Xi Jinping's Re-election Dream Shattered! On the Third Day of the Fifth Plenary Session, Will Li Qiang Deliver the Final Blow? Mbappe's 'Chinese Dictator' Remark Triggers CCTV Ban, 15 Inspection Teams Enter the Ministry of Education and Universities, and Online Rumors Circulate of a Joint Letter from 14 Universities Demanding the Abolition of Term Limits! [Jiang Feng Vision 20261028 Episode 525]
This episode reviews several major events during the opening of the Fifth Plenary Session: French football star Kylian Mbappé was banned by CCTV and had brand endorsements terminated due to comments involving a dictator; 15 central inspection teams were dispatched to the Ministry of Education and 31 universities; a joint letter circulating online from 14 universities demanded the abolition of the indefinite term system for the President; it also discusses Li Qiang's political choices on the eve of the 21st National Congress and the trends of historical power shifts.
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Hello friends, welcome to Jiang Feng Vision. Let me state the conclusion first: the Mao Zedong dream that the person in Zhongnanhai has been chasing for fourteen years was punctured by three knives this week. One came from outside the Great Firewall, a meme featuring a French forward; one struck his power base; and the sharpest one was right beside him, from his own Premier. On the list for the 21st National Congress next year, the first name to be found missing will likely be his own.
"Not found" is the treatment China has given a world-class football star over the past two days. The second-best player in the world at the Ballon d'Or, his name has vanished from Chinese lists, and his face has been covered up. What exactly did he say? If you ask an AI in China, it wouldn't dare answer. Let me keep you in suspense for a moment; once you hear the ins and outs of this story, you will realize that the biggest person insulting China here isn't the football star, but rather one of the top officials under the leader himself.
Then there is the second knife, which has already struck the leader's power base. The ideology he spent five years instilling in children from the first grade of primary school all the way to university has started to crack from within. On the day the plenary session opened, 15 inspection teams stormed into the Ministry of Education, and simultaneously, a joint letter from 14 universities appeared online. A child said something to their mother, and I couldn't recover from it for a long time after hearing it.
The third knife is the sharpest, delivered directly to the conference table at the Jingxi Hotel. It is the third day of the plenary session, and someone outside the Great Firewall has posted a price tag for Li Qiang. Fifty years ago, only 27 days after Chairman Mao passed away, the person he trusted most turned against him. Will Li Qiang be the second? Today, let's look at these knives one by one, starting with the midnight phone call at the Jingxi Hotel on the night of October 26, when the Fifth Plenary Session opened.
Shen Haixiong, a member of the 20th Central Committee, Deputy Head of the Publicity Department, and President of China Media Group (CCTV), was at the Jingxi Hotel at that moment, as one of the attendees of the Fifth Plenary Session. On October 26, the first day of the session, he sat in the audience during the day, listening to the leader talk about comprehensive strict party governance, taking notes meticulously. After the meeting ended in the evening and he returned to his hotel room, his phone rang—it was the duty officer at the station. "President, something has happened. Mbappé said something." What did he say? The person on the other end of the line stuttered and didn't dare to read it, and the person on this end didn't dare to ask further. Separated by a phone line, neither was willing to be the first to say those five words: "Chinese dictator." But both knew exactly who was being referred to. That night, Shen Haixiong probably paced back and forth in his room several times. If he didn't take a stand, and someone submitted a report tomorrow saying that CCTV played dumb in the face of major issues, who could afford to wear that hat at such a critical moment? If he did take a stand, he would have to show a posture more ruthless than anyone else. He chose to be ruthless. Once that ruthlessness was unleashed, all of China witnessed an absurd drama of someone being "not found."
Who is Kylian Mbappé? For those who don't watch football, you might not be familiar with him. Let's put it this way: he is the 27-year-old captain of the French national team and the star forward for Real Madrid. In China, he endorses Dongpeng Beverage's Boshuila, Mengniu, and Milkground cheese, and subway stations are plastered with huge posters of him. Yet, just like that, on the evening of October 26 in London, he won second place for the Ballon d'Or. On Dongpeng's ranking list, Harry Kane was first, Lamine Yamal was third, and the four characters right in the middle—well, he simply ceased to exist. When the CCP expels a general, the official list treats them this way; when it expels a member of the CCP Central Committee, the list treats them the same way. Now, it's the turn of a football player.
