Xi Jinping to Step Down, All CCP Factions Reach Agreement! Financial Times Reveals Beijing Started Moving 3 Months Ago, Retirement Plan Underway; Succession Versions Featuring Li Qiang and Hu Chunhua Both Emerge, Only “How Much to Step Back” Remains for the Fifth Plenum! [Jiang Feng Vision 20261007 Episode 507]

The Financial Times reported that Beijing is compressing the itinerary for the APEC summit in Shenzhen and cancelling closed-door exchanges, indicating that the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is facing power transition and retirement arrangements. Various factions have reached a consensus on demands regarding the economy, party preservation, and order to push for high-level adjustments. Ahead of the Fifth Plenary Session, the power struggle over successors, the extent of retirement, and historical evaluations continues to escalate.

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Hello friends, welcome to Jiang Feng Vision. Early on October 6, the British Financial Times dropped a diplomatic bombshell. Next month, after the CCP's Fifth Plenary Session concludes, leaders from twenty-one economies will gather in Shenzhen to attend this year's APEC summit. This is the first time China has hosted APEC in twelve years, since the 2014 Yanqi Lake summit in Beijing. Theoretically, in a city like Shenzhen that prides itself on reform and opening up, showcasing high-tech drones and robots, Beijing should have gone all out to host a grand and impressive event. However, Beijing is doing the opposite. The information obtained by the Financial Times is that the Chinese side is pushing to move an important APEC ministerial meeting online. Even more noteworthy is that Beijing is also planning to cut the retreat, where heads of state traditionally have free exchanges. Insiders even say that the only activities left for the leaders of the twenty-one economies might be a dinner and one formal plenary session. Shenzhen is their home turf; Trump is coming, and Putin is coming too. The eyes of the world are watching. Why would Beijing choose to personally remove the most free and difficult-to-control interactions between heads of state? Friends, let's put it bluntly today: the person at the very top is being abandoned by all factions within the party. The retirement plan has already been initiated, and the Shenzhen APEC summit is just the latest piece of the puzzle to emerge today. When exactly did these arrangements start being discussed? Why are the health issues of the 'Big Boss' becoming increasingly public right before the Fifth Plenary Session? More importantly, the Hu-Wen faction, the military, and the bureaucratic system each have their own agendas. Why, when it comes to changing the leader, might they form a common interest? There is another even more interesting question: the 'Big Boss' has been sitting at the top for thirteen years; will he really honestly accept the ending others have arranged for him? Today, let's start with this cut-down Shenzhen summit.

To understand the destructive power of today's Financial Times report, we must first look clearly at the diplomatic table of APEC. Before the leaders actually sit down together, foreign ministers and trade ministers are supposed to chew through a large number of hard issues for their respective countries—how interests are divided, how clauses are written, what can be discussed, and what cannot be touched; much of the detailed work is polished at this level. Yet this time, Beijing has actually proposed moving this important ministerial meeting online. Even more worth noting are the leaders themselves. Sources told the Financial Times that Beijing is also preparing to cancel the traditional APEC retreat, a term usually translated into Chinese as informal closed-door communication. Formal plenary sessions are easy to control: what time to enter, where to sit, who speaks first, and for how long can all be scheduled in advance. Even for bilateral meetings, the counterpart, agenda, and time can be fixed—40 minutes with Trump, 45 minutes with Putin—and when the time is up, someone will naturally wrap it up. The trouble with the retreat is that it is originally intended to be a time for leaders to communicate relatively freely. If someone suddenly walks over to chat, whether that conversation stretches to ten or twenty minutes, or whether someone else might jump in, it is very difficult to have a script. Trump might ask about chip tariffs on the spot, and Putin might seize the opportunity to talk about Russia-Ukraine. Leaders who were not originally scheduled for a formal bilateral meeting might also stand there and chat for a while if they run into each other. Such occasions test the leader's own physical stamina, reactions, and ability to handle things on the fly. A prepared speech can support a leader, but in a retreat, no one can chat for them. In a formal meeting, sitting behind a nameplate with a script in front and aides by their side, fifteen minutes can be arranged perfectly. But with dozens of leaders coming and going, if the time drags on, how is their mental state? Is their walk steady? Is their reaction quick? Can their attention keep up? These things are hard to hide.

