Fearing He Would Be Carried Straight Out of the Venue, Xi Jinping Conceded on the Spot at the Politburo! Two Days Before the Fifth Plenum, Hu Chunhua Seized the Top Post in Yunnan and Li Keqiang's Former Subordinate Takes Charge of Hunan; Wen Jiabao Unleashes His Third Swift Blade with the 7th Round of Inspection Black Books 【Jiang Feng's Perspective 20261026 Episode 523】
On the eve of the Fifth Plenary Session, Politburo meetings and personnel changes occurred frequently. Wen Jiabao brandished three sharp blades, including the black ledger of inspections, forcing Xi Jinping to concede on personnel arrangements. Hu Chunhua's loyalist Mo Gaoyi and Li Keqiang's former subordinate Wang Zhijun were parachuted into Yunnan and Hunan respectively to take charge, triggering shockwaves in official circles and discussions on historical mirrors.
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Welcome to Jiang Feng Horizon, friends. On the first day of the Fifth Plenary Session, the Jingxi Hotel is still brightly lit. In the morning in the grand auditorium, the work report and the decision on persistently advancing the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party were read word for word. From the afternoon until the early hours of the morning, the most critical group discussions were held in the small meeting rooms on each floor. The official press release made not a single mention of this. There are a total of 376 seats for full members and alternate members elected by the 20th National Congress, but this time only around 291 people sat in them. Each of the 85 empty chairs represents a name—some are in Qincheng Prison, some are in detention facilities, and the whereabouts of others are still unknown. The empty seats of the military are the most glaring. Looking at the seating for attendees, it was a completely different scene: a group of newly appointed regional bosses, who aren't even alternate members of the Central Committee, stood straight, waiting for the plenary session to vote them into the Central Committee. A typical example is Hu Chunhua's loyalist Mo Gaoyi. Former party secretaries Shen Xiaoming and Wang Ning, whose seals were just stripped, still wear the hats of Central Committee members, and their speech drafts in their pockets were revised over and over again. As for the more than two hundred people caught in the middle, they lowered their heads to flip through documents, and before applauding, they cast a glance out of the corner of their eyes to the left and right. In their hearts, they were all calculating the same sum: will the next empty chair be my turn? This is what you call everyone feeling in danger, and the times have truly changed.
In the past month, a full 14 regional bosses have been uprooted and moved. Subtracting the 6 regions where Politburo members concurrently serve as chief, out of the remaining 25 provinces—totaling 50 people for secretaries and governors—more than a quarter were replaced at once, and less than 20% of those newly appointed are Xi's people. If it were really true, as some propaganda still stubbornly claims, that Xi still holds absolute power, at the Politburo meeting on Friday, October 23, he could have completely vetoed these personnel appointments. The vast majority of the 22 Politburo members sitting at the table were personally handpicked by him back then, and fewer than five are people of Hu and Wen. If it really came to a vote, the numbers wouldn't be enough. But what was the result? Mo Gaoyi, Hu Chunhua's fellow Hubei townsman who isn't even an alternate member, went to Yunnan to become the chief, and Wang Zhijun, the accountant heavily relied upon by the late Li Keqiang, took charge in Hunan. Xi, sitting in the main seat, was so furious his face turned ashen, yet in the end he let it pass, and not a single opposing vote was cast in a room full of his own people. Why? Because sitting on the meeting table was the seventh round of inspection black ledgers brandished by Wen Jiabao; outside the meeting table, Lin Lamou, the Beijing proxy strongly protected by Cai Qi, had fallen from grace just the day before; and Li Keqiang's close aide Xiao Jie had just brought back a huge sack of audit cards from Jiangxi. At this time, who would dare to flip the table? Anyone who did would be waiting for Qincheng Prison at the Fifth Plenary Session. Since the Politburo conceded, how could these two hundred or so members of the Central Committee sitting in the grand auditorium on Monday not be afraid? Everyone is afraid of Qincheng.
