Hu Jintao Suddenly Rumored to Be Critically Ill! Zeng Qinghong Claims Xi Jinping Group Involved in Anti-Party Activities; Six People Refused to Raise Hands at the Fourth Plenary Session, Inside Sources Claim Xi Offered to Resign as General Secretary and Military Commission Chairman Last Year [Jiang Feng Horizon 20260814 Episode 462]

This episode focuses on the high-level power struggle after the Beidaihe meeting and the rules of succession established by Hu Jintao. The content covers the background of the sudden rumors of Hu Jintao's critical illness, Zeng Qinghong's failed efforts to unite conservative elders, the fallout from the "anti-party group" label triggering officials to realign themselves, shifts in political winds among local officials such as Chen Jining, rumors of Li Qiaoming and military assassination plots, the political calculations behind Hu Haifeng's rumored promotion, the purge of the Fujian faction and the old subordinates of Li Zhanshu, as well as insider details that at the Fourth Plenary Session last year, Xi Jinping offered to resign, but the agreement fell through because six people refused to raise their hands and due to a military incident.

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Hello friends, welcome to Jiang Feng Perspective. Just on Thursday night, as we were preparing this episode, news suddenly came out from outside the firewall that Hu Jintao was critically ill. The leak stated that Hu Jintao's daughter and son-in-law were returning to China from the United States, Hu Haifeng's family was returning to Beijing from Shanghai, and Hu Haifeng had taken leave from the Ministry of Civil Affairs for the past few days. By the time we finalized this report, this news had not been confirmed by public channels, but the timing of its appearance is extremely sensitive. This is because the Beidaihe meeting has just concluded, and what we are going to discuss today is precisely the set of rules that Hu Jintao just established during this highest-level power transition within the CCP. If Hu Jintao's health runs into trouble at this moment, who will carry on the matters just decided at Beidaihe? Will those who have just prepared to realign themselves recalculate their positions because of Hu Jintao's sudden exit? Therefore, we will note this breaking news here first and not get ahead of ourselves, because to understand how important it is, we must first look at what was just decided at Beidaihe.

This time at Beidaihe, Zeng Qinghong tried to connect with conservative elders to stop Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao from deeply purging the Xi Jinping faction. But after running around, aside from his two old partners Zhang Dejiang and Jia Qinglin, no other elders were willing to go along with him. Instead, some elders turned around and questioned him: after the incidents involving Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli this year, wasn't it you, Zeng Qinghong, who told everyone not to tie themselves to Xi Jinping anymore, because this faction is suspected of being anti-party? Now that Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao are genuinely purging along this line, you pop up again saying not to purge too harshly—which of your statements should we believe? Therefore, Zeng Qinghong's trip to Beidaihe resulted not only in a failure to unite others; one really has to ask whether he is now growing senile. Moreover, this reckoning has already started to spill over the entire conservative faction line. Just as Zhu Rongji passed away, a claim emerged outside the firewall that when Xi Jinping illegally amended the constitution back then, the true mastermind was Zhu Rongji. Even more bizarrely, rumors spread that Zhu Rongji's real name was Chen Changheng, and that he was Chen Yun's illegitimate son. Whether these claims have solid evidence or not, we will leave aside for now, but just savor the timing of their emergence: the moment a person breathes their last, the labels start flying. People have already started digging into who lifted Xi Jinping up back then. Today they dig up the recently deceased Zhu Rongji, and tomorrow they will dig up the living Zeng Qinghong.