Let's turn the clock back twelve years to 2014, the last time China hosted APEC. At that time, the person at the top had only been in power for two years, and Beijing was eager to push him to the very center of the stage. He presided over the leaders' meeting, appeared at the welcome banquet, and leaders from various countries appeared in new Chinese-style outfits, participating in group activities like tree planting by Yanqi Lake, with one camera shot after another. The thinking at that time was very clear: the new leader needed to appear more often, to let the whole world see someone energetic, standing in the center of the stage, capable of controlling the scene for a long time. Twelve years later, it is China's turn to host again. The location is even chosen in Shenzhen, the signboard of reform and opening up, the facade of high technology, where drones, robots, and new energy can all be brought out to show off. Trump has confirmed he is coming, and Putin also publicly stated a few days ago that he looks forward to meeting with the top Chinese leadership in Shenzhen, even mentioning the possibility of a trilateral meeting between China, Russia, and the US. This should have been the easiest "home court" diplomatic play for Beijing this year. As a result, the Financial Times now tells us that Beijing has first picked up the scissors itself, cutting out the freest and hardest-to-control links, with the leader's portion possibly compressed to just one banquet plus one formal plenary session. The contrast is too great. Beijing in 2014 was afraid the leader wouldn't appear enough; Beijing in 2026 is starting to fear him being in free-form activities for too long. The Financial Times also quoted sources as saying that Beijing is now very concerned about how to "stagemanage" this summit and firmly control every link. Some participants are already dissatisfied, feeling that the Chinese side cares more about image display and is compressing interactions that are truly substantive but not so easy to pre-script.

This brings us to a seemingly contradictory point. If Zhongnanhai is truly preparing to turn the leader's health issues into a reason for his exit that the entire Party and the world can accept, then logically, wouldn't letting the outside world see more of his physical condition actually increase the credibility of this narrative? So why, when it came to Shenzhen, was the free interaction—the very thing that would allow other world leaders to see his true state most clearly—cut? The calculation here is actually very precise: health issues can be made public, but the bottom line of his health cannot be allowed to spiral out of control. Beijing needs the outside world to gradually accept one thing: the leader's health is indeed no longer suitable for the high-intensity, round-the-clock work of a leader as it was in the past. This signal can be released bit by bit; today you see his schedule shortened, tomorrow you learn he needs rest, and the day after you accept that he is handing over more work to others. But this pace must be controlled by Beijing itself. How much is revealed, when it is revealed, and where it is revealed must all be controllable. Once you reach a top-tier diplomatic occasion like APEC, the risks are completely different. If you put the leaders of twenty-one economies into a long, low-scripted environment of free interaction, the issue is not just that everyone sees he is a bit tired; if there were a clear loss of composure, physical exhaustion, or if he were to collapse on the spot, it would become a diplomatic incident. What is more troublesome is that Trump, Putin, and the leaders of Japan and other countries are watching at close range. They would get first-hand observations: how long he can stand, how far he can walk, how fast his reactions are, whether he can maintain focus for long periods, when he starts to get fatigued, and how often his staff needs to intervene. Once these details fall into the hands of foreign diplomatic and intelligence systems, it will not be so easy for Beijing to control the narrative in the future. In trade negotiations, the Taiwan Strait, Russia-Ukraine, and great power games, once an opponent figures out the working limits of the top leader, it is equivalent to gaining a card they did not have before.

Furthermore, the Financial Times threw out an even sharper time marker: participants revealed that they had been negotiating back and forth with Beijing for about three months regarding the Chinese side's plan to change the ministerial meeting to an online format. Since Beijing had been pushing for a plan to compress APEC as early as July, the Shenzhen event is clearly not the starting point of the whole arrangement, but just another stop on this train's journey. To find the tracks before this, one must look after the Fourth Plenary Session. Replacing a top leader who has been lauded for over a decade is most troublesome for the CCP because it cannot negate the past thirteen years in one go. That person who wrote his name into the Party Constitution, removed the term limits for the state presidency, and for whom the whole Party has shouted about the 'Two Establishes' and the 'Core' for so many years—if they suddenly change their tune and say the line was wrong and the person must step down, it would be equivalent to dismantling the legitimacy of the past thirteen years themselves. Therefore, we might as well give a name to the approach we have seen since the Fourth Plenary Session: health-based power stripping. Its advantage lies in completely bypassing political right and wrong; the leader's health and energy have indeed experienced problems, and there is something real in this, so health has become the most useful card. The General Secretary has worked hard for many years, his health concerns the overall situation of the Party and the country, major activities should be arranged scientifically, tedious work can be shared by other comrades, and major decisions should also rely more on the collective role. Every sentence sounds like it is protecting the leader, but in actual operation, it means shortened foreign visits, reduced long-duration activities, more things being done for him by others, and while he still wears the hat, the work has already begun to be distributed. How this set of things is being tested, the foreign visits over the past two months have left a trail of evidence.

