Why did Xi Jinping endorse Gree? Guo Yonghang was removed 45 days after receiving him! "Female Xi Jinping" Dong Mingzhu resigns from 6 positions; after the 41.6 billion Gree sell-off, three consecutive heads of Zhuhai state-owned assets fell, who is undermining Xi? [Jiang Feng Vision 20261104 Episode 531]

This episode focuses on the downfall of former Guangzhou Municipal Party Secretary Guo Yonghang as the main thread, analyzing the power logic behind Xi Jinping's 2018 inspection of Gree Electric Appliances and his endorsement of its mixed-ownership reform. With successive heads of the Zhuhai state-owned assets system being completely wiped out and Guo Yonghang being swiftly taken down right after the National Games, Dong Mingzhu—the "female version of Old Xi" who rapidly expanded by clinging to power—has also frequently stepped down from her positions and surrendered power, reflecting the loosening of the supreme power in Zhongnanhai and the collapse of local power.

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Hello friends, and welcome to Jiangfeng Vision. I will state the conclusion of this episode right upfront: because supreme power in Zhongnanhai is leaking outward, he can no longer protect Gree; meanwhile, in the business world, Dong Mingzhu—who closely followed Old Xi in everything and was jokingly dubbed by netizens as the female version of Old Xi—is also being forced to hand over the power in her hands. The rhythm of these two individuals losing and surrendering power shows an astonishing synchronization. Everyone understands in their hearts that what we care about has never been how much an air conditioner factory earned or lost; what everyone is truly watching is the loosening of that chair at the very peak. The big boss's inability to protect Gree is merely a concrete manifestation of his loss of supreme power and the snapping of his control chain.

Looking back to the autumn of 2018, the big boss grandly walked into the Zhuhai Gree headquarters, and Dong Mingzhu greeted him beaming with joy, talking about air conditioners and chips, closely followed by the provincial party secretary and governor, with host Guo Yonghang standing respectfully to receive him. The exhibition hall was brightly lit, and everyone's face was piled with smiles. The big boss's personal tour was equivalent to stamping Zhongnanhai's official seal of approval on a state-owned asset transaction worth over forty billion. Yet, just a few short years later, the bone-chilling wind from the Zhongnanhai red carpet blew along the Pearl River Estuary and collapsed the entire game. The heads of state-owned assets who handled this transaction back then were wiped out, the favored official who received him three times fell with a crash, smiling faces were crossed out one by one, and Gree itself was sliding downward. The third-quarter financial report on October 27 showed that net profit from July to September plummeted by forty-three percent, and another announcement on November 3 stated that it had already shelled out 2.4 billion to buy back its own shares; profits are collapsing, and money is still being poured in. The favored official who received him three times fell even more bizarrely: the last time he received him was when the big boss announced the opening of the National Games in Guangzhou, and just forty-five days after the fireworks went out, he was taken down. Since the big tree is already shaking, the vines attached to it naturally collapse along with it. In this episode, following the thread of former Guangzhou Municipal Party Secretary Guo Yonghang, who was expelled from the Party and removed from public office on November 2, we will peel back layer by layer the true fatal weakness behind this disintegration of high-level power and Dong Mingzhu's step-by-step surrender of power.