If you were in China, you probably had no idea what happened that night. The next morning, the moment people opened their eyes, Dongpeng Beverage issued a statement terminating all cooperation. Soon after, Mengniu and Milkground followed suit, using almost identical phrasing: resolute boycott and zero tolerance for any words or deeds that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people. Xiaohongshu was even funnier, hastily posting that their cooperation with him was set to expire on December 31, 2024, and that they were currently taking down related materials—implying they broke up long ago, so don't pin this on them. According to reports, Dongpeng Beverage's stock plunged by over four points at one point during trading; patriotism isn't free. At the Xujiahui subway station in Shanghai, that huge Boshuila ad on the wall featured Mbappé in a blue jersey raising his leg to shoot. His face had been covered with a piece of plastic wrap—his body was still there, but his face was gone. As for Dior and Oakley, netizens searched for Mbappé on their official Chinese Weibo accounts only to find no content. Yet if you open their overseas official websites, Mbappé's ads are still running just fine. In China, accusations of hurting the Chinese people's feelings have an expiration date—once you cross the Great Firewall, they expire.
So what on earth did he actually say? This is the most interesting part: nobody inside the country knows. Dongpeng's statement was crystal clear: because his remarks involved harm to China and the Chinese people, they could not translate them. Just think about that sentence: you've been hurt, but you aren't allowed to know how you were hurt. Netizens on Weibo were stamping their feet in anxiety: what on exact did he say so that we can hate him together? Some went to ask Doubao, DeepSeek, and Tencent's Xiaowei, and the AI responses were unanimous: I cannot answer this question. Fourteen billion people were ordered to be angry, yet not a single person was allowed to know what they were angry about. Let me read the original words to my friends inside the country. This was from a backstage interview on the French show The Bridge, recorded this spring, broadcast in early April, and it only went viral again online on the night of the Ballon d'Or. Why did an old clip broadcast half a year ago suddenly go viral at this exact moment? We'll talk about that later. At the time, the host asked him: which meme made using your face makes you laugh the most? He said there were too many, and then continued: someone took a video of someone—I remember he seemed to be a Chinese dictator—and then photoshopped my face onto it, and said he often used it when playing video games with friends.
Let's be clear first: he didn't photoshopped this picture himself. Over the past couple of years, a meme called Dictator Mbappé has been popular online. The origin was that fans thought he was too domineering, as Real Madrid's coach kept changing and rumors online claimed he was unhappy, and that whoever wore the captain's armband or took the pitch seemed to require his nod. Fans used image-editing software and AI to paste his face onto various dictators—people in military uniforms, sitting on thrones, standing alongside Stalin, and Mao's official portrait was in there too. During this year's World Cup, fans in the stands held up a banner of him as a dictator, and his French national team teammates simply gave him a nickname derived from Mobutu, the old dictator of Zaire, which is today's Democratic Republic of the Congo. Even more interestingly, just last month, in an interview with France Football, he himself said that these memes have a funny side and a not-so-funny side, because those people in history have harmed many people, and comparing him to someone who has killed people and made millions suffer is something he has never done in his life. Sometimes this just shows that some people lack political common sense.
Do you understand now? The picture was photoshopped by netizens, the meme was played by fans, and he himself even thought these memes lacked common sense. When he laughed on the show, he was laughing at netizens photoshopping him as a dictator. In the West, when a star player is called a dictator, it's because he is too domineering in the locker room. But the moment this sentence was transmitted into China, the one getting anxious on behalf of others turned out to be that person inside Zhongnanhai. Let's return to his original words: he didn't mention Mao Zedong, nor did he mention any specific name—I recall it seemed like he couldn't even remember who it was. But that's precisely where the problem lies. When a Frenchman mentions a Chinese dictator without naming anyone, the entire Chinese propaganda machine hears it and instantly knows who is being talked about, rushing to cry out in pain on his behalf. What is this called? It's like the Chinese idiom of burying three hundred taels of silver here to proclaim one's innocence. If you hadn't jumped out, out of fourteen billion people, maybe thirteen billion wouldn't have known about this matter. By jumping out like this, the entire population of the country instantly understood that in your own hearts, the Chinese dictator is precisely that person.
