Hu Chunhua in Trouble Again? Generals Vanish En Masse at the Long March Commemoration, Military Newspaper Keeps Issuing “Rebel Permits,” Calling for Openly Rejecting Xi Jinping — Who Will Be the First to Stand Up at the Fifth Plenum? [Jiang Feng's View 20261023 Episode 521]
This episode analyzes the political signals behind the collective absence of real-power military generals and the unusual seating arrangements on the rostrum at the meeting commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Red Army's Long March. By synthesizing phenomena such as personnel changes on the eve of the Fifth Plenary Session in Zhongnanhai, the PLA Daily repeatedly invoking the history of the Zunyi Conference, personnel appointments and removals, and WeChat censorship, it deduces the power struggle that the top leadership may be facing.
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Hello friends, welcome to Jiang Feng Vision. The meeting commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Red Army's Long March was originally a top-tier major event for the CCP—which always makes a big deal out of every tenth anniversary—to flex its muscles and show off its military power to the whole world. However, when the 14-minute segment, cut to pieces and broadcast on CCTV's Xinwen Lianbo at 7 p.m., was released, anyone who understands the rules of Zhongnanhai knew that something had gone wrong. On the rostrum, Zhang Shengmin was the only one left wearing a military uniform. The director dared not give close-up shots of the audience below; occasionally, when the camera swept over shoulders, one could only see at most a major general with one star. The rows behind were packed with field-grade officers filling the seats. As for the generals holding real power—the lieutenant generals with two stars, the full generals with three stars, and even the veteran military figures who were always invited to such major days in previous years—not a single shadow was to be seen. Even more unusual was Xi Jinping sitting in the middle of the stage. Ten years ago, at the 80th anniversary of the Long March, CCTV cameras dared to steadily zoom in and film close-ups of his face for dozens of seconds. But this year, the director only dared to cut to three fragmented shots of him, each less than two seconds long. Even in those short two seconds, one could clearly see the corners of his mouth twitching uncontrollably as he lowered his head to read the script. Why didn't those generals who actually command troops come to support and applaud this Chairman of the Central Military Commission? There is only one answer: they have more critical positions to defend. The venue of the Fifth Plenary Session, along with the entire city of Beijing under the jurisdiction of the 'Nine Gates Commander,' has been surrounded by CCP military leaders like an airtight iron barrel. Inside the Great Hall of the People, plainclothes guards have been arranged by the military leaders at every step. Four days later, those two hundred Central Committee members holding the ballots inside the doors will have to behave obediently. But you would never imagine that there are reports suggesting that at the Fifth Plenary Session at the Jingxi Hotel, the first person to stand up and challenge Xi Jinping, firing the first shot, might very well be the number one 'his own man' promoted by Xi Jinping himself. Why did the real-power generals collectively evaporate on the eve of the final assault? Why has the PLA Daily been repeatedly invoking the Zunyi Conference this week, where Zhang Wentian openly negated the top leader Bo Gu to his face? Today, we will follow these 14 minutes of fragmented CCTV footage to reveal the cards of this ambush at the Fifth Plenary Session. By placing the CCTV tapes from ten years ago and ten years later side by side for comparison, you will be able to see through the danger hidden within at a glance.
