Bodyguards Wanted to Arrest Xi Jinping in March, but Hu Jintao Stopped It! Now Sitting Opposite Xi to Monitor Him Specifically; Cai Qi Lost His Gun 50 Years Ago [Jiang Feng Horizon 20260919 Episode 492]

This episode reviews the historical evolution of the CCP Central Committee Security Bureau and the power struggles among former Directors of the General Office, focusing on the recent political clashes and personnel adjustments involving Security Bureau Director Zhou Hongxu, senior military leadership, and former leaders such as Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao.

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On September 12, at that meeting table in New Delhi, that face sitting next to Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu was Security Bureau Director Zhou Hongxu. Everyone has seen it these past few days, so I won't repeat it. This person was personally picked by Xi. In 2021, he didn't want someone promoted step-by-step within the security system; instead, he had Zhang Youxia pick someone for him from the field army. Why pick from the field army? Because he feared one person, and that person's name was Ling Jihua. Ling Jihua was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2016 and is still locked up today, but Xi has remembered for eight years—and guarded against for eight years—that night when Ling used the General Secretary's security bureau as his personal security guard. Five years later, the person Xi picked sits opposite him, keeping an eye on him on behalf of Hu Jintao.

The Central Committee Security Bureau has never taken orders from the Director of the General Office; it answers to the Central Military Commission. In 1989, the Director of the General Office was Wen Jiabao, and he couldn't command that force when Zhao Ziyang fell from power. Two years earlier, in 1987, when Hu Yaobang fell from power, the Director of the General Office was also Wen Jiabao. In 2012, the Director of the General Office was Ling Jihua; he was able to control the Security Bureau, but his control resulted in a major crisis. Today, Cai Qi is the Director of the General Office and likewise cannot command them; Xi, sitting beside him, is just waiting to be retroactively confirmed as removed from power. Across 37 years and 7 Directors of the General Office—Wen Jiabao, Zeng Qinghong, Wang Gang, Ling Jihua,栗战书 (Li Zhanshu), Ding Xuexiang, and Cai Qi—the Directors of the General Office lost their guns, and out of the 7, two lost their General Secretaries: one was Wen Jiabao and the other was Cai Qi. Opening up the ledger of these 7 directors reveals whose orders the Security Bureau guarding the venue and the field army waiting outside would obey on the day of the Fifth Plenary Session in October.

Central Committee Security Bureau Director Zhou Hongxu leaked that during the Two Sessions in March, he broke away from Cai Qi's control, and his very first move was to demand immediate action to capture the Xi clique by force. However, he didn't make a move—not because he didn't dare, but because there was no order from the Central Military Commission. Military veterans like Liu Yuan and Li Zuocheng each reached out to him, telling him to obey the arrangements of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. How did this come about? It goes back to January 20. On that day, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli got into trouble at the Central Party School. Outside sources leaked that on that same day, Cai Qi briefly controlled two people: Vice Chairman of the Military Commission Zhang Shengmin and Security Bureau Director Zhou Hongxu. After the March Two Sessions, both men successively broke free from Cai Qi's control; Zhang Shengmin took charge of the daily operations of the Central Military Commission, and Zhou Hongxu regained control of the Central Committee Security Bureau. In June, when Xi and his wife visited North Korea accompanied by Cai Qi, Cai had already lost command of the Security Bureau before departure. This is the crux: when a man who commands tens of thousands of troops and guards Zhongnanhai wants to move but cannot, what does that indicate? It indicates that the orders of the Military Commission are more useful than his gun barrel. Whose orders does the Military Commission obey? Zhang Shengmin is in charge of daily operations, and CCP generals and veteran military leaders have collectively pledged allegiance to Hu Jintao. In other words, this force has returned from the hands of the General Office to the hands of the Military Commission, and the hands holding the Military Commission today belong to Hu Jintao.

Some might ask, what does Old Xi still have in his hands? At most, the Central Guard Bureau and the Ministry of Public Security, along with several thousand armed personnel in secret forces. This April, Wang Xiaohong was taken away for questioning by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and the Ministry of Public Security stopped listening to him. To this day, the Central Guard Bureau has already returned to the Military Commission, leaving Old Xi with only a nominal title. Look again at the security for the Fifth Plenary Session: it is managed by the Central Guard Bureau, directly commanded by Zhang Shengmin, and the meeting logistics and agenda are arranged by the General Office Secretariat. Cai Qi is nominally the Director of the General Office, but Meng Xiangfeng, the executive deputy director of the General Office, has become Wen Jiabao's eyes and ears. The venue's security belongs to the Military Commission, the meeting's agenda belongs to Wen Jiabao, and as for what Cai Qi is in charge of, he can barely manage himself.