What fanned this fire across the country was neither Dongqiudi nor Mengniu, but the person we just mentioned, Shen Haixiong, the head of CCTV who answered the phone at the Jingxi Hotel. On October 26, the very day the Fifth Plenary Session opened, China Media Group suspended the broadcast of La Liga matches and removed advertisements related to Mbappe. In his capacity as head of the group, Shen also wrote a letter to La Liga President Tebas, demanding that Real Madrid and Mbappe himself immediately issue a public apology and submit a written apology to the group. The next day, October 27, according to the schedule, was for panel discussions. In the morning, Shen probably read a speech about resolutely supporting the leadership in his group meeting, and in the afternoon, Tebas's reply and apology arrived. Dissatisfied after reading it, Shen replied in the name of the head of the group again, stating that La Liga, Real Madrid, and especially Mbappe himself must publicly apologize as soon as possible, and that everything else is off the table unless an apology is made first. La Liga had no choice but to issue another statement, apologizing to Chinese fans on behalf of the league and all its clubs. Even Barcelona, Real Madrid's arch-rival, was dragged in to apologize on Real Madrid's behalf. That same day, Mbappe apologized in Chinese, English, and French, saying that he held a deep respect for the Chinese people and their history. The group then threw out another line: "Judge them by their deeds, not just their words." Pay attention to a detail here: on the same day, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun was asked about this matter by Agence Press France, and only said a single sentence—we have noted the relevant reports—followed by a boilerplate phrase, and that was it. The Foreign Ministry played it down, but the propaganda department went on a rampage.
Why was Shen Haixiong in an even greater rush than the Foreign Ministry? When he took charge of CCTV in 2018, Taiwan's Central News Agency dubbed him an ideological general of Xi. A deputy head of the Publicity Department of the CCP Central Committee, holding an admission pass as a member of the CCP Central Committee, was busy forcing a French forward to write a self-criticism during the intermission of a plenary session that would decide the fate of the Party and the state. He originally wanted to show his loyalty and keep the words "dictator" out of the door for Xi, but what was the result? The whole world started asking, exactly who is the Chinese dictator? Even France's BFM TV reported on it. The very thing the boss was most afraid of anyone bringing up in the meeting hall was pushed onto international top headlines by his own general's letter. Sucking up backfired into a massive blunder, and netizens call this an "advanced black" (high-level satire disguised as support).
So the mystery I set up at the beginning can now be revealed: the biggest offender of humiliating China in this matter cannot really be counted on Mbappe, but rather on this network head. The images were Photoshopped by netizens, and the words were spoken by Mbappe with a smile, but what delivered the five words "Chinese dictator" into the ears of 1.4 billion people was the boss's own ideological general. Why are they so terrified of these three words? Because the chair of Chairman Mao is the chair the boss wants to sit in most in his life. From the founding of the People's Republic of China, there have been a total of three historical resolutions. The one in 1945 defined Mao Zedong's position, the one in 1981 set the tone for Deng Xiaoping, and the third one in 2021 was given to himself. Three resolutions, three people: Mao, Deng, plus himself. On December 26, 2023, the 130th anniversary of Mao Zedong's birth, he personally spoke at a symposium. His ideology was written into the Party Constitution and the Constitution, and this autumn it was written into the unified textbooks for all compulsory education grades across the country. Yet there is one thing he still hasn't dared to do to this day: the four words "People's Leader" have never been written into the Party Constitution. Why didn't he dare? Because Article 10 of the Party Constitution states in black and white that the Party forbids any form of personality cult. Where did this provision come from? It was drawn from the lessons learned by that group of veteran cadres regarding Mao Zedong's last ten years. If he really elevates himself to the status of Chairman Mao, the first thing the whole party will think of is those ten years. Therefore, he measures the size of Chairman Mao's coat every day, but simply doesn't dare to put it on his body. As a result, a French forward put it on. You may have seen those pictures on the internet: Mbappe's face Photoshopped onto Mao's official portrait, Photoshopped into the Red Sun, with a crowd of people underneath cheering while holding the Little Red Book. There is also one where he wears a red-star military cap, with the side profiles of a row of revolutionary mentors behind him. The dream the boss didn't dare to dream for fourteen years was realized by someone while playing a game. Do you think he can swallow this anger? Yet this incident happened to break out this week. Why is even a single meme untouchable this week? Because, in the final analysis, this plenary session only discusses one character.