On October 21, 2016, during the 80th anniversary of the Long March, CCTV Chinese International Channel broadcasted a full live stream from start to finish lasting one hour and forty-seven minutes. At that time, the camera panned to the back rows of the rostrum, where a full lineup of Central Military Commission members sat in neat rows: the pine-branch green of the Army, the dark blue of the Navy, and the sky blue of the Air Force—eight military uniforms in total. The camera then turned to the audience, pointing directly into the faces of the generals in the front rows. Cut back to this year's conference recording: the live broadcast was scrapped, and in the 14-minute recorded video released, the eight military uniforms on the rostrum had collapsed, leaving only a lonely, isolated uniform belonging to Zhang Shengmin. In the front rows of the audience, not even a single three-star general could be found. This is bizarre; some friends might ask if there are no more generals left after a massive military purge. That is not the case. Just over three months ago, on the evening literary gala of June 29 and the 105th anniversary meeting of the founding of the CCP on July 1, the military's actual power-holders had made a neat and orderly appearance. At that time, sitting in the first row of the audience were Defense Minister Dong Jun, Central Theater Command Commander Han Shengyan, and Eastern Theater Command Commander Yang Zhibin—three full generals—with four lieutenant generals interspersed in the middle: Zhang Shuoguang, Wang Gang, Zhu Chuansheng, and Chen Demin. Just two days later, on July 3, Zhang Shuoguang and Wang Gang were both promoted to full generals. Those seven stars had been captured clearly in photographs at the founding anniversary meeting just three months ago. Why, then, at the military's own Long March conference, had all the general stars vanished without a single trace? The only person sitting on the rostrum, CMC Vice Chairman Zhang Shengmin, originated as a political work and discipline inspection cadre and did not directly command troop deployments. He sat on the rostrum in uniform purely to put up a facade for the hollow shell of the CMC; after all, at a conference commemorating the Red Army, there surely had to be at least one green military uniform on stage. Meanwhile, the four generals who actually held real power and had collectively vanished from the public eye were currently engaged in life-or-death tasks. The first hidden general, Central Theater Command Commander Han Shengyan: both the Great Hall of the People in Zhongnanhai and the Jingxi Hotel—where the Fifth Plenary Session was to open four days later—were within his defense zone. Holding massive military power in the capital and serving as a core commander guarding the safety of party elders, how could he possibly sit in the Great Hall of the People reading a script during the final 96 hours before the plenary showdown? That massive electronic sand table in the Beijing Xishan underground command center was Han Shengyan's post, which he could not leave for even a second. The second and third hidden generals, Eastern Theater Command Commander Yang Zhibin and Air Force Commander Wang Gang: one was firmly clamping down on the Taiwan Strait frontline to prevent anyone from acting out of desperation and manufacturing external friction, while the other firmly took charge of air supremacy nationwide, including the skies over the capital. The fourth hidden general was the most chilling of all: CMC Discipline Inspection Commission Secretary Zhang Shuoguang. Even the top enforcer holding the military's family law did not make an appearance. What was he busy with? You only need to look at the actions on the civilian side to understand completely. Before the opening of the Fifth Plenary Session, Liu Jingguo, the grim reaper of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and Shi Taifeng of the Organization Department were meticulously preparing personnel dossiers for more than 200 members of the Central Committee—referred to by insiders within the wall as individual death ledgers. From relatives engaging in business to overseas assets, every piece of irrefutable evidence was bagged and sealed. Anyone at the plenary session who dared to stubbornly shield Xi Jinping could be immediately taken away according to procedure. While Liu Jingguo handled this workload on the civilian side, Zhang Shuoguang—a longtime staunch subordinate of Zhang Yousha—was locked inside the Xishan confidentiality room overnight, verifying the dossiers of the generals. Speaking of this, when you shift your gaze to the third row of the rostrum in the Great Hall of the People, Hu Chunhua was surprisingly absent; he didn't come this time either. The camera swept across to show Shen Yueyue and Wang Yong sitting there. As soon as this news broke, overseas public opinion exploded instantly, with various observers speculating whether Hu Chunhua had been backstabbed on the eve of the Fifth Plenary Session or had some leverage held against him. If you are worried like that, you have been fooled by appearances. Setting aside the fact that Hu Chunhua endured hardships in Tibet for nearly twenty years, passed through Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Guangdong, and all the way to the State Council, while investigators with magnifying glasses scrutinized him for over a dozen years—turning his hometown relatives' backgrounds completely inside out without finding even the slightest trace of corruption—just looking at Hu Chunhua's pattern of invisibility over the past two years reveals the underlying mystery. Before the Third Plenary Session showdown, he used an