Then there is the control of the ground and the skies. The 38th Group Army is stationed in Baoding; military vehicles can enter Beijing in three hours and tanks in five. After January 20 this year, Central Theater Command Commander Han Shengyan and Liu Yuan rushed to the 38th Group Army headquarters in Baoding, deploying two brigades to the outskirts of Beijing. Now there is a dual insurance policy. The first layer: Zhang Shengmin commands the garrison and the Guard Bureau to guard Beijing city and Zhongnanhai. The second layer: Han Shengyan sits in the Xishan command post commanding the 38th Group Army Special Operations Brigade. In case the garrison forces and the Central Guard Bureau do not obey the Military Commission, the Special Operations Brigade can intervene by force at any time. Sky control is this week's news: starting September 20, China drew a permanent special restricted zone with a radius of 600 kilometers centered on Beijing. Covering 280,000 square kilometers, it is larger than Italy, completely closed from the ground to infinite altitude, allowing only approved civil commercial flights, official aircraft, military, police, customs, and fire rescue. This circle covers Beijing, Tianjin, and most of Hebei, extending into Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shandong, Liaoning, and the Bohai Sea, covering about 100 million people. The official reason given is that a light aircraft hit the China Zun building on June 26. Interestingly, an accident in June only gets rules made in September, and the effective date was chosen to be one month before the Fifth Plenary Session, encircling an area within a 600-kilometer radius of Beijing. The person in charge of the skies is Central Theater Command Commander Han Shengyan, an air force veteran promoted to general last December. One air force commander was arranged in both the central and eastern theaters, and these two air forces keep the army tightly monitored. When Zhou Hongxu wanted to make a move in March, the Military Commission told him not to, and he didn't. This speaks louder than him making a move, showing that orders from Hu Jintao down to the lower levels are fully connected. On the day of the meeting, the venue was guarded by Zhou Hongxu's Guard Bureau, the 38th Group Army waited outside the venue, and the meeting agenda was arranged by Wen Jiabao's Secretariat.

Speaking of this, some friends will definitely ask, doesn't the Central Guard Bureau belong to the General Office, and isn't Cai Qi the Director of the General Office? Why doesn't it listen to Cai Qi and instead listens to the Military Commission? Who set this rule? Deng Xiaoping designed it this way. The Central Guard Bureau manages the personal security of Zhongnanhai and the party's top leaders, and the unit under it is called the Central Guard Regiment. During Mao Zedong's era, its designation was 8341, led by Wang Dongxing. When the Gang of Four was arrested in October 1976, it was this unit that made the move inside Zhongnanhai, with Zhang Yaozi leading dozens of guard regiment soldiers inside. Back then, Wang Dongxing concurrently held the posts of Director of the General Office and Chief of the Guard Bureau. A Director oferdas the General Office holding this unit could decide who became Chairman. Deng Xiaoping saw this most clearly. People outside the walls discussing the system say that after Deng Xiaoping's political comeback in 1977, his very first task was to have Military Commission Secretary-General Luo Ruiqing transfer the subordination of the Central Guard Regiment from the General Office to the Central Military Commission, incorporating it into the General Staff's Guard Bureau, and then bringing back Zhou Enlai's old chief guard Yang Dezhi to manage the Guard Bureau. The Director of the General Office losing their guns started from that very day. The person who took away the gun was Deng Xiaoping, and the reason he took it away was because he saw with his own eyes a Director of the General Office swap out the top tier of the CCP using this unit.