Let's read through the calendar for October 26. On this day, the Fifth Plenary Session opened in Beijing. The boss delivered a work report and gave an explanation on the draft decision for comprehensively governing the Party strictly. At 3:18 PM, a forum called Siyuanhu BBS on the internet popped up with a joint appeal letter signed by students from republican universities, listing fourteen universities including Peking University, Renmin University, and Tongji University. The primary demand was to abolish the unlimited term limit for the national presidency and restore the term limits prescribed by the Constitution. At 5:00 PM, overseas media released a so-called list of candidates for the 21st Politburo Standing Committee, with Xi and Li Qiang listed separately. That same night, at the London Ballon d'Or ceremony, the old video of Mbappe mentioning the Chinese dictator went viral online again, and it was also on this day that the CCTV head's letter was mailed to Madrid. Five events squeezed into the same day. If you look closely, they all point to the same character: term—whether he wants to serve another term and whether he wants to rule until death.
The most bizarre part of these five things is the fourth one; that video was not new at all. According to French media, it was recorded in the spring of this year and aired in early April. Even more incredible is that Dongpeng Beverage hired him as a spokesperson for their hydration products in April, the same month this interview aired. In other words, this statement had been online for a full six months, with Dongpeng using his face to sell water every day and his large posters plastered all over subway stations, yet the feelings of 1.4 billion people were completely unaffected. Six months later, on October 26, someone clipped this short segment and posted it on an overseas football forum. That same night, Dongqiudi issued a pinned statement, and on the same day, CCTV halted broadcasts and the station head wrote a letter. By the next morning, brands were lining up to terminate their contracts, and by the afternoon, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had made a statement. From the moment it was dug up to the national mobilization, it took only about a day. You could call it a coincidence, and it might hold up—after all, on the night of the Ballon d'Or, the whole world was digging up old videos of Mbappé—but I always feel this incident carries a hint of a prank. Why dig up a six-month-old video now, of all times, right on the opening day of the Fifth Plenary Session? The phrase 'Chinese dictator' just happened to collide with the 'appointment' (ren) that the plenary session was meant to discuss. Doesn't this look like someone is fishing? The bait is the old video from six months ago, and the hook is baited with those two words. They are fishing for those who spend all day waiting to show their loyalty. As it turned out, the fish took the bait itself, and the one who bit the hardest was the head of CCTV. Someone was just using Mao to mock the 'Boss,' but CCTV ended up signing for this mockery on behalf of the Boss and broadcast it to 1.4 billion people using the voice of the state television station.
Why is this bait particularly effective these past few days? Let's look at the position of this plenary session. Five years ago, in November 2021, the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee was held, eleven months before the 20th National Congress. That session did one major thing: it passed the third historical resolution and wrote in the 'Two Establishes.' These four words were the ticket for his third term; they established his core status and established his ideology as the guiding principle—so why would anyone be replaced? Eleven months later, at the 20th National Congress, he smoothly secured his third term. This year's Fifth Plenary Session is about a year away from the 21st National Congress, standing exactly in the same position as the Sixth Plenary Session back then. Five years ago, it was about issuing the ticket; this year, it's about seeing if the ticket for a fourth term can still be issued. Why must it be this time? The authorities themselves published a timetable. After the 20th National Congress concluded in 2022, Xinhua News Agency published a documentary on the creation of the new central leadership, which clearly stated that the selection process began in early 2022. On March 24, the Politburo Standing Committee finalized the work plan, and from April to July, he personally held talks with people one by one—he talked to 30 people, and other leaders separately listened to the opinions of 283 people. If you project forward based on this rhythm, the machine for the 21st National Congress list will have to start up early next year. This year's Fifth Plenary Session is the last plenary session before the startup. If the ticket isn't issued this time, there will be no one to press that startup button for him next spring. To keep this ticket, the Boss must first lock down his backyard, but on the very day the plenary session opened, trouble broke out in what he thought was his most secure territory.