What is even more critical is the term "anti-Party clique." It really wasn't just something Zeng Qinghong said casually; the Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao faction had long been moving in this direction. To put it bluntly, the strategy of Hu and Wen is not complicated: they position themselves on the side of protecting the Party, while pushing the Xi Jinping faction to the side of being anti-Party. Moreover, this label is no longer just a political slogan; some have already suffered from it. The most typical example is Ma Xingrui. According to leaks from outside the Great Firewall, when Liu Jinguo dealt with Ma Xingrui, he initially spoke to him about corruption. Ma Xingrui was not afraid because he always felt that Peng Liyuan was his backer, thinking, "If the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection investigates me, someone will eventually have to speak up for me." Later, Liu Jinguo talked to him about the "Gang of Four" and the anti-Party cliques of the past. He asked Ma Xingrui, "Do you listen to Xi Jinping or do you listen to the Party?" Once this question was posed, the protective umbrella of Xi Jinping suddenly collapsed. Of course, Xi Jinping could say that Ma Xingrui is a cadre he trusts, but would he dare to say publicly that Ma Xingrui only needs to listen to him and not the Party? He would not dare. According to this leak, this is where Ma Xingrui finally cracked; his psychological defense began to crumble, and he subsequently confessed. Furthermore, Liu Jinguo did not just do this to Ma Xingrui; later, when he talked to Wang Xiaohong, he used the same anti-Party strategy. However, Wang Xiaohong is a veteran police officer, so he could dodge questions about general issues, but there was one question he could not avoid answering: "Do you stand with Xi Jinping personally or with the Party?" This shows that the "anti-Party clique" issue has reached a very important stage. In the past, this was a political characterization made by the elders against the Xi Jinping faction, but now it has begun to enter the process of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection handling cases. Do not underestimate the term "anti-Party clique"; once a label of this level is officially applied, it means prison and collective punishment for the family. After the Lushan Conference, Peng Dehuai was labeled an anti-Party clique; it was not just a Minister of National Defense stepping down, but it was followed by a campaign that swept the entire Party. Lin Biao was originally the successor written into the Party Constitution; once the political characterization was overturned, the entire Lin Biao clique was pursued. This is why the "anti-Party clique" label is truly terrifying.

Take Cai Qi, for example. The most serious accusation against him in the leaks is that he gradually turned the Central Secretariat and the General Office—machines that originally belonged to the entire Party—into power machines responsible only to Xi Jinping personally. According to the logic of Hu and Wen, this is precisely the act of replacing the Party's collective leadership with personal rule. Therefore, the "anti-Party clique" of today is not a label pulled out of thin air; a complete logic has already begun to emerge beneath it: destroying the Party's succession rules, forcibly equating the Party Central Committee with Xi Jinping himself, and finally using this machine to ensure that Xi Jinping personally remains in power. Once the purge begins, those around Xi Jinping will immediately discover a very cruel reality: as of today, are you still prepared to follow Xi Jinping? Consequently, we are now seeing a very interesting phenomenon: the people are the same, and their official titles have not been removed, but the way they act as officials has changed. A famous veteran journalist has been watching the People's Daily and local Party newspapers closely these past few days, and he noticed a phenomenon: the people are the same, but the way they act as officials has changed. The most obvious example is Shanghai. When the typhoon passed through on August 11, Chen Jining did not sit in his office for a video conference; he went to Jinshan and Qingpu himself to inspect the sluice gates and the seawall. The veteran journalist's first reaction to this action was that Chen Jining had started to imitate Wen Jiabao. This change is worth noting. Over the years under Xi Jinping, there has been a very peculiar atmosphere in officialdom: the top leader does not rush to the most dangerous and arduous front lines, and those below do not dare to appear more proactive than those above; if you go too far, it looks like you are grabbing for political posturing. But now, Chen Jining is rushing forward himself; this is how political realignment happens. Even more subtle is that in the official press release, the accompanying city leaders listed do not include Mayor Gong Zheng. The veteran journalist directly judged that Gong Zheng might be in trouble. When the person who should appear does not appear, that is the most important thing to look at regarding local officials now.

An economic commentary in the People's Daily on August 12 is even more interesting. The title is "The Internal Logic of China's Economy Moving Toward the New, the Excellent, and the Good." The entire article, of course, continues to praise Xi Jinping, but if you look closely at the material used to praise him, it is all about the years Xi Jinping worked in Zhejiang. It says we need to find a key to understanding today's Chinese economy from his practice of leading financial work in Zhejiang. Everyone, think about what era that was—the era of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. At that time, Xi Jinping was just a provincial Party secretary executing the Hu-Wen line. It is truly laughable that the most presentable material to praise someone who has been in power for fourteen years has to go back twenty years to the days when he was an executor. People's Daily Online is also quite interesting; the headline is "Everyone Understands the General Secretary's Concerns from Three Pairs of Relationships," followed immediately by the next article, which is about "focusing on the last mile." Of course, "the last mile" refers to grassroots Party building, but given that Beidaihe has just concluded, it is a bit interesting. Are the three pairs of relationships about the relationship between Xi Jinping and the Party, Xi Jinping and the elders, and Xi Jinping and the local officials? We do not know what the General Secretary is currently concerned about, but this "last mile" is quite fitting. These are all just linguistic coincidences and cannot be taken as evidence, but when you see enough coincidences, they become an atmosphere. Some words in the official media are starting to become unable to withstand a second reading.

