As Soon as Xi Jinping Returns to Beijing, a CCP Elder Dies — Coup Recordings Leaked? Ren Zhiqiang Betrayed and Arrested, Pan Shiyi Dares Not Return to China for the Rest of His Life, Little Pinks Addicted to Reporting People

The video explores the incident involving the leaked recording of a private dinner hosted by SOHO China founder Pan Shiyi. The recording mentions the inside story of Ren Zhiqiang's imprisonment for criticizing Xi Jinping and references a list of 11 red aristocrats. Combining rumors surrounding Ren Zhiqiang, Wang Qishan, and others, the program analyzes the political infighting within the top echelons of the CCP, the phenomenon of rumors in a vacuum of information, the safety boundaries for entrepreneurs under a totalitarian regime, and the upcoming political window.

Video link:

Full text:

Has Xi Jinping's power been challenged once again? Just after Pingping finished his visit to the United States and returned to Beijing, the Chinese internet and the X platform (Twitter) suddenly erupted with public opinion that deeply shook Xi Jinping's status. And this video, I think, is perhaps much more interesting than what everyone sees on the surface. The person in the video, the whistleblower, is not some overseas democracy activist, some gym owner, some Zhongnanhai gossip-monger, nor an ordinary citizen, and certainly not some anti-CCP influencer; he is one of the most famous real estate tycoons in China's history, SOHO China founder Pan Shiyi. Even more exaggerated is this: halfway through his talk, Pan Shiyi specifically told the friends and family around him, "These things I am about to say, absolutely do not record or film." As it turns out, this entire segment was actually leaked online, right? It started spreading like wildfire yesterday on Weibo—yes, China's Weibo—and on the X platform. Of course, the video uploaded to Weibo was scrubbed from the entire network in less than half an hour. So where is Pan Shiyi now? He is in the United States. And who is Pan Shiyi talking about? It is that person who, during the pandemic, wrote an article directly describing Xi Jinping as a clown who insists on being emperor even after being stripped naked—that was the title of his article. In the end, because of this article, combined with other criminal charges, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Now it has been confirmed that Ren Zhiqiang was indeed sentenced to 18 years precisely because he wrote that article criticizing Pingping. Now, think about it: the gym owner who says he supports the Communist military and is obsessed with taking Lai Ching-te's head, he is still at large today, often able to go to Xiamen to see his "Boss Yu" Xiao Yu, then go sell mooncakes, right, and go to Zhongnanhai to see his wife Peng Liyuan. So let me ask you, which side is the true dictatorship and autocracy?

What Pan Shiyi revealed this time is the most terrifying part of this whole affair. Let us first show you the thirty-to-fifty-second version; take a quick look, and then we will comment. He mentioned that he happened to be in the United States in 2020. He had already bought his plane ticket back to China, but right before he was supposed to return after the New Year, at that exact moment, a very close friend of his got into trouble. Although Pan Shiyi did not directly state in the video that this person was Ren Zhiqiang, judging from the relationship between the two, their industries, and the chronological description, outsiders—whether those with anti-CCP stances, pro-CCP stances, or even Little Pinks—almost all pointed to Ren Zhiqiang as the person he was describing. Pan Shiyi also said that the friend had sent that piece of writing to only 11 people to read, including him, and he was the first to receive it. Then, Pan Shiyi followed up with a very critical statement: he said he was in the United States at the time, which is why he escaped. After this video came out, it went viral online because the first question everyone asked was: okay, besides you, who exactly were the other 10 people? Were those 10 people really arrested, or were only some of them, or perhaps they were arrested and then released? After all, they were just recipients of a forwarded message; how can you control what others forward, right? You cannot control them. The second question is: Ren Zhiqiang clearly sent this article privately to his most trusted friends. Why do we usually send such highly critical articles to friends first? Doesn't it imply that these friends share similar values with you on a private level? The 11 people plus Ren Zhiqiang—perhaps 12 in total—must have been complaining about Xi Jinping for a long time, right? So why did Xi Jinping eventually find out? Who sold Ren Zhiqiang out? Or did someone pretend to criticize Xi Jinping just to gain favor and then betray others, like in a Cultural Revolution-style struggle session? So, Guan Chang, you had better be careful. Many people say, 'Bajiong, a gentleman takes revenge, ten years is not too late,' but you, Bajiong, are a gentleman who takes revenge all day long, constantly bringing up his wife, Peng Liyuan. Guan Chang, you had better hope that one day Xi Jinping doesn't actually use the excuse that you want to sleep with his wife to arrest you, with the official reason being something like you were in Macau or somewhere, engaging in money laundering, tax evasion, or acting as a white glove—I don't know, I'm just guessing. Anyway, our rebels have already played it in front of Peng Liyuan in front of the White House, so take care of yourself, Ren Zhihan.