inspection tour to Xinjiang as an excuse to mysteriously vanish for over twenty days; on the eve of the Fourth Plenary Session, he traveled far away to Yunnan to avoid the spotlight. Sure enough, on the very evening the Long March conference concluded, exact news came out from within the Beijing red walls: Hu Chunhua was presiding over a core meeting in another highly secured internal conference room that very afternoon. He was clearly in Beijing, yet he simply did not go to the rostrum in the Great Hall of the People. Hu Chunhua was not unable to come; there was simply no need for him to come. Following the military deployment map we just dissected a step deeper: Han Shengyan, who guarded the capital, didn't come; Wang Gang, who locked down the skies, didn't come; and Zhang Shuoguang, who held the enforcer's blade, didn't come. Therefore, a crown prince who was about to take over the heavy responsibilities of the CMC at the Fifth Plenary Session four days later—did he need to wrong himself on the eve of the final offensive by sitting in the third row of the rostrum to applaud a leading protagonist who was about to hand over power? Generals disappear, and the crown prince disappears. The most ruthless tactics in the highest echelons of the CCP have always relied on deploying troops outside while manipulating votes inside. With the generals outside holding their swords hilt-deep to completely seal off all retreat routes, the 200 Central Committee members sitting inside—who usually bend with the wind—could finally act in accordance with the barrel of a gun when casting their votes and making their speeches.
To make these opportunistic CCP Central Committee members behave, the mastermind delivered a lethal combination on October 22nd: one hand held a bloody warning stick, while the other held a get-out-of-jail-free card from the military. Let's look at these two warning sticks; two news items broke on that same day, October 22nd. The first was the CCDI's sudden official announcement that Xia Linmao, a member of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and Executive Vice Mayor, was under investigation for suspected serious violations of discipline and law. If you carefully examine Xia Linmao's background, Beijing is the territory where Cai Qi once served as the top leader. Xia's resume bears two fatal labels: one is the 'Tsinghua Clique' of Chen Xi, as he was promoted all the way by Chen Xi; the other is that he was a key steward in Beijing heavily relied upon by Cai Qi. Rumors had been circulating inside the Great Firewall as early as March this year that he would be investigated. Why wait until today, four days before the opening of the Fifth Plenary Session, to suddenly close the net? This strike kills two birds with one stone: on one hand, it warns the Central Committee members arriving in Beijing to 'beat the grass to scare the snake'; on the other, it slaps the cold blade directly onto the face of General Office Director Cai Qi, clearly telling him that the investigative noose is only one step away. The second news item is even more ruthless. That same afternoon, Zhao Leji presided over the Chairman's Meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People. The meeting finalized that the 25th session of the NPC Standing Committee would be held in Beijing from November 2nd to 6th. If you count the days, the Fifth Plenary Session closes on October 29th, and just three days later, on November 2nd, the NPC Standing Committee session begins seamlessly. What will this session deliberate? Listen carefully to these two items on the agenda. The first is to deliberate the report of the NPC Standing Committee's Credentials Committee regarding the qualifications of individual representatives, followed immediately by the deliberation of appointment and removal motions. If a Central Committee member is taken down at the Fifth Plenary Session, they still hold the title of NPC representative and positions in state organs. The Party plenary session takes them down, and three days later, the NPC side immediately completes the legal procedures to terminate their representative qualifications and remove them from administrative posts. The Fifth Plenary Session hasn't even opened yet, but Zhao Leji has already scheduled the legal procedures for cleaning up the battlefield after it concludes. The official report didn't name who these 'individual representatives' are, but the two hundred or so Central Committee members arriving in Beijing know better than anyone whose names will appear in that report. Even more chilling is another new law inserted into the same agenda: the draft Anti-Cross-Border Corruption Law. Friends, who is this aimed at? Isn't it aimed at those powerful officials who have laundered dirty money overseas and sent their wives, children, and illegitimate children to Europe, America, Australia, and Canada? Just think: the plenary session opens on the 26th, closes on the 29th, and the NPC follows up on November 2nd with procedures for expulsion, removal from office, and freezing of overseas assets. Cai Qi's Beijing Vice Mayor was just taken away by the CCDI, and Zhao Leji has already scheduled the procedures for expulsion and asset seizure. Ninety-nine percent of CCP officials are opportunists; they know better than anyone which way the wind is blowing this time. However, a warning stick alone is not enough. Those two hundred Central Committee members have another huge fear: what if I stand up at the plenary session to criticize Xi and get settled with later? Don't worry, the military newspaper saw through their cowardice and issued the get-out-of-jail-free card to everyone a full week in advance.