Let's turn the clock back to 2018. In April of that year, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a ban that cut off the chip supply to ZTE. A major company with 70,000 to 80,000 employees nearly went into shock on the spot, and the whole of China suddenly realized that the tiny chips in their mobile phones, base stations, and computers were held in the hands of others. That same spring, something happened at Gree. Despite a net profit of 22.4 billion yuan in 2017, they didn't distribute a single cent in dividends, leading to an outcry in the stock market. How did Dong Mingzhu handle it? In May, she stood up and declared: Even if it costs 50 billion yuan, we must succeed in chip research; the decision not to pay dividends is for the sake of chip manufacturing, and chip manufacturing is for the country. Look at how clever this maneuver was. Not paying dividends to shareholders is, in business logic, an infringement on investors' rights, but once you slap a political halo of 'manufacturing chips for the country' on that money, the nature of the act changes completely. Not paying dividends became 'considering the big picture,' and pouring money into chip manufacturing became a patriotic act in response to the call of the top leadership. The criticism in the stock market was instantly drowned out by overwhelming applause. On August 14, Zhuhai Zero Boundary Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd. was established with a registered capital of 1 billion yuan, with Dong Mingzhu herself as the legal representative. At the shareholders' meeting at the end of August, she declared again that Gree air conditioners would be using their own chips by next year. Look at this rhythm: the leader was on stage talking about independent innovation and core technology, and Dong Mingzhu immediately shouted that the air conditioner factory's chips were a national strategy. Two months later, the leader arrived. On the afternoon of October 22, the leader first went to Hengqin to visit the Guangdong-Macao Traditional Chinese Medicine Technology Industrial Park, and as soon as it got dark, the motorcade drove straight into Gree. After touring the exhibition hall, the precision mold workshop, and the national key laboratory, the leader gave a long speech on the spot, stating that from a major country to a powerful country, the development of the real economy is crucial; at no time should we deviate from the real to the virtual. The core of manufacturing is innovation, which means mastering key core technologies. We must rely on self-reliance and hard work, and strive through independent innovation. We must have the backbone and ambition for independent innovation. This speech was equivalent to stamping the Zhongnanhai seal of approval on Dong Mingzhu's 50-billion-yuan chip manufacturing plan from May. The list of those accompanying him that day was clearly written by Xinhua News Agency: Provincial Party Secretary Li Xi and Governor Ma Xingrui accompanied him throughout the trip, and Ding Xuexiang, Liu He, and He Lifeng from the General Office of the CCP Central Committee also accompanied the inspection. The host, Zhuhai Municipal Party Secretary Guo Yonghang, had only been in office for eight months, and he was taking on the biggest challenge of his life.

But on the very same day the leader walked into Gree, the company was doing something else behind the scenes. On October 22, Gree Electric confirmed that the company had fully acquired Hefei Kinghome Electric, a company that sold over a million refrigerators a year and was expected to reach 5 billion yuan in revenue. The original shareholder was Shengshi Hengxing, a platform belonging to Gree's own distributors. Gree didn't say a word about how much the acquisition cost and disclosed nothing. Even more interesting is that the industrial and commercial registration had already been quietly changed on October 11, and Hu Wenfeng, assistant to the president of Gree, had become the chairman of Kinghome, but this was only confirmed to the public on the day the leader walked through the door. While the leader was in the front exhibition hall talking about self-reliance, the company was quietly swallowing a refrigerator factory in the back, with no public price and the seller being one of their own. Why was Gree chosen? During that four-day trip to Guangdong, the leader visited only two companies: one was Ming珞 Automotive Equipment in Guangzhou, and the other was Gree. Gree was the most valuable piece of meat in the hands of the Zhuhai state-owned assets, and Dong Mingzhu was the most slogan-savvy entrepreneur in the country, having served as a deputy to the National People's Congress for four consecutive terms. What happened six months later tells us that the Zhuhai state-owned assets were likely already calculating a big move at that time: selling the controlling stake in Gree. The leader's trip was clearly to provide an endorsement. After this endorsement, Gree became a company affirmed by the General Secretary, and Dong Mingzhu became an entrepreneur affirmed by the General Secretary. Who would dare to stop them from doing any business afterward? There is one more detail you should note: the industrial park the leader visited in Hengqin that afternoon was the first project to land under the Guangdong-Macao cooperation framework agreement. Seven years later, one of the charges brought by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection against Guo Yonghang was seeking benefits for others in the entry of enterprises into industrial parks. The notification didn't name which park, but the most prominent park in Zhuhai that most companies were scrambling to enter during those years happened to be in Hengqin.