Now, a so-called list of the 11 people has actually appeared on the X platform, and the names on it are increasingly prominent, including Pan Shiyi himself. Of course, I don't think he could have shown it to Xi Jinping himself, right? The subsequent names are becoming more and more significant: Wang Shi, the founder of Vanke, and someone everyone should know, one of the veterans of the CCP Central Committee, Wang Qishan, who was also one of the key figures in Xi Jinping's takedown of Bo Xilai. Who else? Liu Xiaoguang, Feng Lun, Wang Gongquan—these are names we in Taiwan might not be as familiar with, so I won't elaborate on them one by one here. Just looking at this list, you will find that this is not some ordinary chat group of entrepreneurs. If this list is authentic, it almost gathers the connections of the most influential entrepreneurs, investors, and red nobility—the Zhao family—in China at that time. Actually, there are two versions; the longest version is nearly two minutes long. This two-minute version does not mention the names of these 11 people, or perhaps after Pan Shiyi reminded everyone not to record, they really stopped recording, so it only captured what was said before; maybe they really did mention who these people were afterward. But if this list is fake, then who are the real 11 people? Because as you have seen with Jack Ma, he had to submit a letter of surrender to exchange for his immunity. Jack Ma did indeed publicly criticize Xi Jinping and his entire financial regulatory mechanism in China. If Ren Zhiqiang really only sent this article to that small group of people, why was it eventually grasped by the CCP? How exactly was the intelligence shared? Or was it monitored by an even more terrifying email software? I told you not to install those 'Great Nation' rebel-tracking and anti-fraud apps, but you installed them anyway. Or was Ren Zhiqiang already being targeted, so there was no need for anyone to inform? In our last documentary, we filmed a public security officer who defected to Taiwan. He mentioned that the starting point for establishing the Sky Eye system and the Haiyan system was to monitor the people the central government wanted to monitor, and only secondarily to monitor the common people, those 'Zhang Xianzhongs' on the street, traffic violations, or to help people find missing persons. Its purpose was to monitor the rebellious population.

But we need to go back 6 years, because many Taiwan viewers, and even young Chinese viewers, might not know what Ren Zhiqiang actually did. Why did a single article of his cause such a severe outcome, resulting in an 18-year prison sentence? Ren Zhiqiang was not what you might consider an ordinary opponent; he was originally from inside the the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) system and had a red family background. He long served in positions including chairman of Beijing Huayuan Group. Real estate in China—doing real estate in a totalitarian country—well, I don't need to explain how deeply entangled and complex his connections were. Because his speech was very direct, people called him "Big Cannon Ren." But he made one mistake: he thought he could continue to be Big Cannon Ren just like in the Hu-Wen era, continue to be Big Cannon Ren during the first era of the Xi era, and continue to be a "Mega Cannon" Ren when the second era was about to transition into a third-term tenure. As early as 2016, when Xi Jinping demanded that all Chinese official state media—party media—bear the surname "Party," Ren Zhiqiang had already publicly criticized it, saying that if our Chinese media all have the surname "Party," then they no longer represent the interests of the people; that is called propaganda, right? When the people are abandoned, then the people will be abandoned. As a result, he faced—actually, Little Pinks, if you think about it, this isn't wrong either—those registered state news television stations, whether good or bad, should report everything, right? For example, during Xi Jinping's recent visit to the United States, there were indeed supporters, but there were also protesters. But as a news media outlet, you should report on both sides, and you shouldn't provide commentary; for a state television station, this is what it should be, because this judgment should be left to the people's minds to decide. But if today party media bears the surname "Party," you will only report that they all support Xi Jinping. Then tell me, is this called propaganda, or is it called a news media outlet?

