Xi Jinping Forced to Choose One of Two: Retire for Health Reasons or Be Dismissed? Settling Accounts on Li Keqiang's Death Anniversary — Is Cai Qi Turning on Xi to Save His Own Life? Officials Writing Suicide Notes Before the Fifth Plenum? The Guns Don't Listen to Xi: China-India Border Standoff Reaches Three Months! [Jiang Feng View 20261027 Episode 524]

This episode focuses on the high-level political struggle in Zhongnanhai during the Fifth Plenary Session of the CCP Central Committee. The host points out that on the occasion of Li Keqiang's death anniversary and the opening of the plenary session, Xi Jinping is facing two ultimatums forcing him to step down: "resignation due to health reasons" or "dismissal for incompetence." Amidst a reshuffle of senior personnel in Hebei province, the comeback of several of Li Keqiang's former subordinates, and the downfall of Cai Qi's core team members Xia Linmao and Wei Xiaodong, officials inside the Jingxi Hotel are facing immense psychological pressure. Meanwhile, a three-month military standoff at the China-India border reflects a fractured military command chain and a shift in the control of the gun, as the situation heads toward a major upheaval.

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Hello friends, and welcome to Jiangfeng Perspective. Today is October 27th, exactly three years since Li Keqiang passed away, and also the second day of the Fifth Plenary Session. Three years ago, Old Xi thought that by sending off the person whom the entire party and country constantly compared him to, the phrase "Xi steps down, Li steps up" would be reduced to ashes, and his position would be secure from then on. But three years later today, there are only two pieces of paper left in front of him: one demanding resignation due to health reasons, and the other demanding dismissal for incompetence. The debt he thought was settled three years ago has returned today with principal and interest. Moreover, those returning to collect this debt are not just the hundreds of hands inside the Jingxi Hotel.

These two pieces of paper were laid on the table on October 23rd, just three days before the opening of the plenary session. Zhongnanhai held a Politburo meeting, and the official readout claimed it was to review an inspection report. However, overseas leaks indicated that right on that long table, party elders and power holders laid out two paths, forcing the person sitting in the main seat to choose one of two options. On the same day, an account named Su Wukong on X posted twice consecutively. The first post said the biggest upheaval of the year is about to come, and the second post was just six words: the highest position falls. Some people specifically cross-referenced the personnel news previously released by this account with official appointments: Mo Gaoyi going to Yunnan, Guo Ningning taking over Fujian, Zhuge Yujie going to Qinghai, and Xia Linmao in Beijing getting into trouble—all nine turned out to be completely accurate. The first nine have materialized, and the only one left whose outcome is yet to be revealed is this final one.

Looking at the Jingxi Hotel today, according to the agenda, it was supposed to be group discussions all day, but the two to three hundred people who walked into that building all had the same thought cross their minds before stepping out: whether they would be able to walk back out after going in today. Do not think this is just to scare people; back in January this year, a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission left home for a meeting as usual in the morning and never showed up in any meeting venue ever again. What is even more fatal is the gun. Exactly seven weeks before the man from Zhongnanhai flew to New Delhi and shook hands with Modi, the People's Liberation Army had already pitched tents on the other side's mountain. A month and a half after he returned home, the tents were still there, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could only squeeze out a statement about normal patrols. Can the hand that the chairman used to shake hands control the hand that pitched tents on the mountain?

What exactly happened that night three years ago? From beginning to end, the authorities only provided five words: "sudden heart attack." Yet, every version that has leaked overseas over these three years points in the same direction. Today, we will peel back the layers one by one: first, look at how Li Keqiang's people fought their way back to the gates of Beijing; then, see how Cai Qi's people are being taken away one after another; next, examine what those two documents actually looked like; and finally, observe the trembling hands at the Jingxi Hotel and the guns in the fog that refused to follow orders. To understand who is trembling at the Jingxi Hotel today, you don't need to dig up old news from three years ago; a single personnel appointment notice from the day before yesterday is enough. On Sunday, October 25, the day before the plenary session opened, the Standing Committee of the Hebei Provincial People's Congress issued three announcements in one go: accepting Wang Zhengpu's resignation as Governor of Hebei, deciding that Zhao Chenxin would serve as Acting Governor, and appointing Chen Shaobo as Vice Governor of Hebei. On the same day, it was announced that the CCP Central Committee had approved Chen Shaobo's appointment as a member of the Standing Committee of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee. The next day, on the official website of the Hebei Provincial Government, another line was added after his title: Deputy Secretary of the Party Leadership Group of the Provincial Government. Friends who understand the rules of local government know that in a province with seven or eight vice governors, the one who holds the titles of Provincial Party Standing Committee member and Deputy Secretary of the Party Leadership Group is usually the Executive Vice Governor who manages daily operations, approves projects, and holds the purse strings. The two most critical chairs in the Hebei Provincial Government, which guards the capital, were replaced at their roots the day before the plenary session opened.