On October 24, Xinhua News Agency released news about the mobilization and deployment of the eighth round of inspections by the 20th Central Committee. Li Xi, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and head of the Central Leading Group for Inspection Work, gave a speech. On the 26th, the day the plenary session opened, the inspections were completed and the 15 central inspection teams moved into the Ministry of Education and 31 centrally-administered universities, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University, Fudan University, Zhejiang University, and Nanjing University—the top tier in the country, not a single one missed. Public reporting will be accepted until December 21. Phoenix New Media specifically pointed out that this is the first time since the 20th National Congress that the central government has placed the Ministry of Education and centrally-administered universities in the same round of inspections. Some might say this is routine, and yes, the previous session also inspected this group in May 2021. But the previous session was a year and a half before the 20th National Congress, while this one is a year before the 21st, and it just happened to be timed to move in on the day the plenary session opened. I tell you, no matter who is investigating whom in this round of inspections, the Boss loses. Think about it: there are only two possibilities. First, the sword of discipline inspection is no longer entirely in the Boss's hands, and this round is a purge of the Boss's own people's positions on campuses—the people he has cultivated in schools for years are all being screened one by one. Second, the sword is still in the Boss's hands, and he is sending people to investigate his own Ministry of Education. That is even more terrifying, as it shows he trusts no one, not even his own people who have been doing his bidding for years. In recent years, his anti-corruption campaign has made life unbearable for officials and military officers; now it is the teachers' turn. If his own people fear him to this extent, can a rebellion from his own people be far off? Both scenarios are bad news.
Why do I say the Ministry of Education is his own team working for him? Because the Ministry of Education is the construction crew for his ideological project. In the autumn of 2021, the student reader on his ideology, named after him, was used uniformly in primary and secondary schools across the country, starting from the lower grades of primary school. In the autumn of 2024, the new unified textbooks for compulsory education—Morality and Rule of Law, Chinese, and History—incorporated his ideology. The starting grades were changed first, with more to follow in 2025. According to CCTV, by this year, all grades in compulsory education will have been fully updated. Think about the timing: the construction crew just handed over the building this autumn, and by the end of October, the auditors arrived. What is the Ministry of Education most afraid of now? They are afraid of audits, as there are lists already laid out. Former Vice Minister of Education Du Yubo was investigated in September 2024; last November, he was sentenced to 15 years for taking over 67 million yuan in bribes. Former Vice Minister of Education Lu Xin, who served from 2009 to 2016, was investigated on September 28 this year at the age of 71, ten years after leaving office and exactly one month before the inspection team moved in. Zhang Yao-xue, former president of Central South University, was expelled from the Party in May this year.
It was at this moment that the student letter appeared. The letter emerged at 3:18 PM on October 26, listing fourteen schools including Peking University, Renmin University, Tongji, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xiamen University, and Nankai, and marked that signatures were still being collected. However, when the media checked, there were no names. The website registration information listed the country as South Korea, the communication address in Singapore, and the server in Seoul, yet the administrator's email was hosted on Tencent. By midnight Beijing time the next day, 656 people had viewed it with 1 like. The poster was a new level-one account, and this was their first post. By the next morning, the website was gone. So, we are not saying that Peking University students took to the streets—that is nonsense. The most brilliant part of this letter is not who signed it, but its sharp and seasoned writing style. It quotes the oath Sun Yat-sen took when he became the provisional president in 1912: "Once the autocratic government falls, I will resign." It quotes what Mao Zedong said to Huang Yanpei in the Yan'an caves in 1945: "Only by letting the people supervise the government can the government dare not slacken." It quotes Deng Xiaoping in 1980: "A good system can prevent bad people from running wild." Then comes the most ruthless line: "These are all words the Party itself has said." Even more brilliant is that it brings up the leader's own words. For years, the leader has repeatedly said there are two answers to breaking out of the historical cycle: people's supervision and self-revolution. This letter says: "Great, isn't this plenary session of yours studying strict Party governance? The other side of self-revolution is to put a time limit on power and subject it to supervision." Using the leader's own words to slap the leader's face. How could an ordinary student write with such a blade? This is clearly written by someone who reads documents every day and has internalized them to the bone. There are only three possibilities for who wrote it: overseas dissidents, someone within the system using the students' name to speak out, or someone deliberately creating a pretext of instability in universities to provide a reason for a crackdown. Any of these makes sense, but the second one is the most thought-provoking. Who is most afraid of the inspection team at this time? It is the people within the education system themselves. Some say that since they dare not speak out themselves, they are using the students' mouths to do it. If that is true, then it is what I call "forcing officials to rebel"; even his own construction crew has started to dismantle his stage.