What truly pushed the matter to the extreme was when the Wuhan outbreak erupted in 2020. On February 23, the the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held a videoconference involving over 100,000 people, where Xi Jinping spoke about China's epidemic prevention and control. Not long after, a long article widely believed to be written by Ren Zhiqiang began circulating across Chinese internet platforms, right? The most famous passage in that article stated that what he saw from this conference was not just an emperor—referring to Xi Jinping—showing off his new clothes, except there were no clothes, thus calling him a clown. What else did he criticize? "Whoever won't let me be emperor, I will make you perish." Thus, Ren Zhiqiang disappeared. During that period right when the epidemic emerged in 2020, can you imagine how devastating this destructive power was in China's political environment? You can just look at Li Wenliang's fate to know. Where did the article go even deeper? It criticized the entire information control and media. He even invoked the 7,000-people meeting, as well as modern educational dictionaries, saying that calling it the Great Leap Forward or the Great Leap Forward are both fine, because due to the changes of this era, these are actually interchangeable, along with the Cultural Revolution, and even comparing China's politics to Ceaușescu. In other words, that was not an ordinary article complaining about Xi Jinping; it went all the way from criticizing the epidemic response to Xi Jinping's personality cult, the entire propaganda system, and the centralization of power. Then Ren Zhiqiang disappeared. In April 2020 (a slip of the tongue), right around that time, the Beijing Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision announced that Ren Zhiqiang was undergoing investigation and trial. By September of the same year, he was officially sentenced, with the charges naturally being embezzlement, accepting bribes, misappropriating public funds, right, and abusing power, sentencing him to 18 years and fining him 4.2 million RMB.

This needs to be made clear as well: the reasoning of a Chinese court will never state that you were sentenced to 18 years in prison for cursing Xi Jinping—if that got out, what would the world think? But why is everyone, including Little Pinks, implicitly aware of this? Otherwise, try asking one of them to publicly curse Xi Jinping and see what happens; they wouldn't dare. We all know that if you want to run a monopoly or real estate business in a totalitarian country—especially given that in the People's Republic of China the land belongs to the state and you can only hold leaseholds—and you manage to engage in real estate, are you telling me there wouldn't be some collusion between officials and businessmen? That you wouldn't collaborate with bank presidents, provincial governors, and provincial party secretaries to engage in corruption, split the profits, and rake in windfall loans? Of course there would be. Therefore, anyone who grows big and powerful in business in China, including those within the official system—remember the North Pole Catfish? Her grandfather was merely a department-level official in Shenzhen—well, hasn't everyone boarded a pirate ship? Yes. Why must you board a pirate ship to become one of the CCP's Zhao family members and part of the relevant interest groups? Because you must offer a pledge of allegiance (toumingzhuang). Once you do that, I can take action against you at any time. If you are loyal to me today, loyal to Xi Jinping, alright, then I won't touch you. But the moment you curse Xi Jinping today, or if another leader comes to power and you fail to grovel and lick the boots of that leader, he can use your corruption against you at any time. So you will find that even now, very few people truly dare to publicly oppose Xi, even though they all do, because every single one of them has dirt on their hands regarding corruption and embezzlement. Let me ask another very practical question: why has the CCP Central Committee still not dared to disclose exactly how much money Zhang Youxia, Li Shangfu, and those people embezzled?

However, the most troublesome problem right now is also this: why did this video of Pan Shiyi talking about Ren Zhiqiang suddenly explode with brand new news precisely after Xi Jinping concluded his visit to the United States—well, I shouldn't say "re-emerge," but suddenly surface? And you know what? At the same time, an even more astonishing secret has been circulating on the X platform: that Ren Zhiqiang has passed away, with some even extending the rumor to claim that Qincheng Prison recently dealt with several dissidents, including Bo Xilai. Of course, there are currently no reliable mainstream media outlets to confirm this news, but if even foreign media with their own informants confirm that the news might be true, then indeed. However, Ren Zhiqiang's health issues are not something that just started yesterday. In October 2024, Ren Zhiqiang's daughter, Ren Xinyi, publicly petitioned Xi Jinping to allow her father to be released on medical parole and go abroad for treatment, which of course was not permitted. She said that if treatment in Beijing were allowed, that would be one thing, but he even needed to go abroad. At the time, she stated that ever since Ren Zhiqiang entered prison, he had suffered from a severe prostate condition that continued to worsen after his incarceration, forcing him to use the restroom more than a dozen times every night, and his physical condition was deteriorating by the day. She also publicly expressed that this was the final phase of her father's life, so could they please allow father and daughter (a slip of the tongue) to reunite? But things got even more absurd because now another person is rumored to have died: Wang Qishan, a former political ally of Xi Jinping, a former member of the CCP Central Committee Politburo Standing Committee, and former Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. He was also a key driver of Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign during his first term—it was precisely because Xi relied on him that he took down a massive number of military generals, members of the Central Military Commission, former vice chairmen of the CMC at the time, and even former crown prince Bo Xilai, later serving as Vice President of China. Therefore, when rumors of Wang Qishan's death started circulating online, it immediately got connected to the Ren Zhiqiang thread. Since Wang Qishan was reportedly on this list of 11 people, right, and now fresh news of Ren Zhiqiang's death is spreading, could something have happened to Wang Qishan as well? Question mark.