At Friday's Politburo meeting, supported by Wen Jiabao's decision-making and coordination agencies, Organization Department Minister Shi Taifeng brought forward two provincial party secretary appointments, both of which were like thorns in Xi Jinping's side. The first, Mo Gaoyi, who was parachuted into Yunnan, is the person we just mentioned. He is a fellow Hubei native of Hu Chunhua. When Hu Chunhua was in charge of Guangdong, he spotted Mo in the provincial propaganda system. In 2017, he was exceptionally promoted to Party Secretary of Shaoguan, which was Mo's first time as a top local official. From then on, he became a staunch loyalist of Hu Chunhua. Later, when the Tuanpai (Youth League faction) was suppressed, Hu Chunhua had him transferred to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) as head of the propaganda department at the end of 2018 through Yang Xiaodu, who was then at the CCDI, thus protecting him. Later, he served as the head of the Beijing Municipal Propaganda Department, and was finally placed in the position of Director of the State Council Information Office and Deputy Head of the Publicity Department of the CCP Central Committee, looking like a Beijing official in charge of press conferences. Imagine how Xi felt seeing this name on the meeting table. Four years ago, at the 20th National Congress, he personally kicked Hu Chunhua out of the Politburo; four years later, Hu Chunhua's loyalist is taking the seal of a province—and it is Yunnan Province, where the old army unit of Zhang Youxia, when he was a corps commander, is stationed. As for Wang Ning, who was replaced, he rose through the ranks of the Fujian faction and is Xi's own man. This is the first thorn.
The second, Wang Zhijun, who was parachuted into Hunan, was born in 1965 and is a graduate of the Department of Precision Instruments at Tsinghua University. He spent his early years as the director of the First and Fifth Economic Bureaus of the Office of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission. In 2019, Li Keqiang, impressed by his industrial and economic background, personally promoted him to Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology. In 2022, he specifically arranged for him to go to Heilongjiang as Deputy Party Secretary to build up his local experience. After the 20th National Congress, Li Qiang brought Wu Zhenglong into the State Council to take charge, but faced with the vast sea of macroeconomic reports, he was completely lost. He had no choice but to transfer Wang Zhijun back to Beijing from Heilongjiang to serve as Deputy Secretary-General of the State Council and act as the accountant for the State Council. How did Xi feel seeing this name? Li Keqiang had been sidelined by him for a full decade, and passed away just seven months after retiring. Tomorrow, October 27, is the third anniversary of Li Keqiang's death. Four days before the anniversary, Xi had to personally sign off on sending the accountant whom Li Keqiang valued during his lifetime to Hunan, Mao Zedong's hometown, to hold the seal of a province. And who is Shen Xiaoming, who was replaced? He rose to prominence in Shanghai early on and was very close to Ding Xuexiang, Xi's former chief secretary. Ding Xuexiang sat at that meeting table and watched helplessly as his own man was stripped of his seal. This is the second thorn.
We don't know what Xi said when these two thorns were thrust at him, but the result is there: he accepted it. On Friday afternoon, just after the Politburo meeting adjourned, Organization Department Minister Shi Taifeng immediately found Mo Gaoyi in Zhongnanhai to talk and announce the appointment. Mo Gaoyi didn't even have time to go home to pack his bags; he flew to Kunming, Yunnan, that same night. The next day, Saturday, October 24, the top party and government officials of both Hunan and Yunnan were replaced within a single day. In the morning, a provincial leadership cadre meeting was held in Changsha, Hunan. Deputy Organization Department Minister Hao Junhui announced the central decision: Wang Zhijun would serve as Hunan Provincial Party Secretary, Shen Xiaoming would no longer serve, and Governor Mao Weiming would also step down as Deputy Party Secretary and leave Hunan. Xie Weijiang, Party Secretary of Yueyang, took over as Secretary of the Provincial Government Party Group and succeeded as Governor. In the afternoon, the same Hao Junhui rushed from Changsha to Kunming to announce that Mo Gaoyi would serve as Yunnan Provincial Party Secretary, Wang Ning would no longer serve, and Governor Wang Yubo would also step down as Deputy Party Secretary. Liu Qifan, who was transferred from Qinghai, would serve as Deputy Party Secretary of Yunnan and succeed as Governor. According to the old rules of the CCP, at such large meetings, the outgoing secretary must take the stage to say a few words about resolutely supporting the central government's decision and fully supporting the new secretary's work—in plain terms, admitting defeat in front of all the provincial cadres. This time, both Shen Xiaoming and Wang Ning presided over the meetings themselves and took the stage to express their resolute support. The defeat was admitted in public.