On August 31 in Bishkek, during the day the big boss was still continuously participating in foreign affairs activities, but at night, at the opening ceremony of the World Nomad Games held at the 30,000-seat stadium, Putin, Modi, Erdogan, and others were present while he was absent. At the time, the officially given reason was that a natural disaster had occurred in Tibet, so this incident itself could not be directly used to substantiate health issues, but for the first time, it placed a very noteworthy contrast before the outside world: daytime meetings with fixed schedules and clear procedures were completed as usual, but when it came to evening events requiring a prolonged stay in large public venues, the person was nowhere to be seen. Next was New Delhi in September. This time was even more interesting: the big boss himself flew to India to attend the BRICS summit and also held a bilateral meeting with Modi, but again he did not show up at the grand banquet hosted by Modi for world leaders in the evening. Some Indian media, citing insiders, said he went back to the hotel to rest, and the Wall Street Journal later included this absence in the timeline of health questions. If you put Bishkek and New Delhi together, the flavor comes out: people still go abroad, head-of-state meetings are still conducted, and official summits are still attended, maintaining the facade of the top leader, but for evening activities with prolonged physical exertion, gaps begin to appear one after another. According to the thread we are following today, his overseas visits after the Fourth Plenary Session may have already entered a new set of arrangements. Beijing cannot suddenly hide the top leader, as that would be equivalent to directly announcing to the entire Party and the whole world that a major event has occurred, so he still has to fly, meet people, and sit at the highest-spec conference table. But at the same time, the types, timing, and physical intensity of activities began to be chipped away bit by bit, which produced a very subtle effect: the person is still fulfilling his duties, but the boundaries of his body are also being displayed event by event, and this display is controllable. The completion of official daytime meetings shows that the top leader can still work, while missing an evening banquet and a prolonged event allows the outside world to slowly accept that his physical strength is indeed limited. This is much more natural than suddenly announcing that he needs to recuperate due to health reasons, and it fits the political rhythm required by a set of transitional arrangements much better than keeping him directly in Beijing. By the time of the Washington trip in late September, this line was finally pushed into the global spotlight. On October 2, the Wall Street Journal leaked several protocol details: the working lunch was canceled in advance, the White House prepared a private rest space, the entire visit reserved large blocks of rest time, and the itinerary also had to consider how long he could stand and how far he could walk. Savor the drastic change in the nature of this: in the past, rumors about the health of that person mostly circulated among overseas Chinese-language circles after dinner, and Beijing could completely turn a blind eye, but when the Wall Street Journal exposed the inside story in black and white, this matter officially escalated into a hard variable that government intelligence agencies, strategic think tanks, and even Wall Street capital markets of various countries must seriously calculate. The most exquisite part of this great political drama is that health is a real issue, but it is also the most useful political tool at the same time. Various factions have reached a consensus that the person in Zhongnanhai can indeed no longer bear a high-intensity fourth term.