Just over a month ago, on August 17, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held a centenary celebration for Jiang Zemin. Wang Qishan, who had not appeared in public for a long time, was there at the Great Hall of the People. Although he looked a bit dazed, other retired state-level and deputy state-level leaders were also present, including Wen Jiabao, Zeng Qinghong, Wang Yang, Li Zhanshu, and of course, Hu Chunhua. Now, I think what is truly worth noting about this wave of rumors is not whether Wang Qishan or Ren Zhiqiang is dead or alive, but why Chinese political rumors exist at all. If you look closely, there are no normal information channels for anyone to verify anything. So, after a video of a private dinner party involving Pan Shiyi was released, an entire storyline could be fabricated within two days. This is precisely because the CCP's political environment and social atmosphere lack transparent mechanisms and oversight from third or fourth parties, which is why such rumors have such a large market. Think about it: if Ren Zhiqiang or Wang Qishan were in a normal country, where the media could visit them, lawyers could speak freely, and families could regularly disclose their health status within a judicial process—just like our government officials or elected representatives in Taiwan—they could simply issue a statement saying, 'Who said I'm dead? I'm eating a popsicle,' right? It would be simple and humorous, and the rumor would be debunked. You don't see that in the People's Republic of China. Where is Ren Zhiqiang being held? What is his physical condition? Can his family see him? What is his medical situation? Even his own daughter doesn't know. Therefore, this unverified piece of news can survive for a long time. This is why I keep telling everyone that the most dangerous thing when observing CCP politics is to mistake a vacuum of information for a genuine leak. In reality, it is a mix of truth and falsehood. As for the ratio of truth to falsehood, everyone must judge for themselves; you can't say it's all true or all false, right? Maybe 10% is true, maybe 30% is true. So, we have to piece together that small percentage of truth from various pieces of fake news to understand Chinese politics.

However, this video of Pan Shiyi is still very worth watching because it shows us for the first time that the dinner parties and banquets of the CCP are inextricably linked to terrifying political struggles. The most unique thing about Ren Zhiqiang is that he was not an outsider to the system from the beginning. His entire life, career, social connections, and his family were all part of the system. So, what really scares many Chinese netizens and even Taiwanese people about his story is not just that an opponent was arrested, but another question: if we are truly ruled by them, or if you enter such a system thinking you have a strong political background, but Xi Jinping decides to arrest you, he can make you fall from your pedestal at any time. So, I ask you, where is the safety boundary between you and power? In a totalitarian state, being with the emperor is like being with a tiger. A man who once stood at the center of China's golden era of real estate is now at a private gathering overseas talking about things that happened six years ago, and even reminding everyone not to record. So, Chinese netizens have now reached a conclusion: any big boss must never speak the truth after drinking, as it will all be leaked.

But I think what we really need to pay attention to is that after Xi Jinping returned to Beijing from the United States on September 26, and this video was released on the 27th, we are entering a very important window for Chinese politics. What is it? After the Fifth Plenary Session comes next year's 21st National Congress, as well as the 'Two Sessions.' All of these are about establishing whether Xi Jinping, or those he has designated—be it Cai Qi, Li Qiang, or even the Hu Chunhua you mentioned—can succeed Xi Jinping. This is the most important issue for everyone to discuss. However, one thing we can observe is that there are indeed still some anti-Xi factions using overseas platforms and media to create public opinion to criticize and fight against Xi Jinping. This means that the anti-Xi factions do not seem to have truly perished. Those who appear to be submissive under Xi Jinping's tyranny might be operating in silence. Often, the mix of truth and falsehood is what makes political rumors in the People's Republic of China so easy to fall for, and that is also why it is most worth our while to keep following these stories. That's all for today's video.

If you like it, remember to subscribe.

If you don't like it, remember to block me.

I am Ba Jiong, see you next time. Bye.