Remember this unit's identity first: its members wear military uniforms, hold military ranks, and follow military discipline according to military rules. Historically, it bore the sign of the Ministry of Public Security's 9th Bureau, but at its core, it has always been under the General Staff Department. After the military reform, it belongs to the Joint Staff Department of the Military Commission. This guard regiment has tens of thousands of people, but these tens of thousands only manage the inner circle around the leaders; outside of Zhongnanhai, the outer circle relies on local police and the People's Armed Police. The commander of the Central Guard Bureau is a lieutenant general, and their appointment is never made public; Xinhua News Agency has never issued a single report on it. So what is its relationship with the General Office? Nominally, the Central Guard Bureau is under the dual leadership of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee and the Central Military Commission. The Director of the General Office is its superior, and normally it listens to both sides. But when the two sides clash, it only leans toward the Military Commission because the military does not take orders from civilian officials. This is what is meant by: the Director of the General Office has a claim to its title, but not to its guns. This phrase did not originate today; someone tested it with themselves. In the early morning hours of May 19, 1989, Zhao Ziyang told the students in Tiananmen Square that we came too late. Standing right behind him was Wen Jiabao, who was then the Director of the General Office. The next day, when the martial law decree came down, Wen Jiabao discovered that ever since that April 26 editorial was published, the Central Guard Bureau stopped listening to the General Office and only listened to the Central Military Commission—meaning it only listened to Deng Xiaoping. Deng Xiaoping had the Central Guard Regiment place Zhao Ziyang under house arrest first, and it wasn't until the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee in June that Zhao Ziyang's duties were officially stripped. Therefore, for this party to remove a sitting General Secretary, there has only ever been one way: first make it so he can no longer command the unit right beside him.

Back then, the first deputy director of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee was Yang Dezhong. As Zhou Enlai's former bodyguard, he managed the Security Bureau and took orders from Deng Xiaoping. After Deng Xiaoping took the security regiment away from the General Office in 1977, Yang was the one who took over the regiment. He had already served as the political commissar of the security regiment in 1953, making him even more senior than Wang Dongxing. What did Wen Jiabao learn from this incident? That the Central Security Bureau will not entirely obey the Director of the General Office. If you want to use them at a critical moment, there must be a resolution and signature from the members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. Look at what Wen Jiabao is doing now; he doesn't touch the business of guns, but only does two things. First, conference affairs—what is discussed at meetings and the agenda are arranged by the Secretariat Bureau of the General Office. The former director of the Secretariat Bureau, Kong Shaoxun, was sent all the way to Gansu by Wen Jiabao. Second, signatures—resolutions and signatures of the Standing Committee. Thirty-seven years ago he didn't have this channel, but today Wen Jiabao has it; he is the leader of a deliberative and coordinating body. There is also this saying: whether the Director of the General Office has power does not depend on whether he is a member of the Standing Committee, but on whether he can mobilize the Secretariat. Cai Qi is a member of the Standing Committee and the First Secretary of the Secretariat, but can he mobilize the Secretariat? The Minister of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee is Shi Taifeng, and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection is led by Li Xi; neither of them are Old Xi's people. Looking at it the other way around, Wen Jiabao is not the Director of the General Office, but today he can mobilize the Secretariat. This is what is meant by the principle that power does not lie in the position, but in whether one can make people work.

Now someone might ask: among the seven directors of the General Office, was there ever one who truly kept this military force under control? Yes, there was only one, and his control of it resulted in a car accident. Today we want to answer a question directly: how could someone as shrewd as Hu Jintao end up with a Ling Jihua by his side? Could he not have known? Commentators outside the firewall who analyze the political system gave an answer, and I will give you their exact words first. Hu Jintao was a delegating leader. From the time Ling Jihua entered the General Office in 1996 until he stepped down in 2012—sixteen or seventeen years—he spent the first decade or so as deputy director. In 2007, when Hu became the top leader, Ling became the Director of the General Office. After more than a decade of working together as a pair, whenever Hu Jintao moved his eyebrows, Ling Jihua knew what he was thinking. That commentator said that Hu Jintao's power was not absolute authority, but within those few shares of power, Ling Jihua took a very large portion. How did Ling Jihua use this power? That person mentioned three things. First, he replaced everyone up and down the General Office with his own people; the director of the Secretariat Bureau was his man, the director of the Personnel Bureau was his man, and even the telephone operators were his people. Second, among those families in the Secretariat, Li Yuanchao was originally his superior but later became his subordinate; He Yong, who actually ran things in the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, leaned toward him from the very beginning; and a large majority of the members of the Standing Committee of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee were Ling family people. Third, and most crucially, Cao Qing, the director of the Central Security Bureau and Hu Jintao's confidant, took orders from Ling Jihua. This was the only one among the seven directors of the General Office who truly kept the Security Bureau under control. Once he had it under control, what happened afterward? In the early morning of March 18, 2012, at Baofusi Bridge in Beijing, a black Ferrari crashed into a wall and disintegrated, leaving one dead and two injured in the car. A few months later, people found out that the dead person was Ling Jihua's son, Ling Gu. The exact words of the person outside the firewall were that when dealing with Ling Gu's car accident, Ling Jihua commanded the Central Security Bureau just like commanding the security guards at his own home. Imagine this scene: the General Secretary's personal security unit was dispatched in the middle of the night by the Director of the General Office to handle his own son's car accident. Two people witnessed this matter: one was Old Xi—the commentator said that Old Xi started feeling uneasy from that night onward—and the other was Hu Jintao. Did Hu Jintao know that Ling Jihua was using his General Office and his Security Bureau as if they were his own family's? I think he knew; he just found it difficult to handle. Hu Jintao was a delegating leader who did not handle details himself. The General Office was his hand reaching into the Secretariat, He Yong was his hand reaching into the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and Shanxi was his hand reaching into the localities. All three of these hands were in Ling Jihua's single person; if you cut off this hand, he would be left bare-handed. This is what happens when you raise a chief steward too big: the master can no longer replace the chief steward.