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So the question arises: why have the various factions reached a tacit understanding, and why have we concluded that the one at the pinnacle is being abandoned by all factions within the Party? Let us spread out the power puzzle of Zhongnanhai today. First, look at the economic and technocratic officials within the system—the remnants of the reformist faction in a broad sense. These people who manage the ledgers know best that if the economy continues to be tossed around as it has been, with fiscal issues, local debt, loss of confidence among private enterprises, and the withdrawal of foreign capital, none of these can be solved by shouting a few political slogans. What they want is for policies to be reined in, to let private enterprises catch their breath, to repair economic and trade relations with the West, and to stabilize the country's fundamental foundation. Next, look at the veteran conservatives and the red families. What these people care about most has always been protecting the Party and the system, and preserving this machine of power and interest distribution. Over the past thirteen years, the leader has tightened power more and more, turning original collective decision-making step by step into one-man rule. In the end, even these old guys have to calculate: if he continues to act this way, is he protecting one person, or is he dragging the whole ship down with him? For them, replacing the top leader is acceptable, but losing the brand of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is absolutely unacceptable. The military side is even more realistic. After more than a decade of wave after wave of purges—the Rocket Force, the equipment system, the Minister of National Defense, the top brass of the Central Military Commission—those who are on the podium today might disappear from the news tomorrow. What military officers consider first is no longer who shouts slogans the loudest, but whether this political purge is going to continue endlessly. At this point, the military's most basic requirement is to restore order and ensure they are no longer subjected to unlimited turmoil by that person. The local and entire bureaucratic systems are much the same. In recent years, policies have swung left and right, with movement-style governance, political study, and inspection and accountability pressing down layer by layer. People below have long learned one thing: do less to make fewer mistakes, and do nothing to make no mistakes. For this massive bureaucratic machine, what they crave most is not some grand reform, but for policies to become predictable again, for what is said today to still count tomorrow, and for local officials not to have to guess every day what Zhongnanhai is going to stir up next. The ones who started calculating the costs latest might actually be those closest to the leader over the past decade. As soon as the premise of a fourth term begins to loosen, they immediately have to ask: who will protect me after the 21st National Congress? If the next person to come up is not one of their own, will being closer today make them more dangerous tomorrow? Power is the most realistic thing; once the master enters the exit phase, the first thing those around him do is look for their own safety exits. So, if you put these forces together, everyone wants something completely different: the reformists want to save the economy, the veterans want to protect the Party, the military wants to preserve order, the bureaucrats want to live normal lives, and those around the leader are starting to plan for their next stop. Yet they have one thing in common: they may not support the same successor, but they are increasingly unwilling to continue bearing the same leader. This is what it means to be abandoned by all factions.

But the problem lies right here: everyone wants to change the person, but they cannot openly admit that they are fighting to bring someone down. Over the past thirteen years, the propaganda machine has molded that person into the core, established the Two Establishes, and solidified the one-man supremacy. If the Fifth Plenary Session suddenly announced publicly that this person's line was wrong, the economy was ruined, and diplomacy was deadlocked, and therefore the Party joined hands to remove him, that would be equivalent to the CCP smashing its own thirteen-year political myth. The question the common people would ask next is what the factions truly fear: if the top leader can be overthrown, then why can't the Communist Party itself be replaced? Therefore, how the factions fight inside is one thing, and how they explain it to the outside is another. The person can be changed, but the Party cannot lose; the line can be quietly adjusted, but the system itself cannot be sentenced to death. What the CCP needs most to prove to the world right now is not that the leader hasn't lost, but that the Communist Party hasn't lost. At this moment, health becomes an almost perfect exit. There is a real component to poor health, so there is no need to make up a story from scratch. The propaganda system can perfectly well say that after years of working for the Party and the country, he now needs to rest. A new generation of leadership taking over is a normal transition, the past political status is still affirmed, but the new line can be slowly adjusted. In this way, changing the person becomes an active handover, and the power struggle is packaged as a normal generational replacement. More importantly, the stifled anger that has accumulated in Chinese society over these years—what many find most unbearable is not just that the economy is a bit worse or jobs are harder to find, but that there is no end in sight. If a full fourth term comes, it is equivalent to telling everyone that the next five years or even longer will be the same old thing. But as long as one person is changed, even if the system hasn't changed, social psychology will relax a bit. Entrepreneurs will think perhaps policies will change, local officials will think perhaps they won't have to engage in movements every day, and ordinary people will think there is finally some new atmosphere. This is the CCP's most adept way of prolonging its life: change the leader but not the ruling machine, and swap in a layer of hope so that everyone will wait and see a little longer.

It is precisely at this critical juncture that the succession rumors circulating overseas over the past two months have become interesting. In mid-August, an overseas source released a version stating that the leader would no longer serve a full fourth term, with his failing health being one of the key reasons, and the Taiwan issue becoming a dead knot in his political legacy. Li Qiang was placed into the succession arrangements, and at that time, everyone was debating one thing: whether he would step down or not. By October 6, the same source took a step further, directly starting to assign positions: the leader would retain the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission, Li Qiang would take over as General Secretary and President, Ding Xuexiang would take over as Premier of the State Council, Li Shulei would go to the NPC, and Chen Min'er would go to the CPPCC. Meanwhile, another version circulating overseas has consistently been talking about Hu Chunhua. Which of these lists is real? No one can verify it today, but what is truly worth noting is that they all share the same premise: a full fourth term is increasingly off the script. Whether it is Hu Chunhua or Li Qiang, these lists certainly contain the analyses of independent media, and it cannot be ruled out that someone behind the scenes is leaking information to test the waters or drive up the price. Before the Fifth Plenary Session, the various factions were no longer just arguing about whether to step down, but had begun to focus on who would take over, how to step down, and which chair to retreat to.

