bidding office, from the equipment section chief to the vice president in charge, and then to the approval level in the Health Department—everyone takes a cut, and in the end, it is all passed on to the patient's examination bills and medical expenses.
What was Yang Keqin's position on this line? Deputy director, the one controlling the approval gate. When the gate was lifted, the procurement orders of thousands of hospitals below followed suit. When the gate frowned, even the biggest agents had to rush to Guiyang overnight to put on a smiling face.
And look at the "did not stop after retirement" part of the report. He retired and handed over the gate, so why would people still send him money? It was because of the students and subordinates he had accumulated over those twenty years. The equipment section chief was approved by him, and the president was appointed by him. A phone call and the old rules still applied. This is what it means to have the tree fall but the roots remain, to retire but keep the power.
So who was in charge of the main gate of this assembly line back then? Let me give you another time coordinate: 2017, the year Yang Keqin got the lucrative position of president of the Medical Association, the Guizhou Provincial Party Secretary had just changed, and the one who replaced him was Sun Zhigang. What is Sun Zhigang's background? He came from the position of Director of the State Council's Medical Reform Office; he was the one orchestrating medical reform across all of China. Going further back, he was part of the old team when Yu Zhengsheng was in charge of Hubei. Everyone knows the fate of this Secretary Sun.
And since May 2024, the entire province of Guizhou has been conducting a campaign to promote reform through the Sun Zhigang case. Yang Hui, Yang Hong, and Yang Keqin—these three "Yang" sheep in the Guizhou health sector—are the products of this reform campaign, pulled one by one from the cold storage of the Sun Zhigang case.
Alright, the case record is clear. So what did Li Rui do in this case? He did two things, two things that no other case handler could do, things only the discipline inspection secretary himself could do: pick the day and pick the megaphone.
First, picking the day. You all need to understand the process of the Discipline Inspection Commission; expelling someone from the party must be decided by the Standing Committee of the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission. Who presided over the Standing Committee? Li Rui, on his fifteenth day in office. Who decides which day the report is posted online? The discipline inspection secretary decides. Which day did he pick? The day after his own statement meeting. He took away the authentication seal the previous afternoon and hung the head the next morning, with less than sixteen hours in between.
Then, picking the megaphone. This move is even more sophisticated than picking the day. As we said at the beginning, a deputy department-level official who has been retired for nine years would, by convention, be dismissed with a single sentence on the provincial discipline inspection website. But this time, it was reported by the province, fully reported by the CCDI website, and followed up by Xinhua News Agency on the same day—the top-tier treatment. Does the report of a province-managed cadre need to be reported to the center? How much space should be given when reported? These are all flexible points that can be manipulated.
In other words, this head was not only hung at the exact right moment, but it was also specifically connected to the largest megaphone in the country to broadcast it. There is no need to use a butcher's knife to kill a chicken, but if you kill the chicken just to warn the monkeys, the bigger the knife and the louder the gong, the better.
Only one question remains: which group of monkeys on this mountain is this for? Come, let us set up a chessboard and see how sophisticated the choice of this head is. What is the biggest taboo for a new official's first move? The biggest taboo is creating enemies.
Think about it. If Teacher Li were to strike the first blow against the Emperor's loyalists, alerting the target before the Beidaihe meeting, what if the political wind shifted? He would become the target himself. Striking the old comrades' people was even less of an option, as they were his patrons. So who could he strike? He could strike the leftover inventory of Sun Zhigang.
The genius lies right here. Sun Zhigang is a dead tiger, someone already sentenced to a suspended death penalty. Every piece of inventory tied to his network that gets chopped away is a piece no one cares about, and no one pities. The people at the top of the pyramid would be thrilled to see it, because Sun Zhigang was a disobedient figure back in the day. The old comrades wouldn't pity him either; he was just an abandoned pawn who should have been cleared out long ago, and taking him down conveniently earns a new political achievement. This January, the fifth plenary session of the CCP Central Committee's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection officially listed "corruption in academic societies and associations" as a key annual rectification target. Yang Keqin happened to be the very first medical association president to fall in this new domain—a textbook case that would look great written into an end-of-year summary.
One head pleases three sides, establishing authority at zero cost. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not anti-corruption; this is presenting a calling card. The case belongs to the previous dynasty, but the gongs belong to the new official. Someone else investigated the case, but you get to beat the drum yourself. Old hands in officialdom always know how to leverage force.
Yet, once the calling card is delivered, the blade must be put to work. The true killing blow is not directed at Yang Keqin, but lies in those eight characters from Teacher Li's statement at the meeting: "Focus on the Two Upholds, strengthen political supervision." What is political supervision? Ladies and gentlemen, the work of the discipline inspection commission comes in two types: One is investigating corruption—checking whether you took bribes, whether you slept around, which are lifestyle and economic issues. The other is political supervision. What does that check? It checks your attitude toward superiors, whether your study and implementation are up to standard, whether you have made improper comments, or engaged in passive resistance. In a word, it checks which side you are on.