Less than half a year after the Big Boss's motorcade left Zhuhai, in April 2019, the Gree Group issued an announcement stating that it would publicly transfer 15% of the Gree Electric shares it held. With this sale, Zhuhai's state-owned assets would no longer be the controlling shareholder of Gree. There were two bidders scrambling to buy: Hillhouse Capital and Hopu Investment, with Hillhouse winning in late October. There is another detail: Dong Mingzhu initially wanted to buy it herself, bringing eighteen senior executives together to form Ghezhen Investment. Her name was not on the final list of transferees, but as you read on, once the contract was signed, not a single benefit was missed. The contract was signed in early December, and I will read a few figures to you: forty-six yuan and seventeen cents per share, five percent higher than the floor price, yet a full twenty percent cheaper than the closing price of the last trading day before the signing, with a total price of over 41.66 billion yuan, which was hailed at the time as the largest equity agreement transfer in A-share history. That is not all; the contract stated that if the Hillhouse fund made a profit in the future, Dong Mingzhu and the Gree management would take 41% of the general partner's share of the returns—meaning that out of every ten yuan of the general partner's share, four yuan and ten cents went to the management. Hillhouse also promised to push for no more than 4% of the listed company's shares to be allocated to the management for equity incentives, with annual dividends no less than half of the net profit. The state's shares were sold off at a twenty percent discount, while the management secured profit sharing, equity incentives, and dividend commitments. A deal called mixed-ownership reform turned state-owned enterprise workers into their own bosses. After the transaction was completed, Gree Group's shareholding dropped to below 5%, leaving only 3.46% by the end of September this year, and Gree Electric has had no actual controller ever since. Who calls the shots? Dong Mingzhu calls the shots. Less than half a year after the mixed-ownership reform was completed, Huang Hui, the number two figure of Gree's former iron triangle and vice-chairman, along with Chief Financial Officer and Board Secretary Wang Jingdong, left one after the other, leaving only Dong Mingzhu herself. A year earlier, the Big Boss endorsed them; a year later, state-owned capital exited. Endorsement first, sell-off second—this is the standard move of a white glove. Who gave the final nod for this deal of over forty billion yuan? Hong Kong media reported it very bluntly: when Guo Yonghang governed Zhuhai, he promoted state-owned asset reform and led the equity transfer of Gree Electric. Where did Hillhouse get all those over 41.6 billion yuan? According to reports, five partners pooled more than 20 billion yuan, and the other 20-plus billion yuan came from bank M&A loans, with all of the 900 million shares of Gree acquired pledged to the banks without a single share left over. Seven years later, the bills began to fall due. On February 25, 2026, Zhuhai Mingjun under Hillhouse announced for the first time the reduction of its holdings in Gree, selling a maximum of over 110 million shares, accounting for 2% of the total share capital, worth about 4.3 billion yuan based on the stock price at the time. The announcement stated clearly that all the funds from the reduction would be used to repay bank loans. This was the first time Hillhouse sold off stocks in the six years since taking control of Gree. By the Q3 report at the end of September, Mingjun still held 15% of Gree, all still pledged to the banks. The state's meat was sold off at a twenty percent discount, the buyers used bank money for half of it, and the management took the profit share—this was the true face of that mixed-ownership reform.

