Military Forces Xi Jinping to Hand Over the Chairmanship of the CMC — If He Won't Resign, They'll Drag Him Out of the Hall! A Hard Vote at the Fifth Plenum Requires 137 Votes; Hu Chunhua First Seizes Inner Mongolia's Purse Strings [Jiang Feng Perspective 20261005 Episode 505]
This episode focuses on military and high-level personnel changes within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ahead of the Fifth Plenary Session. It analyzes the possibility that after Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli were stripped of their party membership and military posts, the military might demand that Xi Jinping resign from his position as Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and discusses the number of votes required for voting at the plenary session as well as potential venue arrangements. The program also reviews the removal of officials in Henan, Anhui, Fujian, Tibet, Gansu, Shanghai, and other regions, connects this with the mourning controls around the third anniversary of Li Keqiang's death, and analyzes personnel adjustments in Inner Mongolia, mineral resources, the China Development Bank, and the movements of Hu Chunhua's former subordinates.
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The Fifth Plenary Session is set to open on October 26. The military has already laid its cards on the table, and this plenary session has only one demand: drive old Xi out of the military. If anyone tries to stop it, the gun barrels will be used to persuade them; if that fails, old Xi will simply be carried out of the venue. This sounds harsh, but do not dismiss it as angry talk—the military has been holding back this resentment for nine months.
On September 21, two days before old Xi's visit to the United States, the Politburo stripped Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli of their party membership and military posts. Yet on that exact same morning, the Liberation Army Daily published an inconspicuous article inviting veterans who had fought in the Sino-Vietnamese border conflict back into the troops to talk about fighting spirit, mentioning how everyone wrote suicide notes before going into battle. Zhongnanhai was in the middle of expelling two full generals, and yet the military newspaper deliberately chose that day to talk about suicide notes—who was this message meant for?
On the September 30 National Day reception, Li Zuocheng, who had rarely appeared in public since stepping down after the 20th National Congress, suddenly attended the banquet. Zhang Youxia has fallen; why did Li choose this exact moment to step forward? And then there is the arithmetic of the plenary session: if old Xi submits his resignation voluntarily, 103 votes will pass it. If he waits until after Zhang and Liu are retroactively dealt with, turns hostile, and stubbornly refuses to resign as Chairman of the Central Military Commission, he must be forcibly voted down, which requires 137 votes.
Yet in the single month of September, seven members of the Central Committee lost their positions, and not a single one was described as "assigned to other duties" in the official communiques. Whose hands are these seven votes in now? Let us lay these cards out one by one: why is the military being this tough? Which of these votes at the Fifth Plenary Session will be cast first and which second? If old Xi really kicks up a fuss, how will he be carried out of the venue? Finally, let us take a trip to Inner Mongolia to see what has been prepared for Hu Chunhua even before he steps through the door.
Let us begin with the military's grievance. What the military wants is for old Xi to resign as Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and this must be explicitly written in the communique. This is particularly interesting. As we know, CCP leaders generally resign from the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission last. In November 1989, at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee, Deng Xiaoping resigned as Chairman of the Central Military Commission, which was his last official post. For the decade prior to that, he was the person with the final say in China because he was the Chairman of the Central Military Commission who could command the armed forces.
At the 16th National Congress in 2002, Jiang Zemin handed over the position of General Secretary to Hu Jintao, but held tightly onto the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission for another two years, until September 2004 at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee. For those two years, Hu Jintao was General Secretary, but everyone knew whose orders the military actually obeyed. Therefore, what the military wants now is the final and toughest card in old Xi's hand.
Why was the military so eager to make him hand this single thing over? Because the military has suffered a massive blow. Do you know how many wrongful cases have occurred in the military since he became the chairman of the Central Military Commission? The most recent ones are Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli. Going further back, every single purge at the CMC level drags down a batch of general officers. Once generals fall, the lieutenant generals, major generals, and field-grade officers underneath them tumble down in strings.
Look at the CMC level now: across the 19th and 20th Party Congresses, aside from Old Xi himself, the vice chairmen and members totaled nine people: Xu Qiliang, Zhang Youxia, Wei Fenghe, Li Zuocheng, Miao Hua, Zhang Shengmin, plus He Weidong, Li Shangfu, and Liu Zhenli who entered at the 20th Congress. Of those nine, Xu Qiliang passed away from illness, six were investigated and expelled, and today only two remain standing: Zhang Shengmin and Li Zuocheng.