Having said this, do not think of the person in Zhongnanhai as a puppet sitting in place waiting for others to arrange his fate. Even if the framework for his retirement has been discussed to this point, as long as he still holds titles, has people, and has a portion of the system that follows his orders, he will definitely fight. Fight for what? Fight for how much to step down, what to leave behind, who will take over, and how many of his own people can be protected in the end. On October 6, the same day the Financial Times broke the news about the unusual compression of the APEC event in Shenzhen, the South China Morning Post also released a very intriguing report on diplomatic behind-the-scenes. The article cited sources saying that for the visit to the U.S. in late September, Beijing originally wanted to make the itinerary larger, arranging for exchanges with the American business community and students, and even proposed a high-level dialogue between Chinese and American tech companies centered on artificial intelligence. They also wanted to pack more topics into the talks, but in the end, the U.S. side blocked them one by one citing reasons like reciprocal reception and national security, which is why the visit was compressed into what it eventually became. We cannot prove who leaked the information for this report, but its political effect is clear: it provided the leader with a counter-narrative, suggesting that the reason the Washington trip had fewer activities and a shorter itinerary, and that the stage was not big enough, lay with the U.S. side. This narrative is certainly useful to him, because once poor health becomes the common reason for various factions to force him to give up a full fourth term, he must prove another thing: I can still work, I still want to work, and I originally even wanted to do more diplomatic activities. What is being contested here is no longer just whether a visit looks good or not; what is being contested is who gets to define his exit—is it that his health cannot hold up so he must hand over power, or is it that he is actively arranging the succession while still possessing the capability, prestige, and international influence? Yet, the Financial Times happened to flip the Shenzhen card on the same day. Washington could be blamed on the Americans not providing a stage, but Shenzhen is his own turf. As a result, even at his own doorstep, the most free-flowing exchange among leaders still had to be cut. The two reports colliding on the same day instead illuminated the tug-of-war inside Zhongnanhai even more clearly: some are pushing the health issue as a reason for his exit, while others are working hard to tell the whole Party that the leader is not yet in such a bad state.

Looking at another small move, at this critical juncture before the Fifth Plenary Session, CCTV and the public security system suddenly launched a high-profile documentary on telecom fraud in northern Myanmar, bringing the results of cross-border anti-fraud arrests from the past few years back to prime time. The program even re-aired footage of Wang Xiaohong traveling to Myanmar to promote joint law enforcement. In normal times, this could be considered routine propaganda, but given the current rumors about Wang Xiaohong's whereabouts and the approaching Fifth Plenary Session, it at least looks like the public security system is putting together a new report card. Who needs this report card the most? Wang Xiaohong himself certainly does, and it is also worth watching whether the Big Boss needs to add some points for the few people he has left who are still useful. I won't dig deeper into this line today, because what is truly important is that the fact that retirement arrangements are moving forward does not mean the Big Boss has given up resistance. If a transition plan has indeed been placed on the table, then the hardest part to negotiate next will likely no longer be just about whether to step down or not. The first thing is historical evaluation; after thirteen years in power, the last thing the Big Boss would accept is for his successors to turn his thirteen-year political legacy into a list of errors before he has fully stepped down. He will certainly fight for a narrative of an active handover and a successful retirement, at the very least ensuring that official documents do not directly negate his status over these years. The second thing is the safety of his family and those around him. Once the top leadership changes, those who were closest to the center of power in the past are often the most vulnerable. Who can land safely, who must stay behind to take the blame, and who can continue to retain their privileges—these are not just issues of face for the Big Boss. The third thing, which is also the most worth watching among recent overseas leaks, is whether he will retain the position of Chairman of the Central Military Commission. In the version that leaked on October 6, there was exactly such an arrangement: handing over the Party and state positions while temporarily retaining the chairmanship of the Military Commission. Whether this version is true or false is unknown for now, but it makes perfect sense politically. Handing over the General Secretary and State President positions signifies that the generational transition has begun, and if the Chairman of the Military Commission remains for a while longer, it can provide the Big Boss with a sense of security and allow for a buffer in the transfer of power. Therefore, what is truly difficult to negotiate at the Fifth Plenary Session may have already reached another level: how much to step down, what to keep, and who will take over. Over the next twenty days or so, we will see who is the first to lose patience and reveal another card. Alright, that is all for today. Thank you all for watching. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and like the video, and please share the program with more friends. See you next time.