The most interesting part is Mo Gaoyi. When he took the stage in Kunming to express his stance, he had to add a sentence thanking General Secretary Xi and the Party Central Committee for their trust. Hu Chunhua's man took Xi's territory, and then turned around and thanked him in front of all the provincial cadres. How did Xi feel hearing that 'thank you'? Why the rush? Let's count the days: the Politburo met on Friday, and the plenary session opened on Monday, with only a weekend in between. If Mo Gaoyi had still held the title of Director of the State Council Information Office on Monday, he wouldn't have been able to enter the Jingxi Hotel at all. He isn't even an alternate member of the Central Committee. Only by becoming the Yunnan Provincial Party Secretary could he attend the plenary session as a regional leader and be added to the Central Committee. Tonight, Mo Gaoyi is sitting in the meeting room of the Southwest Group at the Jingxi Hotel as the new Yunnan Provincial Party Secretary, keeping an eye on things. There is another layer: the former 14th Group Army, now the 75th Group Army, is stationed in Yunnan, with its headquarters in Kunming. How the issue of expelling Zhang Youxia from the Party is handled at this plenary session affects the entire Southwest. No matter what is decided at the plenary session, there must be someone reliable in Kunming to keep watch. If we look at Mo Gaoyi and Wang Zhijun together, Wang Zhijun has been an official for decades but has never been a top local official for even a single day—let alone a provincial party secretary or governor, he hasn't even been a city or county party secretary. As for Mo Gaoyi, at most, he has only served as the Party Secretary of Shaoguan for 1 year and 9 months. With two such large provinces as Hunan and Yunnan suddenly handed over to two Beijing officials who have almost no experience in local governance before the opening of the Fifth Plenary Session, what do you think Wen Jiabao and Hu Chunhua are aiming for? Let's peel it back layer by layer.
First, let's talk about why it had to be these two provinces. Hunan is the hometown of Mao Zedong, a major central province with over 60 million people; Yunnan is on the southwestern frontier, with the old troops of Zhang Youxia stationed behind it and Northern Myanmar right at its doorstep. Neither of these places can afford to have any trouble. Next, let's talk about why the old ones had to be removed. During his years governing Hunan, Shen Xiaoming has been burdened with two notorious scandals: one is the bizarre death of Luo Shuaiyu, an intern at Xiangya Hospital, which exposed medical corruption and the blood debt of organ harvesting; the other is the Liuyang fireworks factory explosion in May this year, which caused heavy casualties and shocked the nation. As for Wang Ning, before the 20th National Congress, Xi Jinping placed him in Yunnan to hold the position of a regional leader and subsequently enter the Central Committee. Now that this position is being reclaimed, age is a ready-made excuse, but the real priority is the military headquarters in Kunming mentioned earlier. The plenary session must pass the hurdle of Zhang Youxia, and the doorstep of Zhang's old troops cannot continue to be occupied by Xi's people. Once the seals of the two old secretaries are removed, all they have left in their hands is a single vote as Central Committee members. These four days of the plenary session will give them plenty of time to reflect on how that vote should be cast.