Looking further down, generals who were promoted around the time of the 20th Congress and managed key departments fell batch after batch. Successive commanders of the Rocket Force—Wei Fenghe, Zhou Yaning, and Li Yucuo—along with Wang Houbin who was later sent in to put out fires, not a single one was left. In the Equipment Development Department, from former minister Li Shangfu to several deputy ministers around the 20th Congress, the ranks were basically swept clean. In the Army, Air Force, Eastern, Southern, and Western Theater Commands, several 20th Congress delegates and newly promoted generals over the past two years have either gone missing, been dismissed, or faced direct case registration.
In the military history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), even during the round when Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou were taken down, such a thing never happened: more than 80% of a CMC personally handpicked by oneself was cleared out within three years. Top active-duty generals falling, being dismissed, and sentenced en masse in peacetime is rare in any country or any historical period.
Then came the military reform. That slash in 2016 turned the seven military regions into five theater commands and dismantled the four general departments, replacing them with the CMC Chairman Responsibility System. Reformed to the present day, the Chinese military can no longer fight wars. Therefore, people within the military are now thinking about first abolishing the CMC Chairman Responsibility System and reverting to the four general departments and seven military regions. If the CMC Chairman Responsibility System is to be abolished, Old Xi must be made to step down from his position as CMC chairman.
With China's military generals gone, who is commanding the CCP military now? Counting the heads makes it clear. At the CMC level, only the current CMC Vice Chairman Zhang Shengmin is left; going higher up, Liu Yuan and former Chief of the Joint Staff Department Li Zuocheng; going up another layer, most of the old guard from the 17th and 18th Congress CMCs are still alive and in robust health. These old military leaders are also vehemently opposed to Xi, and the active-duty generals currently in key positions were basically all promoted by them.
Who are these people holding their breath and waiting for? Waiting for Hu Chunhua to come up so that the cases of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli can be retried. Not just at the CMC level, but for middle and upper-level officers in the military since the 18th Congress, wrongful and fabricated cases involving lieutenant colonels and above all have the possibility of being re-examined.
What about ordinary soldiers? Recall the article in the PLA Daily on September 21 mentioned earlier, and let's open it up to read closely. The article was published by a unit of the Rocket Force—the very same Rocket Force where not a single one of the successive commanders left, as just mentioned. The predecessor of this unit fought on the Sino-Vietnamese battlefield back in the day, and the unit invited several veteran combatants back into the barracks to sit down with young officers and soldiers to talk about the old days.
Veteran Zeng Xiliang said, 'Before the battle started, every one of us wrote a suicide note.' Another veteran, Zhou Biao, took out several yellowed old photos and, as he spoke, talked about those comrades-in-arms who couldn't come back. Sitting below, new recruit Huang Wenbin listened and took notes: 'I am the inheritor of a heroic unit.' Finally standing up to speak was First-Class Sergeant Major Yang Banzhang: 'Our martial spirit and courage will never be lost.'
Put this scene side by side with that moment in Zhongnanhai on the same day when Zhang and Liu's party and military memberships were expelled. For an ordinary soldier, what he stakes his life for is that the country remembers him and the military recognizes him. Yet what he sees today is that generals who fought their way out of the battlefield are arrested the moment they are ordered to, expelled the moment they are ordered to; the commanders over his own head fall one succession after another. The title of hero given to you today can be taken back tomorrow.
So don't just treat the old sergeant major's words 'our martial spirit and courage will never be lost' as a mere slogan. You can expel the person, but you cannot expel this spirit. The PLA Daily didn't mention a single name throughout, but who are these words meant for? The soldiers in the barracks know it clearly in their hearts. That is why the military insists that he must step down, and the word has already been put out: if you don't step down yourself, you will be carried out of the conference hall.
Why is the military so tough? These soldiers are already prepared. Central plenary sessions have historically been held at the Jingxi Hotel, which is a military hotel. During the Fourth Plenary Session last year, over 300 Central Committee members and alternate members were locked inside the Jingxi Hotel for four days. At that time, the Beijing Garrison Command was directly commanded by Chief of the Joint Staff Department Liu Zhenli, and the Central Guard Bureau also operated under his deployment. During those four days last year, inside and outside the conference hall, it was Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli's soldiers standing guard.
With Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli gone this year, who is in charge of the troops? It remains under the overall responsibility of the Joint Staff Department. Inside the venue, it is under the Central Guard Bureau, and the director, Zhou Hongxu, was a regimental commander of the artillery corps personally trained by Zhang Youxia back in the 14th Group Army. Outside the venue, it is the Beijing Garrison, which reports directly to the Joint Staff Department. The Special Operations Brigade of the 38th Group Army will also enter Beijing, and further out, there are troops guarding the perimeter of Beijing to prevent any other units from moving in. The military's stance is very clear: make Beijing impenetrable, like a place where not even a needle can be inserted or a drop of water can leak through.
First, let me say this: it is actually quite unlikely that Xi Jinping will not hand over the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission. Think back: what has Xi wanted most this past year? It is for the cases of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli to be made into ironclad verdicts. On September 21, he couldn't even wait the two days before his overseas trip; he insisted on expelling the two of them first. At this plenary session, the ratification of Zhang and Liu, which Hu and Wen are giving him, is the down payment. Once the down payment is received, he must hand over the chair of the Central Military Commission.
So how will this meeting be conducted? Which vote comes first, and which comes second? The first step is the ratification of: Ma Xingrui, Wang Lixia, Wang Xiangxi, Sun Shaocheng, Yi Huiman, Lan Tianli, as well as Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli. The Political Bureau has already expelled these eight Central Committee members from the Party; it is just waiting for the plenary session to raise hands.
Some friends might ask, since the military cares so much about Zhang and Liu, why didn't Hu and Wen just single them out and not ratify them, to vent some anger for the military? Think about that scene: the list of eight names is read, and when it reaches the sixth, it stops; Zhang and Liu are not read. Xi would slam the table on the spot, and the conservatives would follow suit. At that point, either the meeting would be deadlocked, or all those who slammed the table would be escorted out. If a large group is escorted out, it is no longer a meeting; it is the splitting of the Chinese Communist Party. This is exactly what Hu Jintao fears most. Even with the massive scale of last year's Fourth Plenary Session, he did not let Zhang and Liu use force.
Therefore, Zhang and Liu will be written on the same list as the other six for a hand-raising ratification. The eight vacant seats will be filled on the spot from the alternate members; who gets promoted and who gets skipped is also decided by Wen Jiabao, who is arranging the meeting.
The second step is to add Hu Chunhua to the Political Bureau to serve as Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission. This is a personnel appointment, and it only needs a majority of votes; Xi cannot stop it. The third step is Xi's turn to resign as Chairman of the Central Military Commission. This letter of resignation is the price for protecting his wife. According to Party regulations, his own resignation and the plenary session's acceptance of it is a routine decision, which passes with a simple majority of the members who should be present—103 votes. It is decent, and he can land safely; the conditions have been met, and he has done all he could. Under normal circumstances, this step passes very quickly.
But what if he takes the down payment and then reneges, saying he won't resign? Then only a hard vote remains. For the plenary session to forcibly remove him, it would be a revocation of his Party positions, which counts as a disciplinary action. The regulations state that a two-thirds majority of the members who should be present is required, which means 137 votes. Can a hard vote actually get 137 votes? Let's see.
Last year's Fourth Plenary Session only had 168 people present, with over 30 seats empty. The authorities didn't say a word about who didn't show up or why. This year there will only be more. The eight who have already been expelled by the Political Bureau and are just waiting for ratification cannot vote; the 14 who have been investigated and stripped of their status as National People's Congress deputies cannot come; and there are over 20 seats that have been removed, with not a word written about where they went, so it is uncertain whether they will come or not. By this calculation, it is not surprising at all for 40-plus seats out of 205 to be empty; I estimate only about 160 people will actually vote.
Within the Central Committee, the reformists make up about 40%, and the conservatives make up about 40%. The conservatives are in favor of having Xi step down from the position of Central Military Commission Chairman, but they want him to resign and exit gracefully, not to be forcibly voted out. A hard vote is a disciplinary action, and what follows is a purge. If they can purge Xi today, they could be purged tomorrow. Therefore, when the moment comes to actually vote Xi out of the Central Military Commission chairmanship, as long as 20 or 30 conservatives lose their nerve, the 137 votes will be in jeopardy.