After talking about the building, let's talk about the people inside. A parent who has already sent her child abroad told me about her family's situation. When her child was in primary and junior high school in China, attending an international school, they still had to write "study reflections" every week. The family was required to buy his books; the workplace had tasks, and the neighborhood committee had tasks too. This mother was very worried, fearing her child would be brainwashed into a Red Guard, so she would tell her child the truth at home every day. One day, the child said to her, "Mom, you tell me every day how bad they are, and now I can't even write my reflections." Listen to that: the leader wants a generation of Red Guards, but the result is that even primary school students can't write their reflections. Let's turn the calendar back sixty years. On May 25, 1966, Nie Yuanzi of Peking University posted a big-character poster. Mao Zedong personally approved it, and it was broadcast nationwide. The Red Guards spread from Peking University to the whole country, propping up a leader for life. In that fire, one family was burned very badly. In January 1967, the leader's father was dragged out by Red Guards in Xi'an for struggle sessions, with a large sign hung around his neck. The photo remains to this day. His son was thirteen that year and went to Liangjiahe in northern Shaanxi two years later. Sixty years later, this son wants children across the country to write reflections every week. Sixty years later, the name of Peking University appeared on a letter demanding the abolition of lifelong tenure. Even if this letter might be fake, it has let the whole world see that the fire from sixty years ago cannot be lit this time; the big-character posters outside cannot be burned.
At the Jingxi Hotel, the cold wind was even more biting; let us look again at the chairs in the conference hall. The Associated Press, citing estimates from the Asia Society in the United States, noted that out of the 44 official members of the Central Committee elected from the military in 2022, 42 have already been purged or have disappeared. The attendance rate for the entire plenary session may have fallen below 80 percent, hitting a new low since 1976. Last year at the Fourth Plenary Session, out of 205 official members of the Central Committee, only 168 were present. The emptier the chairs became, the more valuable every remaining hand grew; and once hands became valuable, people began putting price tags on them. Yet before we talk about price tags, we must turn back an old page of history to examine how a Chairman Mao in Chinese Communist history ultimately fell. Mao Zedong passed away on September 9, 1976. This year, September 9 marks exactly fifty years, and long lines have formed outside the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall in Beijing, with reservation quotas packed every day. After Mao left, who was most confident of succeeding him? At the time, it appeared to be his wife Jiang Qing and her faction. Wang Hongwen was personally promoted by Mao in 1973 from Shanghai to become Vice Chairman of the CCP Central Committee, sitting in the number three position within the party at just 38 years old. Zhang Chunchun served as Vice Premier of the State Council and Director of the General Political Department of the military, while Yao Wenyuan managed propaganda. The official seal, the pen, and even a portion of the gun barrel all seemed to be in their hands. Yet on the night of October 6—merely 27 days after Mao left—Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying sat inside Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai. Under the pretext of discussing Volume V of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, they notified the members of the Political Bureau Standing Committee to attend a meeting. Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunchun, and Yao Wenyuan walked in one by one and were detained one by one, while Jiang Qing was taken away from her own residence.