Now let us look at where the people who handled this deal ended up. In June 2024, Wu Aicun, former director of the Zhuhai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), was placed under investigation; in July 2024, Li Congshan, the SASAC director who personally promoted the Gree transfer in 2019, was investigated; on April 2, 2026, Li Wenji, who took over Li Congshan's position, was investigated while in office. Three consecutive heads of the Zhuhai SASAC were completely wiped out. Then, on April 28, 2026, Zhou Lewei, who served as chairman of Gree Group for eight years from 2016 to 2024, voluntarily surrendered. Caixin disclosed that as soon as Guo Yonghang got into trouble, relevant authorities had talks with him, and people around him said he was an important executor of state-owned asset reorganization during those years. As for Guo Yonghang himself, he was investigated on March 27, 2026, and officially expelled from the Party and public office (double expelled) on November 2nd. I will read you a few original quotes from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection's bulletin: engaging in power-for-money transactions, taking advantage of his position to seek benefits for others in engineering project contracting, enterprise entry into industrial parks, land transfers, and illegally accepting huge amounts of property; accepting high-end medical services provided by private business owners without compensation; conniving and acquiescing in relatives receiving remuneration without actually working; violating regulations to interfere in judicial activities; violating organizational principles to improperly seek benefits for others in cadre selection and appointment; and resisting organizational review. There is also the most fatal sentence: failing to restrain himself and stop after the 18th National Congress. After the 18th National Congress means after the Big Boss came to power; in other words, Guo Yonghang did not stop his corruption for a single day during the dozen years the Big Boss has been sitting on the throne, and on the very day the Big Boss walked into Zhuhai in 2018, he was hard at work doing just that.

Speaking of this, some might ask: if the people selling Gree have all been locked up, what about Dong Mingzhu, the one who calls all the shots at Gree? Let me be blunt: the power in Dong Mingzhu's hands never relied on shareholders; it was entirely exchanged for pledging loyalty to the Big Boss. When the Big Boss endorsed her, she was a 'pillar of the nation,' but now that the Big Boss is losing power, her reign is coming to an end as well. First, look at how she pledged her loyalty: when ZTE ran into trouble in 2018, she was the first to shout about investing 50 billion in chip manufacturing, echoing exactly what the Big Boss loves to hear: 'independent innovation.' Last April, when the Trump administration hit with the tariff stick, she declared at the shareholders' meeting that Gree would never use a single returnee, claiming there were spies among them. Even state media couldn't stand it and criticized her, but she knew exactly who she was saying that for. She also told people like Wang Ziru, 'Don't think too much; just follow what the General Secretary said, and it will be excellent.' Next, look at how she mimics the Big Boss: the Big Boss abolished term limits, so she refuses to step down. In December 2024, she claimed, 'None of my shareholders would let me retire; those who want me to retire are definitely not shareholders, let alone my employees.' In February 2025, she said, 'If I retire, this brand will cease to exist.' The Big Boss received 2,952 votes—a unanimous victory—in 2023; she was re-elected as chairwoman last April, and based on the shares that voted in favor, her approval rate exceeded 100%. Netizens directly called this Gree's 'Xi Moment.' The Big Boss's words are final, and so are hers. A compilation of her speeches circulates online, repeating one message over and over: 'I, Dong Mingzhu, can never be wrong; I am always correct.' The Big Boss engages in a cult of personality, so she created 'Dong Mingzhu's Healthy Home,' replacing the names of Gree specialty stores across the country with her own, aiming for 10,000 locations. At an employee party, someone even sang on stage: 'In terms of connections, I am more special than all of you; my mother is Dong Mingzhu.' The Big Boss doesn't appoint a successor, and neither does she. She once picked a secretary, Meng Yutong, from a variety show, claiming she would groom her to be the second Dong Mingzhu, but the person left in less than two years. Thus, a saying circulates online: 'If you can't understand the Big Boss, go study Dong Mingzhu.'

Yet, this female version of the Big Boss has started handing over power in the last two years. In August 2024, she stepped down as chairwoman of a Gree medical equipment company in Chengdu; at the start of her fifth term in April 2025, she stopped holding the concurrent position of president of Gree Electric, handing it to Zhang Wei; in June 2025, she also gave up her roles as legal representative and chairwoman of Lingbianjie, the company specifically established to make chips two months before the Big Boss's visit in 2018. By 2026, she gave up the electronic components company in January, the pre-made food equipment company in May, and resigned from Gree E-commerce on September 16th—at least six positions relinquished in just two years. While she claims to shareholders that they won't let her retire, she is handing over one company after another. Last February, she claimed she had already found three or four potential successors, but a year and a half later, not a single name has been announced, and she continues to sit through one term after another. Most interestingly, on September 16th, the day the legal representative of Gree E-commerce was changed, Dong Mingzhu herself spent 380,000 yuan to buy 10,000 shares of Gree Electric. This was her first public increase in holdings in nine years. By October 21st, she bought another 30,000 shares, raising her personal stake to 2.22%. Handing over power with one hand while buying stocks with the other—if the power can't be kept, the money must at least be held tight.