What, then, is the motive for replacing them with two officials from Beijing? A long-serving local secretary often has many municipal committee secretaries and department heads who were promoted by him personally; when orders come from above, he can delay or discount them, and his subordinates only recognize him. If you replace him with a Beijing official parachuted in, he has no acquaintances below and can only rely on the person who sent him. If he is told to go east, he dares not go west. First, take Wang Zhijun: he served as Deputy Secretary-General of the State Council for several years, acting as the accountant for the State Council. He knows exactly where the accounts submitted by various provinces are falsified and where the holes are hidden. In recent years, local governments in Hunan have relied on urban investment companies to borrow new debt to pay off old, and the holes are getting bigger and bigger. The Luo Shuaiyu case and the Liuyang explosion case left behind by Shen Xiaoming involve many people and much money, and someone needs to dig into them. Sending someone who understands accounting to sit in Changsha and flip through the pages one by one means that whatever is uncovered will be held in the hands of the person who sent him. Then there is Mo Gaoyi: in the Publicity Department of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council Information Office, he managed what to say and what not to say to the outside world; in the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection's Publicity Department, he managed which cases to disclose, when to disclose them, and how to disclose them. Yunnan's doorstep is the Northern Myanmar telecom fraud parks, where border conflicts occur every few days, and behind it are Zhang Youxia's old troops. At the plenary session, no one can be sure whether there will be any movement in the military regarding Zhang Youxia's case. If something really happens, the first thing to do is to suppress the news. Someone with expertise must make the call on what to say to the outside world and how to say it, and Mo Gaoyi has been doing exactly this for half his life. The delegates for the 21st National Congress will be selected in the provinces in the first half of next year. Whoever is the provincial party secretary makes the final decision on this list. The delegations from the two major provinces of Hunan and Yunnan will have to listen to the new secretaries. When these delegates arrive in Beijing to vote for the next Central Committee and then the Politburo, the votes are gathered layer by layer starting from the provincial level.
As for the two men themselves, Wang Zhijun and Mo Gaoyi are both 61 this year, and will be 62 or 63 by the 21st National Congress next year, just in time to serve as regional leaders. Some friends might ask how many more votes these two men can bring to the Fifth Plenary Session. To be honest, not a single one; in fact, the target is the two old votes of Shen Xiaoming and Wang Ning. In order to thoroughly investigate the mess left by Shen Xiaoming in Hunan, on October 25, the day after, Hunan officially announced that Jin Wei, born in 1972, a member of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal Committee and Vice Mayor, would be parachuted into Hunan as Deputy Provincial Party Secretary. This man was once the top aide to Sun Zhengcai and a key figure cultivated during the Wen Jiabao and Li Keqiang era. This time, he is carrying the "Shangfang Sword" to investigate Shen Xiaoming's old accounts in Hunan. Do you think Shen Xiaoming, sitting in the group meeting at the Jingxi Hotel tonight, might be trembling in his boots? If he dares to cast his vote incorrectly, he will have to report to Qincheng Prison immediately after the meeting ends. Speaking of this, some friends might ask: Shen Xiaoming was born in 1963 and is 63 this year, and Wang Ning of Yunnan is 65 this year. Is it because they reached the age red line of 63 for provincial and ministerial-level officials that they were replaced? That is not the case. If the 63-year-old red line were strictly enforced, why were there two other provincial party secretaries who are also 63 or even 64 years old who were kept in their posts without change during this wave of leadership reshuffles before the Fifth Plenary Session? One is Yin Hong, Secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee, born in June 1963, and the other is Wang Weizhong, Secretary of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Party Committee, born in March 1962, who is already 64 this year.