On Monday, October 19, exactly seven days before the opening of the Fifth Plenum, page 7 of the PLA Daily published a heavyweight article under the ideological front headline by author Yi Ge, titled "Vigorously Cultivating a Strong Political Atmosphere of Speaking the Truth." What is truly critical is the first historical example it cited: Zhang Wentian at the Zunyi Conference. In January 1935, the Red Army suffered successive defeats under Bo Gu and Otto Braun, with the Xiangjiang campaign reducing a force of 80,000 down to just over 30,000. When the Zunyi Conference opened, Bo Gu delivered the main report on stage, and Zhang Wentian was the first to stand up and deliver a tit-for-tat counter-report. In black and white, the military newspaper quoted Zhang Wentian's earth-shattering words from back then: "Comrade Bo Gu's report is fundamentally incorrect." Why are these words fatal? Because Zhang Wentian was no outsider; he and Bo Gu belonged to the same faction of returned students from Moscow—they were ironclad insiders. If an outsider criticizes you, you can claim they are engaging in factional power grabs, but when an insider tells you to your face that your political line is wrong, Bo Gu was completely left without a counterargument. Zhang Wentian fired the first salvo, Mao Zedong followed with a lengthy speech, Wang Jiaxiang chimed in with his vote, and the entire conference flipped in an instant. Bo Gu's military command authority was stripped on the spot, and the nominal title of general coordinator—retained for less than a month—was also obediently handed over.
However, this story of Zhang Wentian has a chilling second half. Although the military newspaper did not explicitly spell it out in the article, every senior cadre within the party was drumming in their hearts. In the summer of 1959 at the Lushan Conference, Peng Dehuai wrote a 10,000-word letter to Mao Zedong addressing the devastation of people's livelihoods and widespread food shortages during the Great Leap Forward. Zhang Wentian stood up once more, speaking the truth for a full three hours in a panel discussion to back up Peng Dehuai. And the result? Before the conference even concluded, he was branded alongside Peng Dehuai, Huang Kecheng, and Zhou Xiaozhou as an anti-party clique by Mao Zedong, ultimately dying under injustice in a place of exile during the Cultural Revolution. He was the first to stand up and perform the ultimate meritorious service at the Zunyi Conference, yet he was also among the first to have his family destroyed at the Lushan Conference. Therefore, just imagine: of the roughly two hundred Central Committee members sitting in the conference hall of the Jingxi Hotel today, who does not know Zhang Wentian's fate? Those who speak the truth are hailed as heroes at the time and beaten as anti-party elements afterward—who would dare to stick their neck out now?
The PLA Daily knows this very well, which is why immediately following the Zunyi Conference, the next two paragraphs are specifically designed to cure this fear. The first paragraph names and condemns the fatal flaws of fallen leaders: blind self-confidence, self-righteousness, arbitrary and dictatorial behavior, running a one-man show, treating themselves as untouchable tigers, and refusing to listen to differing opinions. Listen to this—this is not merely criticizing fallen corrupt officials; it is unmistakably drawing a portrait of the top leader who runs a one-man show. The implication is that the fault lies with those who run one-man shows, not with those who stand up to speak. The second paragraph contains a promise from the military: no twisting of words, no slapping of political labels, and no framing with big sticks, offering full protection and support to cadres who offer critical opinions. These few words carry the weight of a thousand jun. This time, the person who stands up to fire the cannon will never suffer the doom of Lushan, because the gun barrels are held in the hands of the military, and the military will back you up to ensure your safety.