Who played the most crucial role that night? Many people would say Ye Jianying, since the veteran marshal had the military. But if you think carefully, who was relied upon to take action inside Zhongnanhai? The guards of Zhongnanhai were the 8341 Unit. Whoever controlled the 8341 Unit, controlled the General Office, controlled Mao's documents, Mao's schedule, and everyone around Mao was Wang Dongxing. Who was Wang Dongxing? Mao's chief steward. Ever since the year 1947 when they fought across northern Shaanxi, he had stayed by Mao's side, following him for nearly thirty years. Mao trusted him so much that he entrusted him with his own life. Yet merely 27 days after Mao's bones were not yet cold, this very person who was trusted the most handed over the keys and arranged for Mao's wife and the succession team personally designated by Mao to be wiped out in one fell swoop. Flipping back another forty years to January 1935 in Zunyi: at the time, the top leader of the Red Army was Bo Gu, one of the twenty-eight and a half Bolsheviks who had returned from studying in the Soviet Union. The crucial votes that pulled him down from his horse, besides Mao Zedong, more fatally came from Zhang Wentian and Wang Jiaxiang. Just like Bo Gu, they were both part of the Soviet-returned faction and insiders. On the Long March, Mao Zedong and the wounded Wang Jiaxiang both rode on stretchers, and Zhang Wentian walked alongside them. The three of them discussed the matter right beside the stretchers. Later, some people called this the conspiracy on the stretchers.
Have you noticed the pattern? Throughout the history of the CCP, top leaders have never been defeated from the front by enemies; it has always been the insiders who held the keys changing sides at the very last moment. As for the hundreds of hands in the conference hall, they have always looked which way the wind was blowing. When Mao Zedong held the guns, a plenary session of the Central Committee raised hands to pull Liu Shaoqi down; when Deng Xiaoping held the guns, a plenary session raised hands to carry out reform and opening up; in 1989, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee raised hands to remove Zhao Ziyang. Whoever won, hands were raised toward that side. The supreme leader knows this better than anyone else. In recent years, he has repeatedly warned against two-faced people in his speeches—those who shout loyalty with their mouths while disobeying behind people's backs. A person constantly mutters about whatever they are constantly afraid of. However, the story of Wang Dongxing has a second half. In February 1980, at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, Wang Dongxing was asked to step down, and the person who handed him the knife became the knife that was thrown away four years later. Today, there is certainly someone who remembers this second half very clearly. This year on October 6 marks the exact 50th anniversary of that night in Huairen Hall, and official authorities remained completely silent. Twenty days later, the Fifth Plenary Session opened. Do you suppose the supreme leader, sleeping at night these days, might dream of Wang Dongxing's face? Where is today's Wang Dongxing? The answer lies right on Li Qiang's desk.
Speaking of this, the people inside the Jingxi Hotel are all staying up late crunching numbers. Let us first discuss the first price list. On the afternoon of October 26, the opening day of the plenary session, the Epoch Times published an exclusive report stating that they had obtained an assessment list for the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 21st National Congress from a Beijing source. How was the list written? The supreme leader and Li Qiang are listed separately at the top, and below them are six evaluation subjects: Ding Xuexiang ranked first, followed by Chen Jining, Zhang Guoqing, Yin Li, Li Shulei, and Liu Guozhong; and three alternate candidates: Yuan Jiajun, Chen Miner, and Chen Wenqing. Most explosively was the recommender: according sources, Yin Li's recommender for entering the Political Bureau was the supreme leader's wife, Chen Jining's recommender was the supreme leader's elder sister Qi Qiaokiao, plus Chen Xi. The wife pushing for standing committee members, the elder sister pushing for standing committee members—fifty years ago, Mao's wife meddled in personnel affairs in the exact same way, and you just heard the outcome. Is this list real or fake? We have no way to verify it, and the Epoch Times itself stated that some details were difficult to independently verify. But I ask you to look at it from another perspective: regardless of whether it is true or false, the timing of its appearance was too exquisite—on the afternoon of the very first day of the plenary session. What does it resemble? It resembles a price tag hanging outside the wall. For the person looking at this list, the most crucial one is Li Qiang. Li Qiang was born in July 1959. Next autumn, the 21st National Congress will open, and he will be exactly 68 years old, stepping right on the line of the "seven up, eight down" rule. According to the rules, he should step down, but on this list, he is listed side-by-side with the supreme leader. How clearly does this price tag set things: follow me, and the "seven up, eight down" rule will be broken for you. Where is the other price tag? It is in the hands of the elders and the military, and it consists of just four words: safe landing. If you do not tie yourself to the same boat with him, you can retire honorably when your time comes next year, and past accounts will not be pursued further. With two price tags placed on the table, which one will Li Qiang choose?