Let us put Yin Hong aside for a moment and focus on Wang Weizhong. Hidden within Wang Weizhong is the third thorn stabbed into Old Xi at the October 23 Political Bureau meeting, and the most devastating one at that. Wang Weizhong is a graduate of Tsinghua University's Department of Hydraulic Engineering—Hu Jintao’s alma mater. Early in his career at the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Science and Technology, he rose through the ranks relying on Deng Xiaoping’s daughter, Deng Nan. Later, in Guangdong and Shanxi, he desperately hugged Old Xi’s thighs and was treated by Old Xi as one of his own. Do you remember? On October 13, former Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan had just fallen from grace. Three days later, on October 16, feeling stifled and annoyed while cooped up in Zhongnanhai, Old Xi suddenly took He Lifeng and Zheng Shanjie to Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, to clear his head. The person who greeted him with a smiling face in Ulanqab at that time was none other than Inner Mongolia party secretary Wang Weizhong. As a result, just as Old Xi returned to Beijing from Inner Mongolia, Shi Taifeng turned around at the October 23 Political Bureau meeting and relieved 63-year-old Shen Xiaoming of his duties, while deliberately keeping 64-year-old Wang Weizhong in office. Anyone familiar with the rules of the Chinese Communist Party's officialdom knows that before the 20th National Congress, then Inner Mongolia party secretary Shi Taifeng and Hebei party secretary Wang Dongfeng both crossed the 63-year-old red line yet received exceptional retention in office, jointly being promoted to sub-national rank. Now, by having Wang Weizhong retained past the age limit, Shi Taifeng is essentially replicating the precedent set before the 20th National Congress, directly sending Wang Weizhong onto the runway for a sub-national promotion at the 21st National Congress right in front of Old Xi. With his own man being pulled away right in front of him while Old Xi has no choice but to nod in agreement, and watching his colleagues around him line up to enter Qincheng Prison, if Wang Weizhong has even a sliver of clarity in his mind tonight at the group meeting in the Jingxi Hotel, will he still risk his life fighting for Old Xi? All three thorns are deeply embedded in Old Xi’s heart, yet he is helpless. Facing these three thorns, he can only pick up his pen and draw circles one by one. This is what it means to swallow one's defeat in the secret chambers of the Political Bureau.
Speaking of which, those more than two hundred high-ranking officials in the Jingxi Hotel are so terrified tonight that they won't be able to sleep a wink, fighting a night battle by lamplight until the small hours of the morning. As for ordinary folks like us, staring at screens every day to monitor the political situation and worry about national affairs also leaves our eyes sore and our bodies exhausted; we really need to take good care of ourselves to rebuild our foundation and restore our vitality.
What truly forced Old Xi to draw circles and concede defeat on the personnel list were the three sharp blades brandished by Wen Jiabao before the meeting. Why say that the one who truly forced the Big Boss to concede defeat was Wen Jiabao's three blades? Just put yourself in the Big Boss's shoes: if he doesn't concede, what cards does he have left to play? At most three. The first blade is the sword of public security, politics, and the judiciary—arresting whoever he wants to arrest. The second is finding allies, pulling in Zeng Qinghong and that gang of old conservatives to hold the line together. The third, which was also used by Mao Zedong back in the day, is the last resort of bypassing the Party to mobilize the masses. Wen Jiabao's three blades chopped away these cards one by one. The first sharp blade was the inspection of shady accounts, which chopped off the Big Boss's sword of law and order. The first agenda item of the October 23 Political Bureau meeting was to deliberate on the comprehensive report on the situation of the seventh round of inspections by the 20th Central Committee. This seventh round of inspections began in early April this year, and the originally scheduled two-and-a-half-month inspection period was forcibly extended by another four months, investigating for a solid half a year. The bull's-eye was the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. The ones making arrests are the public security, the ones approving arrests and bringing prosecutions are the procuratorate, and the ones sentencing people are the courts. The entity overseeing this entire operation is the Political and Legal Affairs Commission—what the Chinese Communist Party calls the sword of law and order. Over the past decade or more, the Big Boss's reliance on arresting, detaining, and sentencing whoever he wanted depended entirely on this sword. But what about now? The inspection teams have squatted in these units for over half a year, and whose shady accounts are unclean and what unspeakable cases they have handled are all recorded book by book in the report, held firmly in the hands of Wen Jiabao and Liu Jianguo, executive deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Wang Xiaohong's Ministry of Public Security and Chen Wenqing's Political and Legal Affairs Commission both have their own compromising handles in the hands of others. Therefore, this first blade is aimed precisely at the sword of law and order in the Big Boss's hands. Tonight at the group meeting in the Jingxi Hotel, Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong and Political and Legal Affairs Commission Secretary Chen Wenqing are sitting right in that room. With their own unit's inspection dirt held in someone else's hands, do they dare to utter a single word of dissent against the Big Boss?