Looking at this extraordinary article from the PLA Daily from start to finish, it first teaches you to reject the top leader's report to their face just like Zhang Wentian did, then defines the fault as self-importance and one-man rule, and finally issues you a get-out-of-jail-free card guaranteeing that speaking out will not get you into trouble. One week before the opening of the Fifth Plenum, the military's newspaper essentially issued the license to force the leadership's hand by opening fire.
So the core suspense is this: now that the license has been issued, who will take it, and who dares to fire this first shot? As we mentioned earlier, the reason Zhang Wentian's shot at the Zunyi Conference was fatal was entirely due to the phrase "one of our own." Therefore, at the Fifth Plenary Session four days later, the first person to stand up and challenge will definitely not be Hu Chunhua, nor will it be any retired elder. If they were the first to speak, Xi Jinping could immediately counter-attack, claiming this is a Tuanpai (Communist Youth League faction) attempt to reverse the verdict and seize power. This person who fires the first shot must be someone from Xi's inner circle, someone whom the entire Party and military recognize as his die-hard loyalist. If you screen everyone on the podium at the Great Hall of the People today, there is only one person who most resembles Zhang Wentian back then: Premier of the State Council Li Qiang. If you overlay these two historical negatives, they are almost identical. What was Zhang Wentian's status back then? Chairman of the People's Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic, equivalent to the government premier at the time, and a Moscow loyalist who came from the same small circle as Bo Gu. What is Li Qiang's status today? Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. During the years Xi Jinping served as Party Secretary of Zhejiang, Li Qiang was the Secretary-General of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, a close personal aide who followed him around every day serving tea and water. Later, he was promoted to Beijing through exceptional circumstances; the whole world knows he is Xi's number one family retainer. But what has this number one "own person" been doing these past few days? On October 21, Li Qiang was still in St. Petersburg, Russia, attending the China-Russia Prime Ministers' Meeting. By early morning on the 22nd, he had already rushed back to Beijing and sat in the Great Hall of the People. Let's slow down the footage and look closely at the few steps Li Qiang took as he entered the venue. Last time he appeared in public, Li Qiang followed closely behind Xi, keeping a significant distance from the other Standing Committee members, looking every bit like a "Xi-Li dual core" setup. But this time? Look at the footage: Xi Jinping walks in front alone with a dark face, leaving Li Qiang far behind, while Li Qiang himself keeps a vacuum zone between him and the Standing Committee members behind him. With "Boss Xi" overhead, always ready to find a scapegoat to take the blame, and a group of Politburo colleagues eyeing him like tigers, and then touching his own neck while thinking of Li Keqiang, who passed away suddenly and mysteriously at the Dongjiao State Guest Hotel in Shanghai three years ago—at this moment, the cold sweat seeping from the back of Li Qiang, walking on the red carpet of the Great Hall of the People, probably soaked his suit. A close personal aide who has been personally cast aside by Xi Jinping—when he sits in the venue of the Fifth Plenary Session four days later, what will he be calculating in his mind? Informed bloggers within the Great Firewall have made it very clear: Li Qiang packed his foreign affairs schedule full precisely to signal to all parties through his actions that if being a puppet doesn't mean death, he, Li Qiang, can be one; but if being a puppet means taking the blame and ending up in Qincheng Prison, then no matter how obedient or spineless Li Qiang is, he will absolutely not agree to it. What will an aide who refuses to be buried with his master do at the Fifth Plenary Session four days later?