But in that same October, Gree's performance collapsed. Gree's revenue peaked at 205 billion in 2023, turned downward in 2024, and saw both revenue and profit decline in 2025. The third-quarter report released on October 27th this year was even uglier: revenue from July to September was 36.6 billion, a drop of 8%, and net profit was less than 4 billion, a plunge of 43%. The total net profit for the first three quarters fell by nearly 20%. While Midea saw double-digit growth and Haier hit new highs last year, only Gree is shrinking and its profits are collapsing. Yet, more and more people are pouring money in to prop up the market. Gree Electric itself is spending money to buy back shares; as of October 31st, it had already spent 2.4 billion, with plans to spend up to 10 billion. On October 27th, Jinghai Interconnected, the shareholding platform for Gree distributors, announced it would increase its holdings by another 600 million to 1.2 billion, with up to 990 million of that coming from special loans provided by Bohai Bank. This is not the first time; from March to September last year, Jinghai Interconnected already dumped 2.1 billion to buy over 46 million shares. Are the distributors, who were reducing their holdings the year before last, suddenly scrambling to borrow money to buy now—are they buying out of confidence, or are they propping up the bottom for someone? The distributor system that Dong Mingzhu built with her own hands is now borrowing money from banks to prop up her stock price. She is handing over official titles one by one, while clutching shares one by one.

Why is it mandatory to hand over power? A mere decline in performance alone could never force Dong Mingzhu to yield; state-owned enterprise bosses with a decade of poor performance still sit securely in their positions. What truly makes her insecure is that the umbrella over her head has been taken away. The past two years of her handing over power happen to be the two years where the boss has suffered consecutive humiliations: He Weidong and Miao Hua were taken down, Ma Xingrui—who accompanied the boss on the Gree visit—was reassigned from Xinjiang and later subjected to dual expulsion, and Guo Yonghang, who hosted the reception, was reassigned from Guangzhou and also subjected to dual expulsion. By the Fifth Plenary Session in October, even the Two Establishes had disappeared from the communique. Once the boss's umbrella is taken away, those under the umbrella must find somewhere to shelter themselves from the rain. Dong Mingzhu understands better than anyone that her assertion of 'the company cannot function without me' only holds water as long as someone is backing her from above; now that those supporting her are like clay bodhisattvas crossing a river, if she stubbornly refuses to let go, what awaits her is being forcibly stripped of power and reduced to the next white glove to be liquidated. Over the past few days, rumors have circulated overseas that something happened to Dong Mingzhu in Singapore. Although she did indeed travel to Singapore in September to receive the Refrigeration International Award, made an appearance at the Gree technical school in early October, and there has been no official news, the rumors specifically target her precisely because everyone can see that the umbrella over her head is gone, and without an umbrella, one must face the wind and rain alone. Now let us return to Guo Yonghang and examine the three receptions he hosted for the boss. We must refocus our attention on Guo Yonghang, who was just subjected to dual expulsion. In Guangdong's official political circles, Guo Yonghang is highly typical; his entire career and honor were completely tied to the reception work for the inspection tour of the South by the man in Zhongnanhai. He orchestrated three extremely critical imperial receptions for the boss. The first was in the autumn of 2018 on that evening at Gree in Zhuhai. After accompanying the boss on the Gree inspection, the next morning on October 23, the opening ceremony of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge was held at the Zhuhai Port. The boss personally attended and announced the official opening of the bridge, and the municipal party secretary standing alongside him in charge of all security and conference reception duties was still Guo Yonghang. That reception was a monumental achievement. Three years later, in September 2021, the Hengqin Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone—personally planned by the boss—was inaugurated in Zhuhai, and Zhuhai's top official was still Guo Yonghang. Just a month after the inauguration, in October 2021, Guo Yonghang was promoted to Vice Governor of Guangdong Province. Two months later, due to a massive tree-felling controversy in Guangzhou, both the municipal party secretary and mayor stepped down, and Guo Yonghang was urgently parachuted into Guangzhou to serve as the acting mayor.