The second fast blade—auditing Jiangxi and dividing provincial governorships among six governors—severed the alliance of the big boss (Xi). With no way to stand on his own, who else could the big boss turn to? He could only turn to Zeng Qinghong and those old conservative factions. These people were not of one heart with Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, yet if they truly joined forces with the big boss, they would still constitute a formidable force within the Central Committee. Wen Jiabao’s second blade was meant to block this path entirely, using both a big stick and a carrot. The stick was applied in Jiangxi. From October 12 to 15, Xiao Jie—the late Li Keqiang’s former chief of staff, former finance minister, state councilor, and veteran economic heavyweight who currently serves as vice chairman of the National People's Congress—suddenly rushed to Jiangxi alongside former NDRC Chairman Xu Shaoshi and former Vice Finance Minister Xu Hongcai. They made consecutive stops in Nanchang, Jingdezhen, and Yichun. Officially, the visit was framed as an on-the-ground investigation into government debt and outstanding problems uncovered by audits. Jiangxi is the old home base of Zeng Qinghong, where he had operated his stronghold for decades. Yichun is known as the lithium capital of Asia; in recent years, as the new energy sector heated up, money in the lithium mines flowed boundlessly. Xiao Jie brought along a heavy sack of pre-bound materials detailing Jiangxi’s debt black holes and mineral corruption, conducting on-site verifications and obtaining signatures right before rushing back to Beijing ahead of the Fifth Plenary Session. Once this sack was placed on the Political Bureau meeting table, who among Zeng Qinghong’s faction would dare to stand alongside the big boss? The carrot consisted of six provincial governorships. On October 24, the very same day, the nominees for governors of six provinces were finalized, with Wen Jiabao’s family allocating a share to each. The governorship of Qinghai was given to Zhuge Yujie of the Jiang faction. Born in 1971 and coming from a background as a state-owned enterprise executive at Shanghai Port Engineering Yangshan Tongsheng, he was a cadre promoted in Shanghai back in the days of the Jiang Zemin, Zeng Qinghong, and Chen Liangyu factions, and had previously served as chief of staff to Han Zheng and Li Qiang. As soon as he arrived in Qinghai, he publicly declared that they would not introduce new slogans, would run a smooth relay race, and would maintain the continuity and stability of their work. These words were meant for Zeng Qinghong and for Zhao Leji, who had once governed Qinghai: your people keep their positions, and not a single one will be moved. The governorship of Fujian was given to Guo Ningning, reportedly a protégé of Zhu Rongji. Upon taking office, she likewise declared that a single blueprint would be drawn to the end, serving as a reassurance for the shaken Fujian faction. However, the real power in Fujian had long since changed hands: former party secretary Zu Zuyi was transferred to Henan, new party secretary Zhao Long belongs to Li Keqiang’s faction, provincial disciplinary inspection chief Wei Xiaokui was transferred from Jiangxi, Fuzhou municipal party secretary Qin Haixiang is a man of Yu Zhengsheng and Hu Jintao, and provincial deputy party secretary and Xiamen party secretary Lin Tao belongs to the faction of Wang Yang and Hu Chunhua. Giving you the position of governor is a matter of saving face, but all real power remains in the hands of the Hu-Wen faction. Hunan governor Xie Weijiang is a man of Li Peng’s family; Jiangxi governor Chen Yongqi and Hebei governor Zhao Chenxin belong to the Reform and Opening-up faction. Even the big boss’s own people managed to get a slice: the governorship of Yunnan was given to Liu Qifan, a core loyalist of the big boss. Born in 1967 in Guizhou, he studied in the economics department of Xiamen University from 1984 to 1988, during which time he befriended the big boss, who was then serving as Xiamen’s vice mayor. Later, he served as a top aide in Guizhou to Chen Miner and Li Zhanshu. When he served as the disciplinary inspection chief in Inner Mongolia, he carried out retroactive investigations spanning twenty years, specifically targeting Hu Chunhua’s people; when he was sent to Liaoning as disciplinary inspection chief, he specifically targeted Li Keqiang’s people. In July 2024, after the big boss lost power, Liu Qifan was sidelined as deputy party secretary in Qinghai, relegated to managing little more than football. Why would someone who targeted Hu Chunhua’s people be dispatched to play second fiddle to Hu Chunhua’s people? On one hand, it was to spare the big boss a shred of face—giving your people a position so they won't jump off the wall in desperation. On the other hand, placing Liu Qifan under the watchful eyes of Mogao Yi means that whatever Liu did back then during his purges, and whatever the big boss and Li Zhanshu did, they will have no choice but to confess down the road. Look at how six official hats were divided: the Jiang faction, Li Peng’s family, Zhu Rongji’s people, the Reform and Opening-up faction, and even the big boss’s own people—everyone got a share, everyone got a position. Who would dare risk their lives to accompany the big boss to the bitter end? The big boss wanted allies, but couldn't find a single one.