If it is in jeopardy, what then? The military steps in. The military has already made its statement: if you don't step down, we will carry you out of the venue. The guards inside the venue are the Central Guard Bureau, the troops guarding outside are the Beijing Garrison, and behind them is the Joint Staff Department; none of these are in Xi's hands. Whether he slams the table or refuses to leave, two people will take him by the arms and escort him out. Once Xi is escorted out, everyone will see what is happening, and those conservatives who lost their nerve and those who were die-hard loyalists will know how to raise their hands, and the votes for his removal will naturally be cast.
Once this step is reached, what Xi loses is not just the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission. That is not a resignation; it is a dismissal, a disciplinary action, and the purge begins from this moment. Peng Liyuan's layer of protection will also be gone, the down payment can be taken back, and the ratification is not set in stone. In August 1968, the 12th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee expelled Liu Shaoqi from the Party forever; in 1980, the 5th Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee passed a resolution to rehabilitate him. The Zhang and Liu ratified today can still be retried once Hu Chunhua is firmly in his seat.
So, it is not that he cannot turn against them, but that he cannot afford to. If he resigns himself, he lands safely; if he clings to power and is dragged out, he will drag his whole family down with him. The fourth step: after Xi Jinping resigns, move against those around him—Cai Qi resigns from the Politburo Standing Committee and the Secretariat; Wang Xiaohong resigns from the Secretariat and as Deputy Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission. The fifth step: screen the remaining members of the Politburo one by one; deal with those who have issues, retain those who do not, and keep them until the 21st Party Congress, or perhaps accept the resignations of several among them.
Of course, it is best not to reach the point of being dragged out. Xi needs to understand that even if he does not resign, he cannot escape his fate. The few votes in the meeting hall that are blindly loyal to him should be dismantled in advance. Where are these people? Let us visit a few provinces.
As I just mentioned, besides the hesitation of the conservatives, the only people Xi can count on in the meeting hall are those who are blindly loyal to him—the regional power brokers. The party secretaries and governors of each province over the past ten years were handpicked one by one by Xi's Tsinghua classmate, Chen Xi. Let us take a look at what has happened in these provinces recently.
First, Henan and Anhui. On September 23, Liu Ning of Henan and Liang Yanshun of Anhui, both provincial party secretaries, were removed. On the same day, Anhui Governor Wang Qingxian resigned; the next day, Henan Governor Wang Kai resigned. The party secretaries and governors of both Henan and Anhui were cleared out within two days. The new secretaries were transferred from other regions, and the acting governors who took over were also temporary appointments. Henan's acting governor, Wang Lujin, was previously the head of the discipline inspection team sent by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection to the National Financial Regulatory Administration—a cadre with a background in auditing and making arrests, now directly managing a major province with a population of 100 million.
Looking at these four people, how was the official announcement written? For the two secretaries, Liu Ning and Liang Yanshun, the announcement stated they were "no longer serving as provincial party secretary due to age." For the two governors, Wang Kai and Wang Qingxian, the reason was not even mentioned; it simply said they "accepted the resignation from the position of governor." Among the four, there was no mention of "being assigned to other duties," and no one said where they went.
Do not take the words "due to age" as a polite gesture. Last year, when Sun Shaocheng, the secretary of Inner Mongolia, stepped down, the announcement used the same phrase; four months later he was under investigation, and less than a year later he was expelled from the Party and his position. Therefore, the phrase "due to age" is just a way to first invite someone down from a position of real power. Once they are down, their local connections are severed, and the account books are handed over; as for what happens next and whether it happens at all, it all depends on those at the top.
What is the background of these four? Liu Ning was a cadre under Hu Jintao in his early years, later used Chen Xi's connections to defect to Xi's side. Wang Kai's rise from Guangxi was also due to a few people with good relations with Chen Xi speaking for him in the Organization Department. When Wang Qingxian was the party secretary of Qingdao, Xi visited the navy in Qingdao and gave him personal instructions, and upon returning, he worked vigorously in Qingdao. Liang Yanshun is a key member of the "Shandong Faction" associated with the boss's wife. These three are connected to Chen Xi, and one is connected to the boss's wife.