Let us dig into this person's background. During the years when Xi Jinping served as the party chief of Zhejiang starting in 2004, Li Qiang was the secretary-general of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee—frankly speaking, Xi's chief secretary in Zhejiang. He followed Xi all the way up as Xi advanced: serving as governor of Zhejiang, party chief of Jiangsu, party chief of Shanghai, and then Premier of the State Council. Yet to truly understand Li Qiang, one must look at those twenty-four hours in Shanghai in the spring of 2022. On March 26, Shanghai held a press conference on epidemic prevention. When a reporter asked whether Shanghai could resolve to lockdown the city for a week, Wu Fan, an expert on Shanghai's epidemic prevention team, answered on the spot that it was impossible. Shanghai is a city that bears not just the lives of its own people; so many international cargo ships were drifting in the East China Sea. For those few days, Shanghai pursued targeted epidemic prevention, a path entirely different from Beijing's approach. And the result? The very next night, March 27, Shanghai announced a phased lockdown of Pudong and Puxi. On April 2, Sun Chunlan took personal charge in Shanghai, and for the next two months or more, twenty-five million people were locked in their homes—everyone knows the suffering Shanghai residents endured. Seven months later at the 20th National Congress, far from stepping down over this mess in Shanghai, Li Qiang leaped straight to the number two chair. What does this story demonstrate? It shows that what Li Qiang excels at most throughout his life is figuring out which way the wind is blowing in the final twenty-four hours, and then turning without the slightest hesitation. One day he was for targeted prevention, and the next he locked down Shanghai, all in exchange for the premier's seat. So which way is the wind blowing today? Let us play out a little scene in our minds for Li Qiang. If he chooses Xi's ticket, breaking the rules to stay on as premier and perhaps even taking a step higher, he knows the state of affairs in the State Council better than anyone—what the economy looks like, what local government debt looks like, what the military looks like. The ship is sinking; would you wear the hat of a chief mate? If he chooses the party elders' ticket, he could land safely with bygones being-bygones, but he must have also read the second half of Wang Dongxing's life: stepping down four years after handing over the knife. If I were Li Qiang, what would I do? I would wait, wait until the final twenty-four hours, see clearly whose hands hold the guns, and then turn. That is exactly what he did back in Shanghai. As for whose hands hold the guns this time, we have been talking about it in this series for nearly two months; you know it better than I do. Therefore, after the communiqué comes out, do not just look at what is written in it; keep your eyes on how Li Qiang makes his appearance, how close he stands to Xi, whose name is mentioned first in speeches, and how the vice premiers of the State Council make their statements. Whether those twenty-four hours in Shanghai will replay depends on these few days.
Let us also talk about Ding Xuexiang, the one ranked first on the list for evaluation. What is his background? During the half-year Xi ruled Shanghai in 2007, Ding Xuexiang was the secretary-general of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, later following Xi to Beijing as his personal chief secretary and director of the General Office—what position is that? It is the very chair Wang Dongxing sat in back then. Xi's documents, schedule, security detail, and inner circle—which of these does not pass through his hands? A man who once held all the keys is ranked first on the list. Is this a reward or hush money? The gates of the Jingxi Hotel are still shut, and the abaci in the hands of these two chief stewards are still clicking. The moment the plenary communiqué is released, who steps forward half a step and who steps back half a step will be clear to us at a glance.
Tomorrow, October 29, the Fifth Plenary Session concludes. Once the communiqué comes out, keep your eyes on three places only: first, whether the four words "Two Establishes" are still there; second, who is expelled and who is appointed as a replacement; third, where Li Qiang makes his first public appearance after the communiqué, and who he stands next to. Kylian Mbappé apologized in less than two days; who in the Jingxi Hotel will be the first to stand up and apologize? Will the object of his apology be the 1.4 billion people? Please follow Jiangfeng Horizon.
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We will keep watching tomorrow when the communiqué is released