According to the agenda, on the first day of the plenary session, Xi Jinping delivered a work report on behalf of the Political Bureau and provided an explanation on the draft decision on strict Party governance. Immediately following this, the session entered the most critical phase: group discussions. Group discussions have historically been the setting for the largest power reversals in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In November 1978, at the Central Work Conference, the theme originally set by Hua Guofeng was to discuss agriculture and economic planning. However, by the third day, November 12, Chen Yun spoke in the Northeast group. Without mentioning a single word about the economy, he suddenly laid out six earth-shattering historical cases: the so-called traitor case of Bo Yibo and sixty-one others, the cases of Tao Zhu and Wang Heshou and other overthrown veteran cadres, the placement of Peng Dehuai's ashes in Babaoshan, the exoneration of the April 5 Tiananmen Incident, and the investigation into Kang Sheng's crimes. Chen Yun's remarks were printed into conference bulletins and distributed to all groups. Upon reading them, the entire room instantly erupted. The pragmatic meeting originally intended to discuss the economy overnight transformed into a critique session that thoroughly liquidated the Cultural Revolution and besieged Hua Guofeng. After more than a month of meetings, Hua Guofeng's "Two Whatevers" completely collapsed, and by the closing ceremony, the person delivering the keynote report and effectively taking over supreme power was Deng Xiaoping. Did Chen Yun shout "Down with Hua Guofeng?" when he spoke back then? No. He merely raised a few questions according to procedure during the group meeting. Four days later, Li Qiang's script is identical. All he needs to do in the group discussion is assume the posture of a serious work report, raise a few amendments according to procedure—asking why China's economy has plummeted in recent years, why the State Council's normal decision-making is always bypassed by various leading groups, and whether the collective leadership written in the Party Constitution still counts—and suggest that the decision of this Fifth Plenary Session explicitly state in black and white that in the future, all major decisions and cadre appointments and removals must strictly implement collective discussion and voting, and that one-man rule will never again be permitted. Listen to this: not a single word calls for overthrowing Xi Jinping, every sentence consists of procedural amendments. Yet once these words come out of the mouth of the Premier of the State Council and his closest Zhejiang-faction confidant, they carry the exact same crushing weight as Zhang Wentian's statement at the Zunyi Conference that Comrade Bo Gu's report was basically incorrect. Once Li Qiang fires this shot, those who have been holding back a belly full of fire will immediately dare to chime in. Former provincial party secretaries who were removed for no reason will stand out to say that those unfinished project targets back then were forced upon them from above. People in charge of discipline inspection and political and legal affairs will step out to say that many of the unjust cases handled in recent years cannot stand up to even basic procedural scrutiny. Group bulletins will fly upward like snowflakes, one after another. If a satisfactory account cannot be produced by October 29, the doors of the Jingxi Hotel will remain closed, continuing until the outcome is decided. This single shot is called the ambush of the century. The ambushers sit in the conference room holding not guns, but their mouths, amendment suggestions, and meeting bulletins. Outside the door, generals with real power guard the iron-clad perimeter, while inside the door, close confidants lead a mutiny.