There are rules for officials to realign their loyalties, but some almost crossed the line by heading straight to Beijing with troops. According to reports from outside the Great Firewall, after Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli were sidelined, Li Qiaoming reacted very intensely. It was once rumored that he fled to Xinxiang, Henan, and even prepared to mobilize the 83rd Group Army to enter Beijing. Li Qiaoming is indeed anti-Xi, and more fiercely so than many party elders, but the problem lies right there: it is one thing to oppose Xi Jinping, but who authorized you to mobilize troops into Beijing on your own? Therefore, Li Qiaoming ultimately did not make a move, and later, his qualification as a deputy to the National People's Congress was revoked first. According to the explanation provided by this source outside the Great Firewall, the reason is not complicated: Xi Jinping violating the rules does not mean Li Qiaoming can use another rule-breaking method to resolve the Xi Jinping issue. Recently, an even more intense revelation emerged: sources outside the Great Firewall claim that in the past six months, several high-ranking generals in the military had planned actions against Xi Jinping, even reaching the level of assassination. This news is still a rumor, but there is a detail in it that is very noteworthy: why did these people never actually take action? Because they also knew that you cannot decide this matter on your own. According to the report, some of them once went to Liu Yuan, hoping for political endorsement from the top, but Liu Yuan disagreed. The reason, to put it bluntly, was that the problem of Xi Jinping must be solved by the Party, not by a few people with guns in their hands.

What is the problem with Xi Jinping? It is putting the individual above the organization and putting his own will above the rules of the Party. But if you decide to mobilize a group army yourself and decide the life or death of the General Secretary just because you think Xi Jinping should step down, then you are doing the same thing: putting yourself above the organization. What Hu Jintao wants to suppress is not just one side; he is actually suppressing both sides. This is called establishing rules. Otherwise, if six generals can say today that Xi Jinping is harming the country and I killed him to eliminate a scourge for the Party, then tomorrow, if another six generals think Hu Chunhua is not up to the task, can they also eliminate a scourge for the Party? A few years later, if someone finds another General Secretary unpleasant, can they lead troops into Beijing again? Therefore, Hu Jintao has been holding a bottom line: the military can ensure political succession, but it cannot create political succession. This also explains why many people have been unable to understand the current military situation. Since so many military leaders oppose Xi Jinping, why can Xi Jinping still attend events, and why does he still hold his nominal position? Because in this arrangement by Hu Jintao, how and when Xi Jinping finally steps down, which positions are handed over first, and what procedures must be followed—these are matters for the political system. The military can only do one thing: whoever dares to disrupt the final handover, the military will hold them down. This struggle today can no longer be simply divided into the bad pro-Xi faction and the good anti-Xi faction; rather, even if you are more anti-Xi than Hu Jintao, as long as you want to use guns to solve the problem, you are still out.

And if this rule is only used to control the military, it is not enough. Does Hu Jintao dare to use the same ruler to measure his own people, especially his own son? This brings up a very interesting person recently: Hu Haifeng. Hu Haifeng is now in the Ministry of Civil Affairs. In January 2024, he was transferred from Lishui, Zhejiang, to Beijing to serve as Vice Minister of Civil Affairs. In terms of age, experience, and the influence his father currently possesses within the Party, Hu Haifeng has actually reached the time when it is easiest for him to move up. However, for more than a year, news about Hu Haifeng's promotion has been circulating round after round—Xi'an, Gansu, Jiangxi—and some have even guessed higher positions, but none have materialized. According to reports from outside the Great Firewall, it is not that no one is willing to give Hu Haifeng a position, but that Hu Jintao himself has been suppressing it. There was even a very harsh claim circulating outside the Great Firewall that Hu Jintao had made it clear to people like Wang Yang, Hu Chunhua, and Liu Yuan that Hu Haifeng's career would end at the provincial and ministerial level, he would not enter the Politburo, and he must not touch the position of the seventh-generation successor. This report is certainly not an official document, but if we put it back into the logic of our entire discussion today, it is particularly important. Because the biggest political slogan Hu Jintao uses to dismantle Xi Jinping is that Xi Jinping has turned the Party into a personal party. Then, the last thing Hu Jintao himself can do is turn the Hu family into another Xi family. If you say today that Xi Jinping is engaging in a family-run empire, and tomorrow your own son enters the Politburo, and the day after tomorrow people start spreading rumors that Hu Haifeng is taking over, then the things you said earlier about protecting the Party, opposing the Party, and restoring collective leadership will immediately be met with the question: what is the difference between you and Xi Jinping? Therefore, if Hu Jintao really wants to re-establish the rules, the most convincing place to make the first cut is his own family. You could even say that this is a model Hu Jintao is showing to the entire officialdom: I demand that you stop engaging in personal loyalty, I demand that the military cannot rebel on its own, and I demand that Xi Jinping's old subordinates realign their loyalties. Then I will first prove one thing: there is no special channel for the Hu family. This also explains why the officialdom is now willing to lean back toward the Hu-Wen faction. They may not necessarily recognize Hu Jintao as a person, but they recognize a new set of expectations: in the next step, at the very least, it cannot be that whoever is close to the top leader climbs all the way up. Therefore, what Hu Jintao is really leaving for these people behind him is a boundary: the military can oppose Xi but cannot rebel; cadres could follow Xi in the past, but they must realign their loyalties now. Once this set of rules is established, the next target to be moved is the old nest left behind by Xi Jinping.