The second reception took place on April 12, 2023, when the boss traveled south to Guangdong for an inspection and made a special trip to Guangzhou. That afternoon, the boss first visited the LG Display Guangzhou manufacturing base, delivered a speech facing foreign enterprises, and encouraged foreign investors to come to China and Guangdong to deeply cultivate the Chinese market. Afterward, he visited the GAC Aion new energy vehicle factory, stating that core technologies must be based on independent research and development. At the time, the entourage accompanying the inspection was massive, including Guangdong Provincial Party Secretary Huang Kunming, Governor Wang Weizhong, and three members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee: Cai Qi, Li Ganjie, and He Lifeng, while the host in charge of logistics for the entire Guangzhou itinerary was none other than Guangzhou Mayor Guo Yonghang. The effect of this reception was immediate: just two months after the boss left Guangdong, in June 2023, the central authorities formally approved Guo Yonghang's promotion to member of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and Party Secretary of Guangzhou, catapulting him into the ranks of sub-provincial standing committee members. In December of that year, the boss specially sent a congratulatory letter to the Understanding China international conference opening in Guangzhou, and Guo Yonghang was once again the host, with his political clout reaching its peak. One year later, in December 2024, the boss made another special trip to the Hengqin Cooperation Zone—the very sign board that Guo Yonghang had hung back when he was in Zhuhai. As an extremely ironic footnote, LG Display, the foreign-funded model enterprise personally inspected by the boss that was urged to deeply cultivate the Chinese market, officially announced a year and a half after the boss's visit in September 2024 that it was packaging and selling its Guangzhou LCD panel factory to TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology for 10.8 billion RMB, with equity delivery fully completed in April 2025 as foreign capital completely withdrew from the scene. The boss praised them just a step prior, and foreign capital liquidated its assets and retreated a step later, delivering a slap in the face that was both swift and ruthless.

Guo Yonghang's third time receiving the supreme leader was also the last of his political career. It took place in November 2025, when the boss arrived in Guangdong on the 8th to hear work reports from the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and the provincial government. On the evening of November 9th, tens of thousands of people crowded into the Guangdong Olympic Sports Center. The boss personally attended the event and declared the 15th National Games grandly open. This was his fourth consecutive attendance at a National Games opening ceremony. That night, fireworks filled the sky over the Guangdong Olympic Sports Center, lights illuminated the stadium as if it were daylight, and the entire venue erupted in thunderous cheers. Guangzhou was the core host city for these National Games. As the top official of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee, Guo Yonghang, dressed in a crisp suit, stood respectfully by the side of the supreme ruler, enjoying the most brilliant peak moment of his political career. However, all the gifts fate bestows have already been marked with a price in the dark. The magnificent fireworks at the Olympic Stadium had been extinguished for exactly forty-five days. On December 24th, a cold notice of appointment from the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee reached Guangdong: Guo Yonghang would no longer serve as a member of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee or as Secretary of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee, and would be assigned to other duties by the central authorities. In the Guangdong officialdom, and even in the entire high-level CCP political arena, the phrase "assigned to other duties" is, at critical moments, nothing short of a suspended death sentence. In July 2025, when Ma Xingrui was removed from his post as Secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Party Committee, the official announcement used the same phrase, "assigned to other duties." Exactly one year later, on July 14, 2026, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) announced that Ma Xingrui had been expelled from the Party and dismissed from public office, with the report stating that he had engaged in massive family corruption and traded power for sex and money. Guo Yonghang precisely replicated this path to the underworld. One month after stepping down from his position as Guangzhou Party Secretary, he was shoved into the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the CPPCC to serve as a powerless vice chairman. Just two months later, on March 27, 2026, the CCDI's handcuffs were locked onto his wrists. The main venue of the National Games was in Guangzhou, involving round after round of massive engineering projects for stadiums and road infrastructure. The first charge listed by the CCDI against Guo Yonghang was seeking benefits for others in the contracting of engineering projects. Whether this fell on this round of major projects, the report did not say, but the timeline speaks for itself.