Looking at it this way, this sweeping of Henan and Anhui did not just target two provinces; it removed four nails that Xi had buried in these two major central provinces over the past decade.
Looking deeper, Henan was where Li Keqiang governed for six and a half years, the longest period he spent in a local position in his life. Anhui is his hometown; he was born in Hefei, his ancestral home is Dingyuan, and he worked in the countryside in Fengyang when he was young. The two provinces where Li Keqiang had the deepest roots are exactly the two that were swept clean this time. Is this a coincidence? If you open the calendar, October 27 is the third anniversary of Li Keqiang's passing, falling right in the middle of the Fifth Plenary Session.
Three years ago, when he had just passed away, people spontaneously went to lay flowers at the entrance of the old house on Hongxing Road in Hefei where he lived as a youth. Associated Press reporters stood there, and by noon, the flowers were already over a meter high and several meters wide. The line of people waiting to lay flowers stretched from Hongxing Road all the way to Suzhou Road. By Ruyi Lake in the Zhengdong New District of Zhengzhou, someone displayed a giant portrait. In front of the ancestral house with mud walls and a thatched roof in his hometown of Dingyuan, more and more flowers were placed as soon as it got dark.
How did the local authorities handle it then? People in blue vests stood in rows, flipping through the cards on the flowers one by one; those that had words like "dictatorship" or "concentration of power" were removed on the spot. Once the flowers were piled up, they were hauled away truckload by truckload. By the following Qingming Festival, locals said that dozens of plainclothes officers and police were stationed around the old house in Hefei; if someone took out a phone to take a picture, they were stopped immediately. Hundreds of people were also deployed around Ruyi Lake in Zhengzhou.
By the first anniversary, the Zhengzhou Marathon, originally scheduled for October 27, was postponed by a week for "reasons," and several marathons in Anhui were also delayed. To put it bluntly, for the past three years, the top officials in Henan and Anhui have had one task around October 27 that cannot go wrong: keeping the lid on the pot that is Li Keqiang.
This is the third anniversary, and it should have been Liu Ning, Wang Kai, Liang Yanxun, and Wang Qingxian's turn to cover it up, but now not a single one of the four is left. Just imagine what the situation is like this year: at the Jingxi Hotel inside the venue, they are discussing whether Xi Jinping will hand over the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission; outside the venue, if the flowers pile up again and people line up in long queues at the old residence in Hefei and by the lake in Zhengzhou, the images will instantly spread across the entire internet. Will the newcomers still dare to transport flowers out truck by truck like before? At this critical juncture, no one wants to bear the reputation of suppressing the mourning for Li Keqiang.
These flowers are directed at Li Keqiang's case, which means they are directed at Madame Peng's line. If Xi Jinping turns hostile at the meeting and refuses to resign, this field of flowers outside is the most direct reminder: that piece of resignation paper protects not only himself, but also his wife.
Of course, we cannot assert that Zhongnanhai targeted these two provinces specifically for the third anniversary. But this lid was lifted neither sooner nor later, happening right before the third anniversary and one month before the Fifth Plenary Session, cleared out in one breath, which leaves people with much to ponder.
These four people have lost all their official positions, but they are still members of the 20th Central Committee. When the Fifth Plenary Session arrives, they will still sit in the venue and still raise their hands. A provincial party secretary who originally expected to advance further and enter the Politburo at the 21st National Congress now has nothing left, and would be thanking the heavens if he doesn't end up in prison. Who should this vote in their hands be cast for in order to protect themselves? These four people know this much better than anyone else. Originally, these four votes were the most reliable ones for Xi Jinping, but now each and every one of them is suspended in mid-air, grasped in the hands of others.
The second place is Fujian, Xi Jinping's stronghold, where he worked for seventeen years. The former secretary, Zhou Zuyi, worked closely alongside Chen Xi in the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee for nearly eight years and was a person promoted single-handedly by Chen Xi. On September 23, he was transferred to Henan. Zhou Zuyi is also a member of the Central Committee; just look at his current predicament.