The third fast blade—inspecting Peking University and Tsinghua University to confiscate the big boss’s final card. On Saturday, October 24, Li Xi, Shi Taifeng, and Liu Jinogang initiated the 20th Central Committee’s eighth round of inspections, dispatching inspection teams into the Ministry of Education alongside 31 centrally managed universities, with Peking University taking first place and Tsinghua University second. At the mobilization meeting, Li Xi specifically emphasized the need to thoroughly inspect, prevent, and defuse major risks. Why send teams into universities just two days before the plenary session? Looking back 60 years to 1966, when Mao Zedong was sidelined within the party, how did he make his comeback? He didn’t fight for votes within the Central Committee; instead, he bypassed the party entirely and went straight to the students. When Peking University posted its first big-character poster, Mao personally ordered it broadcast nationwide. Once the Red Guards took to the streets, figures like Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping fell not long after. Over the years, the big boss has sought to emulate Mao Zedong in every way. Realizing he lacked enough votes within the party, the Hu-Wen faction’s greatest fear was that he would pull off Mao’s playbook of bypassing the Central Committee to mobilize the masses. Therefore, Wen Jiabao’s third blade fell right here: getting the inspection teams through university gates ahead of the plenary session, placing party secretaries and university presidents of 31 key universities under tight control. Anyone wishing to stir up trouble on campus would first have to clear the hurdle of the inspection teams. With these three blades having fallen, count the cards left in the big boss’s hand: the guns and the hands holding them no longer obey him; his allies have all been assigned positions and no one is willing to fight for him to the death; and his final card of using Mao Zedong’s tactic of mobilizing the masses has been preemptively suppressed by the schools. With not a single card left in his hand, what can he use to refuse conceding? This is how Wen Jiabao forced him to accept defeat.