The web in Fujian has begun to be snipped strand by strand. Xi Jinping spent seventeen years in Fujian, moving from Xiamen, Ningde, and Fuzhou all the way to the Fujian Provincial Party Committee. This period left him with a group of people who formed his earliest political foundation. Later on, some of these individuals entered the central government, some joined the political and legal affairs system, and others entered the financial sector. To see whether the current actions are targeting Xi Jinping as an individual or dismantling the Xi faction, one only needs to look at Fujian. The first blow recently fell on Lin Jian, Mayor of Nanping. On August 6, he was still sitting on the podium presiding over a local service industry conference; six days later, the Fujian Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision announced that Lin Jian was under disciplinary review and investigation. Of course, the fall of a single mayor does not prove much, but the problem is that a string of officials has recently fallen in Fujian. On August 7, Zhang Yigong, Party Secretary of Quanzhou, was also announced to be under disciplinary review and investigation—one party secretary and one mayor within five days. What truly makes this worth watching, however, is that the person wielding the knife has changed. Wei Xiaokui, the current head of the Fujian Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, was transferred last winter from Party Secretary of Fuzhou in Jiangxi to Vice Governor of Fujian, and by June of this year, he entered the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee to take over as head of the provincial discipline inspection commission. It was precisely after Wei Xiaokui took charge of the discipline inspection commission that trouble began to erupt frequently in Fujian. According to reports from outside the Great Firewall, Wei Xiaokui is a figure placed into Fujian by Wen Jiabao’s faction. Furthermore, this web in Fujian has long extended beyond the province. Looking further outward, Ni Yuefeng worked in Fujian for a long time before moving all the way up through the customs system, the National People's Congress system, and eventually becoming the Party Secretary of Hebei. Recently, Hebei underwent a leadership change, and Ni Yuefeng left his post as Party Secretary. While this move alone cannot be directly equated to a purge, it must be noted separately given the background that Ni Yuefeng is an old subordinate of Xi Jinping from Fujian. Because truly dismantling a political faction is never confined to one's home province; people who emerged from Fujian might today be in Hebei, in Beijing, or already embedded in the political and legal, personnel, or financial sectors. In Beijing, Wei Xiaodong is another point worth watching. During the years Cai Qi governed Beijing, Wei was in charge of managing cadres within the organization system. The downfall of someone who controlled Beijing's cadre personnel for a long time has a value completely different from an ordinary economic case, because head of the organization department holds the cadre relationship network. Thus, several points are now beginning to connect: local cadres in Fujian are falling one after another, regional heavyweights sent out from Fujian have been dismissed, and the Fujian faction's personnel network in Beijing is also being investigated. If these moves ultimately trace down along Xi Jinping's factional line, then what Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao are currently dismantling is the resolution of a more troublesome problem: after Xi Jinping steps down, will Xi's people still be around? If Xi Jinping should one day completely lose his position, but his old subordinates in the political and legal system are still there, his people in the General Office are still there, those in the organization system are still there, and a group of local party secretaries and provincial governors continue to acknowledge him, then even if Xi Jinping sits at home, he will not necessarily lose his influence entirely. A true transfer of power requires cutting this lifeline. Therefore, arresting a Quanzhou party secretary or a Nanping mayor ultimately means seeing whether these names can finally be pieced together into a complete picture. What Wen Jiabao most wants to do right now is precisely this: ensuring that after Xi Jinping leaves Zhongnanhai, he no longer has a complete personnel machinery that can work for him.