First, regarding his patron Chen Xi: in June this year, the two positions of President of the Central Party School and President of the Chinese Academy of Governance were both handed over to Cai Qi, and rumors have been circulating outside that he has been interviewed. He did make an appearance at the National Day reception, but when a person has to rely on making appearances to prove he is fine, how could he still care about his subordinates? Furthermore, regarding his territory, being transferred from Fujian, which he had managed for several years, to an unfamiliar Henan where he knows no one—the subordinate team there has just been uprooted as a whole, the whereabouts of his predecessor Liu Ning are unknown, and the acting governor sitting beside him comes from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, specializing in auditing and arresting people. Moreover, the seat under his buttocks is the very same one Li Keqiang used to occupy.
During those days of the third anniversary, if flowers were to pile up by the lake in Zhengzhou again, should he, a man of Chen Xi, cover it up or not? To cover it up is to make an enemy of the local people; not to cover it up means watching this momentum surge directly at Xi Jinping. With his patron shaking, his territory lost, and people watching him closely by his side, no one needs to teach him which way to raise his hand in the meeting hall. The end of his predecessor Liu Ning is right before his eyes; if he doesn't raise his hand following Xi Jinping, the next one whose whereabouts are unknown will be him; if he raises his hand following the crowd, he can still sit on in Henan.
The third place is the West. But the man who succeeded him, Hu Changsheng, is only seven months younger than him. Wang Junzheng, a native of Linyi, Shandong, is a fellow Shandong townsman of the boss's wife and a backbone of the Shandong faction. He pursued a part-time doctorate at Tsinghua University, and the one who promoted him was Chen Xi. The people around the boss's wife have been stripped away one by one over this past year, and Chen Xi himself is also shaking. Wang Junzheng's patrons on both ends are more precarious than the other, his position is gone, his destination unwritten, yet he still holds the status of a Central Committee member. Just like those four people in Henan and Anhui, if he casts this vote well at the Fifth Plenary Session, he can go home to retire; if he casts it poorly, he will be investigated.
Going back further, on September 2, Gansu Governor Ren Zhenhe resigned, and the official release only stated that it was due to a job reassignment, without mentioning where he went. Ren Zhenhe started out in Hubei and is a former subordinate of Li Hongzhong. Li Hongzhong is the one close to Xi Jinping who shouted the loudest about absolute loyalty—
If you connect these pieces together and calculate a grand total, just in the month of September alone, Liu Ning and Wang Kai in Henan, Liang Yanshun and Wang Qingxian in Anhui, Wang Junzheng in Tibet, Ren Zhenhe in Gansu, plus Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng—seven Central Committee members lost their positions, and not a single one was mentioned in the official press releases with the phrase "assigned to other duties." All seven people and their seven votes are completely up in the air, plus Zhou Zuyi who was transferred to Henan. At the moment of that forced vote, Xi Jinping must have had to scrape together twenty or thirty raised-against hands in the conference hall. Now if you count again, those regional heavyweights he relied on the most—some have lost their positions and their votes are in other people's hands, while others have been moved elsewhere and can barely protect themselves. The person in charge of meeting logistics has also been invited to leave; how many of those twenty or thirty hands does he have left?
The matter of votes is basically broken down, but there is still another question: Even if Hu Chunhua smoothly enters the Political Bureau and the Military Commission, without a single province or a single soldier in his hands, can he sit securely? To answer this, we need to look at the place where he spent his years back then: Inner Mongolia.
When outsiders mention Hu Chunhua, their first reaction is often that he was squeezed out of the Political Bureau at the 20th National Congress, spent three years on the bench, and now holds the title of Vice Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, with not a single soldier or province in his hands. Can such a person sit securely even if he enters the Political Bureau and the Military Commission at the Fifth Plenary Session? This question is asked correctly. Rising to power requires more than just those few votes in the conference hall; one must also have a local foothold, money, and people to handle matters for them.
So let's go look at the place where Hu Chunhua once had a foothold and see what happened over the past year. From the end of 2009 to 2012, Hu Chunhua served as the Secretary of the Autonomous Region Party Committee in Inner Mongolia for three years. However, over the past year, Inner Mongolia has been completely reshuffled from top to bottom. At the very top, the Secretary and the Chairman—both Central Committee members—both fell within a year. Among the eight names to be retroactively confirmed at the Fifth Plenary Session are the two of them. Moving further down, the Executive Vice Chairman was transferred away, the Secretary of the capital city Hohhot was replaced, and five days ago, even the discipline inspection secretary in charge of discipline was replaced. From the secretary to the discipline inspection, the most crucial chairs in an autonomous region all changed hands within a year. A large swath of those who were replaced fell down, and not a single one of those who replaced them belongs to Xi Jinping's old faction.