If you look at the sequence of events that year, you can tell whether old Hu lost or not. The news of the car accident in March came back from Hong Kong media. The 18th National Congress that year was led by Jiang Zemin. In September, Ling Jihua was moved from the director of the General Office to the head of the United Front Work Department. At that time, Hu Jintao was still in office, but he could no longer protect him. In November, at the 18th National Congress, Hu Jintao stepped down completely, not retaining the position of Chairman of the Military Commission for even a single day. Li Yuanchao and Wang Yang did not enter the Standing Committee. Looking up a level, whoever arranged the list for the 18th National Congress that year was the one who made an issue out of this car accident. I will not name this level; you can look at the list yourselves. Ling Jihua was tied together in a faction with Zhou Yongkang, Bo Xilai, and Xu Caihou. I have always found this strange: why would the chief secretary of a General Secretary hang out with Zhou Yongkang, who ranked last in the Political Bureau, hoping for what? Someone outside the firewall gave an explanation: on the night of Ling Gu's car accident, Ling Jihua begged Zhou Yongkang to help suppress the news. That one night of connection was enough for the CCP overseas propaganda to tie the four of them into a faction. On December 22, 2014, the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau announced an investigation into Ling Jihua. Nine days later, on December 31, Sun Chunlan took over his position as head of the United Front Work Department. Remember this date; it will be useful later. Now, looking at what Hu Jintao did after his return, you will know how he defined Ling Jihua's nature in his heart. After Hu Jintao regained power, he promoted several of Ling Jihua's people. Gao Qi, a native of Luliang, Shanxi, a fellow townsman of Ling Jihua and a secretary to Yu Zhengsheng, became the Vice Minister of Public Security this year, specifically keeping an eye on Wang Xiaohong. If a person treats his own chief secretary as a traitor, would he come back and continue to use his people? No. Hu Jintao never regarded Ling Jihua as a traitor, but he learned one thing. Overseas leaks say that after Hu Jintao returned, he instructed that the Beijing Garrison Command and the Central Guard Bureau be configured on a 1-to-1 basis, equivalent to building a shadow Guard Bureau to monitor every move of the Guard Bureau.

Some friends might ask: if Ling Jihua had not mobilized the troops of the General Office that night and instead followed official procedures by calling the police, calling for rescue, or going through the court, would he still have fallen? I think he still would have fallen, but it would have taken longer and the case would have been handled with more difficulty. Just think about the position he was sitting in. The General Office was his, He Yong's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection leaned toward him, Li Yuanchao was his younger brother, and half of the Standing Committee in Shanxi belonged to the Ling family. He was aiming to enter the Standing Committee at the 19th National Congress. But the problem was that whoever took over in 2012, the first thing they had to remove from the table was him, because he occupied the real power of the Secretariat, and the new General Secretary could not start working without removing him. Without that night, he most likely would have entered the Political Bureau at the 18th National Congress and continued as the director of the General Office. To move a sitting member of the Political Bureau and the chief steward of the inner court, an accident on the scale of Wang Lijun's was needed—that was how Bo Xilai was brought down. With that night, he was moved to the United Front Work Department in September, failed to enter the Political Bureau at the 18th National Congress, and became a member of the Central Committee without an amulet. Two years later, when an investigation was initiated, the case still used the matter of his own son. He did not die because of mobilizing troops, but because the power in his hands was something the successor had to take back anyway. The night of mobilizing troops simply meant that the person taking it back did not have to pay the full price. Therefore, among the seven directors of the General Office, the only one who had ever controlled the Guard Bureau managed to engineer a car accident, dragging the master down with him. Old Xi saw this and spent eight years purging this person's shadow from the General Office and the Guard Bureau. Hu Jintao also saw this, and his very first action upon returning was to take the gun out of the hands of the General Office and hand it over to the Military Commission. Both of them reached the same conclusion: the gun cannot remain in the hands of the General Office.