Having understood the admission of defeat at the Politburo meeting and Wen Jiabao's three sharp blades, let us return to this very moment at the Jingxi Hotel, where the lights are blazing and group discussions are being held late into the night. Once the doors are closed, not a single piece of news from the venue can get out. The communique four days later will only tell you the few sentences they want you to know, but from the personnel movements in the 48 hours before the meeting, we can deduce with high accuracy what the situation is inside the room tonight. The Central Committee members sitting in the various group meeting rooms at the Jingxi Hotel today are all nervous, because the scene before them is a historical mirror image, almost identical to the famous 8th Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee in October 1968, 58 years ago. Let us compare these three chilling characteristics. First, there are not enough people. The 376 seats mentioned at the beginning are occupied by only 291 people. The Asia Society in the US just calculated that the attendance rate has fallen to 77.4%, even lower than the 83.8% at last year's 4th Plenary Session. In the military alone, 18 Central Committee members and 8 alternate members are missing. There are 12 well-known generals who have fallen from grace overseas, and it is even rumored that Air Force Commander Chang Dingqiu died of a sudden heart attack while under investigation. Let us compare this to the 8th Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee 58 years ago in 1968. At that time, there were 87 members left after subtracting the deceased from the original 97 Central Committee members, but only 40 attended, not even half. On the first day, they had to pick 10 people from the 19 alternate members present to fill the vacancies just to barely reach a majority. This time, Hong Kong media calculated that up to 23 people might need to be filled at once at the 5th Plenary Session. Second, how to fill the vacancies and whether Mo Gaoyi can break the precedent of the Party Constitution. When the communique is released on the 29th, we must not only watch for whether people are added to the replacement list, but also keep a close eye on the new Yunnan Provincial Party Secretary, Mo Gaoyi. According to the Party Constitution, vacancies in the Central Committee can only be filled by alternate members one by one based on the number of votes received. The Central Plenary Session itself does not have the power to add new people to the Central Committee. Mo Gaoyi is not even an alternate member of the Central Committee; according to the rules, he should not even be close to this path. However, this time it is highly likely that Mo Gaoyi will take a step directly into the Central Committee. It should be known that the last time in the history of the CCP that new people were added to the Central Committee during a term was in 1985. That time, Deng Xiaoping did not hold a plenary session but specifically convened a National Representative Conference to elect 56 additional Central Committee members at once. Hu Jintao, who had just become the Guizhou Provincial Party Secretary, was promoted from an alternate to a full Central Committee member at that time. For more than 40 years since then, such a meeting has not been held. This time, without holding a National Representative Conference, as long as Mo Gaoyi's name appears in the communique on the 29th, it means that Hu Chunhua and Wen Jiabao dare to directly bypass the old rules of the Party Constitution. How to bypass these rules requires someone at the plenary session to nod, and the first one who must nod is the boss sitting in the main seat. An extra Mo Gaoyi on the communique is the boss's admission of defeat printed in black and white. Third, the invited attendees are more arrogant than the committee members. 58 years ago, at the 8th Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee in 1968, the 74 invited attendees were more numerous than the official members. It is the same this time. Most of the large number of provincial party secretaries and governors replaced from September to October are neither Central Committee members nor alternates. All of them are invited to attend as new officials, holding the admission tickets for the 21st National Congress. The old secretaries who have been stripped of their real power are not just the two mentioned at the beginning, Shen Xiaoming and Wang Ning, but also Liang Yanshun, Liu Ning, and Wang Junzheng. All five still wear the hats of Central Committee members and hold the only life-saving ticket. At tonight's group meeting, they are relying on this ticket to desperately express their stance and pass the test.
So friends, the boomerang of history is so fateful. The 8th Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee in 1968, 58 years ago, gathered people to raise their hands to expel the head of state Liu Shaoqi, while 12 years later, in February 1980, the 11th Plenary Session of the 5th Central Committee, also a 5th Plenary Session, completely rehabilitated Liu Shaoqi. So, who are these 291 people in the Jingxi Hotel tonight expressing their stance at the late-night group meeting and raising their hands at the general meeting to expel, and who are they going to completely rehabilitate? Speaking of this, there are actually only two paths left for the boss sitting in the main seat. One is to admit defeat to the end, circle the items on the Politburo meeting on the 23rd, and circle a few more at the plenary session over these four days, hand over the hats that should be handed over according to the script written by others, and exchange it for a decent exit and a safe landing. The other is to resist hard. But what can he use to resist? There are only two people left in the Central Military Commission, the black accounts of the units holding the knives are in the hands of others, the allies he could pull have all been assigned positions, the schools have also been suppressed by the inspection teams, and even Wang Weizhong, whom he met while relaxing in Ulanqab ten days ago, was taken away by others on a vice-national level track. If he resists hard, what awaits him is not decency but Qincheng Prison. The two hundred or so people in the Jingxi Hotel tonight are all calculating this account for him, and even more so for themselves. Thank you for watching today's Jiang Feng Vision.
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