If you put this timeline together and savor it carefully, every time the boss inspected the south, Guo Yonghang moved up a step. But by the third time, just forty-five days after the boss's National Games fireworks finished, he collapsed spectacularly. A local top official is the emperor's facade and watchdog in the frontier provinces. The emperor had just finished proclaiming his imperial grace in Guangzhou, and forty-five days later, his host was investigated and removed by the CCDI. Was this resounding slap in the face delivered to Guo Yonghang, or to the one sitting in Zhongnanhai? There is another key figure in this entire process who sat at the center of the storm and felt a chill down his spine: Huang Kunming, Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee. Huang Kunming is a direct confidant whom the boss promoted early in his career in Fujian and Zhejiang. In 2023, it was Huang Kunming who gave the nod for Guo Yonghang to become Guangzhou Party Secretary, and at the end of 2025, it was under Huang Kunming's watch that the procedures for Guo's removal and transfer to the CPPCC were handled. On October 30th of this year, the day after the Fifth Plenary Session concluded, Huang Kunming urgently presided over a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee. When conveying the spirit of the meeting, Huang used the strongest term among all provincial pledges across the Party: "firmly support." Yet, just three days after his words fell, on November 2nd, the CCDI officially announced the "double expulsion" of Guo Yonghang. The fact that his political rhetoric was shouted more sharply than anyone else's only proves that he was more panicked inside than anyone else.

Behind the downfall of Guo Yonghang lies the comprehensive bursting of the debt bubble in Zhuhai's state-owned assets system, which he headed for three and a half years. As the flagship enterprise with the largest asset scale under Zhuhai's state-owned assets, Zhuhai Huafa Group, with total assets exceeding 700 billion yuan, has heavily engaged in Hengqin development, financial lending, and real estate expansion in recent years, becoming the largest treasury for the Zhuhai local government. However, opening Huafa Group's current liability ledger, the figures are shocking. Huafa's total interest-bearing liabilities amount to more than 410 billion yuan, with short-term debts that must be repaid within one year accounting for over 40% of the total, translating to a debt hole of about 180 billion yuan looming immediately. In the single year of 2025 alone, this colossal state-owned enterprise suffered a net loss of more than 16 billion yuan. In late October of this year, Huafa Group had already begun quietly seeking debt extensions for domestic and foreign bonds everywhere, and the prices of multiple bonds under its umbrella experienced cliff-like crashes in the secondary market. On October 29, it was reported again that Huafa had been redeeming overdue trust products for some investors, and even trusts had defaulted. To prevent this huge financial bomb from completely detonating, on October 26 Huafa Group urgently sold assets to save itself, listing a portion of the equity of a core investment platform under its umbrella for public transfer. Who would act as the white knight? The answer is both absurd and ironic. Gree Group contributed 2.87 billion yuan and Zhuhai Communications Group contributed 1.7 billion yuan; the two local state-owned enterprises pooled 4.57 billion yuan to take over assets for Huafa, and this life-saving money is only enough to plug 1% of Huafa's interest-bearing liabilities. Please pay special attention to this detail: the party that forked out nearly 2.9 billion yuan in huge funds to patch the hole for Huafa is Gree Group under Zhuhai state-owned assets, whose chairman Zhou Lewei just surrendered to the authorities, and not the listed company Gree Electric Appliances controlled by Dong Mingzhu. Local state-owned enterprises dismantle the eastern wall to repair the western wall, saving the left hand with the right hand, but the blood vessels of the right hand had already been completely hollowed out by power-for-money transactions. The Zhuhai model that the man in Zhongnanhai personally visited, inspected, and praised in 2018 now leaves only rotten dead accounts and dirty accounts on the table.