So how did old Xi step by step pry the hand of the director of the General Office off the gun, and who replaced him? In November 2012, at the 18th National Congress, Li Zhanshu took over as the director of the General Office. People outside the firewall who understand the system said that when Li Zhanshu came up, old Xi had not yet firmly established himself, and only became the core at the end of 2016. The 18th National Congress was led by Jiang Zemin; Hu Jintao was still in good health and the Youth League faction still had great influence. But there was one thing Li Zhanshu did the moment he came up: purge the General Office. The original words of that person were: Ling Jihua had planted quite a few of his own people in the General Office, including personnel from the Secretariat Bureau and switchboard operators. Even after Ling Jihua moved to the United Front Work Department, he was still able to know every day what documents old Xi read and what he said. It was later discovered that old Xi's second secretary, Zhu Guofeng, was planted by Ling Jihua. Zhong Shaojun went to investigate, and afterwards Zhu Guofeng was transferred to the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives. That person said this was also to save face for Hu Jintao; presumably Zhu Guofeng did not do anything too out of line. Having a secretary who had been with old Xi for five years turn out to be Ling Jihua's man—you can imagine what it felt like in the General Office during those years: walking on thin ice amidst every rustle of leaves.

Next is the Central Security Bureau. It is reported that Xi Jinping understands the operation of power very well and knows that the Central Security Bureau is critical. However, the director at the time, Cao Qing, was a man of Hu Jintao. On the night of Ling Gu's car accident, it was Cao Qing who followed Ling Jihua's orders to dispatch troops. On December 22, 2014, a case was filed against Ling Jihua. Around March 2015, Cao Qing was transferred to the Beijing Military Region as deputy commander. Within those three months, Deputy Director Wang Qing was also moved, Li Zhanshu concurrently served as the first political commissar of the Central Security Bureau, and Wang Shaojun, who served as Xi's personal bodyguard, was promoted to director of the Central Security Bureau. The positions of director, deputy director, and political commissar were all changed at once, yet no investigation was conducted on any of them. Ling Jihua was the Director of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee and Cao Qing's nominal superior. When a superior transfers troops, the director complies; there is no fault to be found in terms of discipline. To convict Cao Qing, one would first have to convict Ling Jihua, so they waited for more than two years. Besides, Cao Qing was Hu Jintao's man, and since Hu Jintao was still around, moving against Cao Qing meant moving against Hu. In 2015, Xi was not yet the core. The final layer: the director of the Central Security Bureau knows everything that happens in your bedroom. Such a person cannot be subjected to 'shuanggui' (disciplinary detention) and can only be moved to a different post. They had to find a pretext unrelated to politics. The pretext for moving Cao Qing was ivory. Personnel from the Security Bureau are exempt from security checks when flying, and the smuggling of ivory during overseas visits was leaked to foreign media, which was then used as an excuse for punishment. Zhong Shaojun was involved throughout the process. This is an account from outside the Great Firewall; the authorities have never officially confirmed that Cao Qing himself was involved in the case. We are just listening to the sequence of events. After Cao Qing left, he was succeeded by Wang Shaojun, who had been Xi's personal bodyguard and had risen through the security system level by level. By 2016, as a lieutenant general, he was truly Xi's loyalist. But this loyalist only served for six years; he fell seriously ill in 2021, and passed away in April 2023. The authorities suppressed the news for three months before announcing it.