Some friends might ask, a border autonomous region is not Beijing or Shanghai, so why go to such great lengths to reshuffle it layer by layer? The goal is money, and cold, hard cash. Bayan Obo in Baotou is the largest rare earth mine in the world. What is rare earth? It is indispensable for building chips, electric motors, and missiles. Over the past few years of the China-US trade war, Beijing's strongest card in its hand has been rare earths. Coupled with coal, Inner Mongolia's coal production ranks at the top nationwide, and the electricity sent to other provinces has been the highest in the country for many years.
Why are these things valuable? It's not just that digging them up can make money; the minerals are buried right in the ground, and mining rights, coal mines, and mountain mines can all be taken to banks as collateral, which can then be exchanged for loans. Having mines in hand is equivalent to holding a mortgage slip that can be exchanged for money at the bank at any time.
If you compare this with an industry like artificial intelligence, you will understand. While the artificial intelligence boom is hot, it relies on the central government for food—building server rooms, buying chips, and securing subsidies all require waiting for funds to be allocated from above. If the center allocates funds, you have them; if the center cuts you off, your grain supply stops. The opening of the purse strings is tightly gripped by that single person at the top. Inner Mongolia does not need to look at anyone's face; coal is still burned, rare earths are still sold, and if money is needed, taking the mines to the bank as collateral brings the money right out.
Whose hands was the title deed to this land originally held in? Former Chairman Wang Lixia rose all the way through her ties to He Lifeng. He Lifeng is Xi Jinping's purse string holder. Now that Wang Lixia has been subjected to the "dual expulsion," and Inner Mongolia has been replaced from top to bottom with newcomers, this family fortune has thus been taken away from Xi Jinping's hands.
Having collateral alone is not enough; there must also be a bank willing to disburse loans. The China Development Bank is the bank used by the state to issue loans for major projects. On July 19, Ouyang Weimin, the former head of the China Development Bank, was investigated; he was recommended to Xi Jinping's family by someone close to them. In that same month, Inner Mongolia's Executive Vice Chairman Huang Zhiqiang was transferred into the China Development Bank as its president. If you place these two matters side by side: on one end are the mines that can be mortgaged for cash, and on the other end is a bank dedicated to issuing loans, and the people in charge of both ends were replaced within a month. From the minerals deep underground to the money inside the bank, this line is connected.
Having money alone is not enough; there must also be people. When Hu Chunhua was in Inner Mongolia, he had an old subordinate named Cai Chaohui who helped him handle the petitioning herdsmen affairs. After the Youth League faction lost power, Cai Chaohui was dispatched to Hainan as the Director of the Public Security Department. Hainan is considered the ends of the earth within the political and legal system. Yet on September 10 of this year, Chang'an Net, sponsored by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, updated its leadership list, and Cai Chaohui became the full-time director of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission. An old subordinate thrown to the ends of the earth suddenly sat inside the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, right next to the territories of Chen Wenqing and Wang Xiaohong.
One line is clear: the people Xi Jinping planted in Inner Mongolia over the past decade were cleared out within a year; the management of this money-generating land was replaced; and the people Hu Chunhua once led have begun moving into crucial positions.
If you look back at the initial question, Hu Chunhua had no troops under his command and no province under his control; how securely could he have sat if he had ascended? The troops have the military guarding the gate for him, and the votes had already been tallied in the conference hall. Now, he has the local power, his own purse strings to generate revenue, new leadership in the banks that issue loans, and his own people in the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, which controls the 'handle of the knife.' If he truly enters the Politburo and the Central Military Commission at the Fifth Plenary Session, he won't be sitting in an empty chair.
On October 29, once the communique of the Fifth Plenary Session is released, let's check it together: Are Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli in the list of confirmed appointments? Is the sentence about Xi Jinping resigning as Chairman of the Central Military Commission included?
On September 22, one day earlier than in Henan and Anhui, Wang Junzheng of Tibet stepped down. The Xinhua News Agency press release only stated that he 'no longer serves' in the position, without mentioning his next destination. The narrative released from Hong Kong is that it was due to age.