To judge how deep Wen Jiabao's purge is prepared to go, Li Zhanshu is a landmark figure. Before the 20th National Congress, Xi Jinping modified the rules, altering term limits and power arrangements, and many key political procedures could not bypass Li Zhanshu. Therefore, if one day even Li Zhanshu's network is truly cracked open, it will mean that the water level of the purge has risen from trouble among those close to Xi Jinping to a retroactive investigation of Xi Jinping's entire process of consolidating power. And along this line, several highly noteworthy moves have already appeared. On July 31, Guo Wenqing, former general manager of China Minmetals, voluntarily surrendered. His resume is very interesting: public records show that early in his career, he served as a secretary in the General Office of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee. In 1993 and 1997, Li Zhanshu was precisely the Secretary-General of the Hebei Provincial Standing Committee, meaning the two had clear professional intersections within the Hebei Provincial Party Committee General Office system. Reports from outside the firewall put it even more directly: Guo Wenqing was an old subordinate of Li Zhanshu in the past. Later, Guo Wenqing rose all the way to become the chairman of Sinosteel, and in 2016 entered China Minmetals as general manager. Now that this person has voluntarily surrendered and turned himself in, the reports immediately point the next clue toward Li Zhanshu's daughter and son-in-law. Therefore, what makes Guo Wenqing's entry into custody worthy of attention is whether he will bring out the problems within Li Zhanshu's family. Investigating Ma Xingrui or Wang Lixia can be called cadre-level officials of the Xi faction getting into trouble; investigating Wang Xiaohong, He Lifeng, or Cai Qi can be called starting to dismantle Xi Jinping's core team. But once the investigation reaches Li Zhanshu, the issue becomes whether a retroactive accounting must be conducted on Xi Jinping's entire power-formation process over the years. Right now, it appears that Wen Jiabao has no intention of stopping at Li Zhanshu.

This is also why this year's Beidaihe, compared to last year's Beidaihe, is completely different. Last year, people were still discussing how Xi Jinping could step down gracefully. According to reports from outside the Great Firewall, this set of arrangements was subsequently pushed forward until the Fourth Plenary Session last year. What happened—which we haven't fully discussed in our previous programs—was actually very ugly during those few days. For the first three days, members of the Political Bureau passed review one by one, making self-criticism during the day, and holding group discussions among Central Committee members and alternate members at night, running until the late hours of the night. Xi Jinping himself also made a self-criticism, which went beyond general mistakes in economy, diplomacy, and the epidemic, tracing all the way back to the post-19th National Congress, destroying succession rules, and forcefully securing a third term at the 20th National Congress—these fundamental issues. In the end, under the pretext of dereliction of duty, Xi Jinping personally proposed resigning from the positions of General Secretary and Chairman of the Central Military Commission. In other words, it is not that Xi Jinping never agreed to hand over power; he did agree, and made a political statement at the level of the Central Plenary Session. Li Qiang, Wang Huning, and other Political Bureau members also made self-criticisms respectively. Finally, Wen Jiabao came out to speak, conveying the meaning of Hu Jintao. The general idea was very clear: Xi Jinping engaged in personal dictatorship and destroyed the succession rules, and this issue must be dealt with; however, on the other hand, things must also be kept under control so that no one could take advantage of dealing with Xi Jinping to overturn the entire party's table. You see, it is still those two words we mentioned today: save the Party. Then came the vote. The arrangement formed at that time was that Xi Jinping would resign as General Secretary, to be replaced by Wang Yang as acting General Secretary, and resign as Chairman of the Central Military Commission, to be replaced by Liu Yuan as acting Chairman, while the responsibilities of other Political Bureau members would be dealt with later. But just when it came to raising hands at the end, a very interesting scene appeared later: there were six people in the venue who did not raise their hands—Xi Jinping, Cai Qi, He Lifeng, Li Hongzhong, Huang Kunming, and Wang Xiaohong. At that time, very strict confidentiality discipline was established regarding Xi Jinping's resignation, so in the publicly released documents later, you cannot see Xi Jinping's resignation. If the story ended here, there might not have been any anti-party clique today; Xi Jinping would probably have stepped down following Hua Guofeng's path. The problem is that something went wrong later. The incident involving Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli completely tore apart the previously negotiated situation. The military completely turned toward Hu Jintao, and the result turned into Xi Jinping having to step down. You see, at this time, the illegal 20th National Congress and the anti-party clique are not two suddenly emerging new terms; they are actually the next step that naturally escalated after the power-handover agreement broke down last year. Zeng Qinghong went around lobbying those conservative elders, but why did no one pay attention to him? Many people's mindset had already changed. It wasn't that Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao didn't give Xi Jinping a way out; that way out was given last year, and it was Xi Jinping himself who blocked it. If you like today's episode

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