Some friends might ask, since the appointment of the Central Security Bureau director is never announced, why issue an obituary when he dies? Because he was a lieutenant general and a member of the 19th Central Committee. Appointments may not be announced—that is the rule for security work—but when a Central Committee member passes away, Xinhua News Agency issues an obituary as a matter of course; this procedure cannot be skipped. A man who guarded the General Secretary for over a decade died of illness in his fifties, and the authorities suppressed the obituary for three months without stating a cause of death. We won't make up a cause of death, but let's look at what was happening in Beijing during those three months. On June 25, 2023, Foreign Minister Qin Gang made his last appearance, and then he disappeared. In July, investigations began into Defense Minister Li Shangfu, who was Zhang Youxia's man. Xi began to fall out with Zhang Youxia. At the end of July, the commander and political commissar of the Rocket Force were both replaced. This means that during the three months after Wang Shaojun's death, Xi was in the middle of a confrontation with Zhang Youxia, and at that time, the director of the Central Security Bureau was already Zhou Hongxu, a confidant of Zhang Youxia. If they had issued an obituary then, saying that the man who had been the General Secretary's bodyguard for over a decade was gone, what would the whole party have thought? So they suppressed it for three months until the Rocket Force leadership was replaced.

Let's talk about how Zhou Hongxu came to power. In 2021, when Wang Shaojun was seriously ill, Xi did not pick a director from within the security system. The previous three—You Xigui, Cao Qing, and Wang Shaojun—were all people who had spent their entire lives in the security system. This time, they broke the rule and picked someone from the field army. Reports from outside the Great Firewall say that Xi demanded Zhang Youxia arrange his own people as director during the 20th National Congress, so Zhang Youxia promoted Zhou Hongxu from the Northern Theater Command to the Security Bureau. Xi also kept an ace up his sleeve: he transferred someone from the 31st Group Army to serve as deputy director and political commissar of the Security Regiment. The 31st Army was Xi's old unit from his time in Fujian. The director was Zhang Youxia's man, and the deputy director was Xi's own man. What is Zhou Hongxu's background? Born in 1971, he holds a master's degree from the Army Artillery Academy. His first decent position was commander of the Artillery Regiment of the 40th Division of the 14th Group Army. The 14th Army was the unit where Zhang Youxia started his career during the Vietnam War. Later, he served as director of the Military Training Department of the Chengdu Military Region Headquarters, and then as deputy chief of staff of the Northern Theater Command Army—all places where Zhang Youxia had worked. In July 2021, Hong Kong media identified him as the new director of the Central Security Bureau and he was awarded the rank of major general. The authorities never announced this appointment from beginning to end. Before he took over the Security Bureau, his public resume did not show a single day spent in the security system. Now you understand what Xi was thinking. He was afraid of the Ling Jihua scenario, where a Director of the General Office turns the Security Bureau into his own private security force. So he didn't want anyone from inside the security system; those people had dealt with the General Office their whole lives. He wanted a field army officer who had no connection to the General Office. This is what it means to pry the General Office Director's hand off the gun. But after prying it off, the gun is only held by one hand, and that hand is the Central Military Commission. And Zhou Hongxu was still picked by Zhang Youxia. At the 2022 20th National Congress, it was Zhang Youxia who ordered Zhou Hongxu to seal off the venue. Some say Zhou Hongxu turned to Xi this January. Reports from outside the Great Firewall say this is a misunderstanding of the military's factional culture. If a soldier betrays his faction, his reputation is ruined; no one wants to be associated with a backstabber. Zhou Hongxu was indeed controlled by Cai Qi in January, but by the time of the 'Two Sessions' in March, he had the opportunity to break away.

There is another person you must look at: the fate of the previous chief steward of the military. Zhong Shaojun, who had been involved in the replacement of Cao Qing in the General Office of the CCP Central Committee since 2013, was Xi Jinping's most powerful secretary in the military. He was expelled from the Central Military Commission in March 2024, taken away by the military discipline commission after the Fourth Plenary Session, and stripped of his status as a deputy to the National People's Congress at the end of August. Reports outside the Great Firewall even claim he wrote letters from prison; the man who once replaced the director of the Guard Bureau for him is now locked up inside himself. Xi Jinping spent eight years erasing the influence of Ling Jihua in the General Office and the Guard Bureau, prying the hands of the Director of the General Office off the guns, and then letting Zhang Youxia pick someone from the field army who had no connection to the General Office. He guarded against Ling Jihua's playbook, but he didn't expect one thing: once the guns are held by only one hand—the Central Military Commission—the guns must change hands whenever the master of the Commission changes. Zhang Youxia has been in power for eight months, yet the person Old Zhang picked hasn't been replaced by Xi Jinping. There is only one explanation that makes sense: Xi Jinping cannot replace this person.