Financial matters can still be audited and calculated, but when it comes to choosing a side, any accusation can be concocted. If they want to say you are out of line, you are out of line.
The next question then arises, and it is the most piercing one: Teacher Li wants to carry out political supervision in Guizhou—whose faction is he supervising? Whose province is Guizhou? From 2012 to 2017, for a full five and a half years, a certain individual served here all the way from governor to provincial party secretary, before soaring into the Politburo. His name is Chen Miner. He is the top general of the New Zhijiang Army, the very first regional grand administrator brought out from the Emperor's ancestral base of Zhejiang. Well over half of the厅局级 (department and bureau-level) posts in the entire province of Guizhou were handed out during his tenure. Guizhou's big data, mass poverty alleviation, and ecological initiatives over the past decade were all political monuments built by him. Over the past ten years on the officialdom map, Guizhou has been that person's model province and sample base for self-reserved territory.
Now, if you connect all these events, the old comrades extracted a mid-term blade straight out of a model province, replacing it with a new blade that worships only the temple and recognizes no individuals. On its very first day, the new blade announced that future work would focus on checking loyalties. If they were simply coming after medical insurance kickbacks, would it warrant such a massive commotion?
Some friends might think: Lao Jiang, are you exaggerating a routine provincial personnel shuffle? Let's pan the camera out and see what else was happening in other squares of the chessboard during that same week.
On July 23 in Hubei, Li Ping, the former head of the first inspection team of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee, was officially announced to be under investigation. Disciplinary review combined with supervisory investigation—a dual-track approach of both Party discipline and state law, making him a prime reserve candidate for the standard "dual expulsion" package.
Four days later, on July 27, Wang Maoliang, former executive deputy director of the Publicity Department of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee and former party secretary of Hubei Radio and Television, was taken away. There is a detail in Wang Maoliang's announcement that outsiders might miss, but insiders would gasp upon seeing it. The original text of the announcement read: "Suspected of serious duty-related violations of the law, currently undergoing supervisory investigation by the Hubei Provincial Supervisory Commission." That single sentence was it.
Compare this to Li Ping's announcement. Li Ping was accused of "suspected serious violations of discipline and law," undergoing both disciplinary review and supervisory investigation—running along the dual tracks of Party discipline and state law. And Wang Maoliang? There is no mention of the word "discipline," no disciplinary review, only the track of state law. For a man who once served as the party secretary of a provincial radio and television network, the organization couldn't even be bothered to run him through the decent procedural formality of stripping away his Party membership card. What does that mean? It means the organization was too lazy to even arrange the respectable formality of tearing up your Party ticket.
People in the propaganda sector spend their entire lives eating off their pens, yet in the end, they couldn't even secure a decent phrasing for their downfall. The callousness of this trade is evident. So whose people were these two? One was an inspection team leader, and the other was a propaganda loudspeaker. Their shared former master points to the exact same name: Li Hongzhong. He is a current member of the Politburo and the top-ranked vice-chairman of the National People's Congress—the original author of the phrase, "Absolute loyalty means unconditional loyalty," and the founding patriarch of the loyalty-signaling circle.
Two of the founding patriarch's former subordinates in Hubei were pruned away within four days. The fringe of the robe has been cut right up to the Politburo member's garments. The accounts for this cannot be settled today. If friends want to know more, leave a comment for Jiang Feng asking to see it, and we'll cover it next time.
Now, let's line up the five dates from this week in chronological order: July 13, the swapping of the blade in Guizhou; July 23, the cutting down of the inspection team leader in Hubei; the afternoon of July 27, the submission of test answers on talking points across the national discipline inspection system, while Guizhou's new blade worshiped the temple and recognized no individuals; July 27 on the same day, the cutting down of the propaganda loudspeaker in Hubei; and on the morning of July 28 at 10:00 AM, Guizhou's very first head was hung online—broadcasted nationwide through official releases on the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection website and Xinhua News Agency.
Five dates point to the same page of the same calendar: early August in Beidaihe. Veteran viewers are all familiar with Beidaihe; nominally it is a seaside resort where retired officials go to recuperate from the summer heat, but in reality, ever since the Mao era, that beach has served as the second Zhongnanhai of the Chinese Communist Party during the summer. Many major events are not finalized in the Great Hall of the People, but rather chatted out under beach umbrellas between lounge chairs, sentence by sentence. Those currently in office come to report, and those who have retired come to show concern. Generation after generation of elders rely on this beach to retain their final say on the political situation.
Therefore, every year in late July, the pages of official media, the announcements of the disciplinary commission, and the personnel changes in various provinces all exhibit a unique rhythm. That is not just news; it is the placement of chess pieces before the meeting. Every summer, before the old men go to the seaside like dumplings in a pot, they all have a mandatory course: counting the blades. They count whose hands are really holding the dozens of disciplinary commission blades and hundreds of inspection blades across the country.
In previous years, the answer to this course was written in the red-header documents of Zhongnanhai; this year, the answer to this course was written directly in Guizhou by the veteran comrades half a month in advance.
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