Finally, let us return to October 22, 2018. On that accompanying list, Ma Xingrui has been subjected to the dual expulsion, Guo Yonghang has been subjected to the dual expulsion, and Liu He has retired. The two most glaring figures still standing on the stage are Li Xi and He Lifeng. One is Li Xi, the then Party Secretary of Guangdong Province who accompanied the big boss all the way into Gree. From 2017 to 2021, Li Xi served as Secretary and Ma Xingrui served as Governor, and the two worked together in Guangdong for four years. Now, while his former partner has been subjected to the dual expulsion, Li Xi himself has become the Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), holding the party's blade in his hands. Guo Yonghang's two critical promotions were once appointed as Zhuhai Secretary when Li Xi was the provincial party secretary, and once as Vice Governor and Guangzhou Mayor during Li Xi's tenure. By November 2, 2026, the CCDI under Li Xi's command personally subjected Guo Yonghang to the dual expulsion. Just three days earlier on October 30, the day after the closing of the Fifth Plenary Session, Li Xi had just presided over the CCDI Standing Committee meeting to convey the spirit of the plenary session, shouting the call to build four iron-clad inspection forces of integrity, only to turn around and see the Zhuhai Municipal Party Secretary he once appointed fall from grace right on cue. Is this Li Xi cutting off his own tail to save his life, or is someone else borrowing his blade to strike down his former men? The other is He Lifeng, who accompanied the big boss to Zhuhai in 2018 and accompanied the big boss to Guangzhou again in 2023. Guo Yonghang welcomed him both times, and He Lifeng was present on both occasions. In 2018, he was still the Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and now he is already the Vice Premier in charge of economy and finance. Meanwhile, the full text of this year's Fifth Plenary Session decision was published on November 1, and the very next day Guo Yonghang was subjected to the dual expulsion. The decision contained a sentence that fits the Gree story seamlessly: deeply investigate and strictly check expected returns, agreed-upon proxy holding, white gloves, and other new forms of corruption and hidden corruption, and also focus on investigating the penetration of capital into the political sphere. The three words white gloves were written in black and white into the plenary session decision. The big boss's endorsement cannot serve as an iron-clad immunity certificate, and welcoming him three times cannot protect an official's cap, so who is undermining the big boss? There are two possibilities here: first, the big boss is chopping off his own hands and feet, pushing out his trusted followers who once welcomed him or walked alongside him one by one to sacrifice the rook to save the king, in order to prove that he is still wielding the blade inward. Second, someone is holding the big boss's inspection itinerary, tracing back step by step along Gree, Zhuhai state-owned assets, Guo Yonghang, and Huafa. Every station investigated is a slap in the big boss's face right in front of the whole party, showing that he cannot even protect the places where he personally endorsed. My judgment is the second one. If the big boss were sacrificing the rook to save the king himself, he would never specifically pick Gree where he personally endorsed, nor would he pick the main venue of the National Games where he had just set off fireworks, nor would he force Dong Mingzhu—who imitates him in everything—to hand over power company by company at this critical juncture. The person making the move specifically targets his face, intending to let the entire party clearly see that the man at the top of the pyramid can no longer protect anyone.

Where is the next stop for this liquidation? It is right there on the shareholder list of Gree. There is Zhuhai Mingjun, with 15% of its shares still pledged to the bank; the distributors who borrowed from banks to increase their positions; Dong Mingzhu, who is buying shares while handing over power; and the Gree Group, which just paid to bail out Huafa. The card table set up seven years ago when the boss endorsed them is being overturned and reshuffled. Whoever cannot hold on first will be the next one taken away. On this card table, the final competition is about who can hold on. We don't need to sit at that table.

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