On September 17, Dai Yulin, former deputy party secretary and vice chairman of the Liaoning Provincial Committee of the CPPCC, was placed under investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Why dig him up now after three years of retirement? If you look at his resume, it is all public. Before 1998, he was a professor at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics. In April 1998, Bo Xilai plucked him from the university to be the director of the Dalian Financial Office. By August, he was deputy secretary-general of the municipal government, and by December, assistant to the mayor, in charge of all of Dalian's finance and economics—a triple jump in eight months. Dalian is a sub-provincial city; the highest rank a mayor can promote an official to without the approval of the provincial party standing committee is deputy bureau level. Bo Xilai pushed a professor to the position of assistant to the mayor at the very limit of his own power. In 2001, Bo Xilai was promoted to Governor of Liaoning, and in May, Dai Yulin was promoted to Vice Mayor of Dalian. When a person has someone's name carved on their forehead from the first day they enter officialdom, this is the example. Look at the next Dalian party secretary, Sun Chunlan. During the four years Sun Chunlan was in Dalian from 2001 to 2005, Dai Yulin was her vice mayor. Sun Chunlan is a local from Liaoning; from 1991 to 1997, she worked in the Liaoning Provincial Federation of Trade Unions, rising from vice chair to chair and entering the provincial party standing committee. In 2010, Dai Yulin went to Dandong as party secretary for five years, and then came the date I asked you to remember: December 22, 2014, when Ling Jihua was placed under investigation, and December 31, when Sun Chunlan succeeded Ling Jihua as head of the United Front Work Department. In January 2015, Dai Yulin was promoted to the Standing Committee of the Liaoning Provincial Party Committee, and in April, he concurrently served as chairman of the provincial federation of trade unions. These four events happened in quick succession. The interpretation circulating outside the Great Firewall is that Sun Chunlan went to the United Front Work Department to clean up Ling Jihua's people for Xi Jinping, and Dai Yulin went to Liaoning to sit in the federation of trade unions to watch Sun Chunlan's rear. Add one more public fact: in May 2015, Li Xi succeeded as Liaoning Provincial Party Secretary. At the end of 2016, Dai Yulin withdrew from the provincial party standing committee and went to the provincial CPPCC. It was Li Xi who moved him out of the standing committee, and it was also Li Xi, now Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, who took him down on September 17, 2026.

I see this line connecting this way: as I said before, Hu Jintao never considered Ling Jihua a traitor and continued to use Ling's people after he returned. So who was it that purged Ling Jihua's people back then? The front stage was Wang Qishan's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the United Front Work Department side was Sun Chunlan, and Sun Chunlan's rear was Dai Yulin. Today, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection is in the hands of Li Xi. Before the Fifth Plenary Session, they accelerated the pace, and the first batch of people taken included this man who was watching the rear. This is called settling the account; they are settling the account from 2014. There were a few other things in Liaoning this week: on September 12, Dalian Party Secretary Xiong Maoping was removed from his post. The announcement didn't even include the phrase "to be assigned to another post," and he presided over the meeting that announced his own removal. On September 14, Provincial Party Secretary-General Huo Bugang was promoted to deputy secretary. On September 15, Yao Huaming became acting mayor of Dalian, and Ma Shanshan became acting mayor of Shenyang. On September 17, Dai Yulin was investigated. There is another layer you must see: Zhou Hongxu came from the Northern Theater Command, and Liaoning is the territory of the Northern Theater Command. The director of the Guard Bureau who guards the venue comes from here, and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection that is settling the accounts is taking action here. These two lines meeting in Liaoning is not a coincidence; it is the same group of people doing things in the same place. Liaoning is settling the account of Bo Xilai, starting from Dalian. Sun Chunlan, who once cleaned up people for Xi Jinping, has retired; Dai Yulin has been investigated; Zhong Shaojun is in prison. Line up these names, and you see what has happened to the people Xi Jinping has used over the past decade.

So how will the meeting in October actually be held? This is what I want to talk about today. The General Secretary's bodyguards have always been from the military, not the General Office. It makes no difference who is General Secretary; of the seven directors of the General Office, two lost their General Secretary—both were unable to control this force. In 1989, Wen Jiabao lost Zhao Ziyang; today, Cai Qi will lose Xi Jinping. We will see it before the 21st National Congress. The one who managed to control it in the middle, Ling Jihua, did not lose General Secretary Hu Jintao, who handed over power when his time was up, but he managed to cause a car accident, and the master couldn't even keep his position as Chairman of the Central Military Commission. Those who couldn't control it lost their seats, and those who did control it got into trouble; the Director of the General Office should never touch this force.