However, speaking of which, while people were burning the midnight oil at the Jingxi Hotel, reading briefings until their eyes were blurred, we outside were staying up late every day chasing this Zhongnanhai drama, staring at our phone screens to catch the details, exhausting our energy and eyesight. At this most critical moment, we must take even better care of our bodies and eyes. At that time, the most soul-crushing move inside the Jingxi Hotel was this: once everyone had arrived and the knife had been handed to Li Qiang, what kind of 'Shangfang Baojian' (imperial sword) would be used to deal with Old Xi at the plenary session? The most stunning part is coming: the military newspaper had actually already prepared the script for the Central Committee members, and it was precisely the words that Old Xi himself had spoken. On October 22, the day of the Long March commemoration, the PLA Daily's Long March special issue repeatedly printed one sentence in bold: 'The distinct characteristic of the Zunyi Conference was upholding truth and correcting errors.' Seeing this, some friends might be puzzled: these eight characters were clearly spoken by Old Xi himself during his inspection in Guizhou in 2021; isn't it only natural for the military newspaper to quote the leader's own words? Friends, the most hair-raising murderous intent is hidden right here. It is true that he said these eight words himself, but when he spoke them in Guizhou back then, he was boasting that the Zunyi Conference established Mao Zedong's core status, implicitly referring to his own 'one-man supremacy.' But today? The military newspaper singled out these eight words, preceded by Zhang Wentian openly denying the top leader Bo Gu, followed by criticisms of 'arrogance and one-man rule,' and ending with the military protecting cadres who dared to offer criticism. The words were still the ones that came out of his mouth, but the person holding the hilt of the knife had already turned the blade around. In previous years, talking about the Zunyi Conference meant talking about how to maintain the 'core.' This year, on the eve of the Fifth Plenary Session, talking about the Zunyi Conference meant talking about who took the lead in standing up to deny the top leader, who opened fire, and who was responsible for protecting those who opened fire. To put it bluntly, this is called 'killing the heart'—using Old Xi's own quotes to issue a manifesto against him, leaving him unable to even find a reason to order the deletion of posts or the banning of accounts. On the same day, the party media system also published two signed articles commemorating the Long March. One was published on the front page of the People's Daily, signed 'Ren Zhongping,' still using the same old rhetoric, shouting 'Two Establishes' and 'Two Safeguards' at the top of its lungs; this was the pen in Cai Qi's hand still struggling according to the old rules. But the other one, published on the People's Daily Online opinion channel, signed 'Ren Wangping,' was titled 'Every Generation Has Its Own Mountains and Rivers.' Strangely enough, in the entire article of several thousand words, it only symbolically mentioned Old Xi's name once, and there was not a single mention of the 'core' or the 'Two Establishes' throughout the text. 'Ren Wangping' is a new pen name that suddenly appeared on People's Daily Online this September; counting this one, only six articles have been published in total. In the same People's Daily agency, on the same day, two official pen names published Long March articles—one shouting about the 'core' throughout, the other not mentioning the 'core' at all, while earnestly advising certain people to adjust their strategies, which does not mean admitting defeat, but advising him to step down quickly and become the roadbed for those who come after. Even the 90th Anniversary of the Long March conference itself was schizophrenic: the hosting remarks read by Zhao Leji included the 'Two Establishes' and 'Two Safeguards' in full, but when it was Old Xi's turn to speak, he only dared to say 'unite around the Party Central Committee,' and the only place he mentioned the 'core' was when he spoke of the establishment of Comrade Mao Zedong's core status. And in the 'Five Musts' he mentioned, the last one clearly stated 'persistently promote comprehensive and strict party governance,' which is the original name of the decision to rectify the party that the Fifth Plenary Session will deliberate four days later.
After finishing the discussion on the swordplay in the Zhongnanhai conference hall, let us finally take a look at the ordinary Chinese people outside the venue. On October 21, countless mainland netizens posted a seemingly ordinary sentiment on their WeChat Moments: 'Getting used to the plain and simple days recently.' As soon as the words were posted, the Moments function for everyone who posted this sentence was restricted and banned. The recovery time on the system pop-up window clearly read November 20, 2026. Some netizens were unconvinced and went to appeal, only to have their WeChat accounts permanently banned. What kind of heavenly taboo did a sentence about 'peaceful and quiet years' violate? If you read the first character of each word in this sentence in order, it says: 'Xi Jinping fades out for a month' (Xi Jinping dan chu yi feng), directly banning it until November 20, perfectly covering the entire 20th Central Committee's Fifth Plenary Session. You see this absurd apocalyptic scene: the front-page article of People's Daily Online above already dares not mention the 'Xi core' at all, while the censorship machine of the Cyberspace Administration of China below is still operating by inertia. The machine does not know that the wind in Zhongnanhai has changed; it only recognizes those three sensitive characters: Xi Jinping. Even the words 'plain and simple' (ping dan) can scare it out of its wits. If you think today's breakdown was hardcore and satisfying,
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