In fact, the game in Hebei began to change three months ago. On July 31, the central government announced that Ni Yuefeng would no longer serve as Secretary of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee, and he was succeeded by Luo Wen, Director of the State Administration for Market Regulation. Ni Yuefeng had served as Vice Governor and Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission in Fujian, and Secretary of the Fuzhou Municipal Party Committee, before being sent to guard Hebei before the 20th National Congress. The person at the very top once said himself that Hebei was a place where he had worked. Based on his age, Ni Yuefeng had not reached the limit and could have continued, but he was asked to step down four months before the leadership transition and was directly moved to a secondary role. As for his successor, Luo Wen, he became Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology in 2017 and was promoted to Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in 2019; both steps were taken while Li Keqiang was Premier. In three months, the Secretary, the Governor, and the Executive Vice Governor—the three most critical chairs in Hebei—were all replaced. What kind of place is Hebei? It is like a pair of pliers, surrounding the city of Beijing entirely. The "millennium plan" that the person at the top has been touting for nearly a decade, the Xiong'an New Area, is built right on the edge of Baiyangdian in Hebei. Over the years, those who could go to Hebei to manage the money have always been people whom the person in Zhongnanhai could trust with his eyes closed. So, where did the two who were pushed up this time come from? Acting Governor Zhao Chenxin spent most of his career at the NDRC, rising to become Secretary-General and Deputy Director of the NDRC, before being transferred to Hebei as Vice Governor in May of last year; he became Governor in less than a year and a half. Executive Vice Governor Chen Shaobo also comes from the NDRC, though from the Guizhou NDRC. Born in 1969 in Yanhe, Guizhou, he served as Director of the Guizhou Provincial Development and Reform Commission for a full six years from 2016 to 2022. Keep your eyes on these six years: who was the Governor of Guizhou in 2016, and who was the Secretary of the Guizhou Provincial Party Committee from 2017 to 2020? They were the same person: Sun Zhigang, who was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve and life imprisonment two years ago. And whose person was Sun Zhigang? In 2008, when the State Council established the Leading Group for Deepening the Reform of the Medical and Health System, the leader was the then-Executive Vice Premier Li Keqiang. At the end of 2010, Sun Zhigang was transferred from his post as Executive Vice Governor of Anhui to Beijing to serve as Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission and concurrently as Director of the State Council's Medical Reform Office. Later, he went to the National Health and Family Planning Commission, but he still held the title of Director of the Medical Reform Office. During the years when Li Keqiang was pushing for national medical reform, the chief steward who ran errands, calculated figures, and implemented policies for him was Sun Zhigang.

Look again at that hair-raising calendar from 2023: on the night of August 28, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) announced that Sun Zhigang was under investigation; he was the first former provincial party secretary to be taken away after the 20th National Congress. Two days later, on August 30, Li Keqiang appeared at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, and tourists surrounded him calling out "Hello, Premier." That was the last public footage of him left in this world. Less than two months later, on October 27, he was gone. The medical reform chief steward fell first, and the old leader followed. The authorities never explained a single word about the connection between these two events, but with this calendar laid out, who wouldn't feel a chill? In February of the following year, the CCDI expelled Sun Zhigang from the Party, and the announcement included a glaring charge: "engaging in non-organizational activities during cadre evaluations." In the CCP's jargon, this means forming cliques and factions. By stamping this label on him, the investigators made it clear that they intended to follow the vine of medical reform and root out everyone associated with Li Keqiang. Following this logic, the man who served as Sun Zhigang's NDRC director in Guizhou for six years should have been sidelined until retirement, even if he didn't go down with him. Yet, the day before the Fifth Plenary Session opened, Sun Zhigang's NDRC director was officially sent by the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee into the Standing Committee of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee to take charge of the purse strings at the gates of the capital.

This leads to today's biggest mystery. On October 29, 2024, just two days after the first anniversary of Li Keqiang's death, the Second Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin sentenced Sun Zhigang to a suspended death sentence commuted to life imprisonment without parole for accepting over 800 million yuan in bribes, a crime that warranted the death penalty. Yet, given his major meritorious service after being apprehended and other circumstances, his death sentence with a two-year reprieve was commuted to life imprisonment with lifelong solitary confinement. Within that apparatus, embezzling 800 million yuan and still keeping one's head means only one thing: he informed on others, and the weight of his disclosures was enough for the higher-ups to grant leniency. At the time, outsiders all assumed that to save his own skin, Sun Zhigang was biting the old guard from Li Keqiang's faction. But if you reverse-engineer today's appointment list, had he informed on his own people, could his NDRC director sit as the second-in-command of the provincial government in the capital region today? If he did not inform on his own people, whose affairs were disclosed in that major meritorious service document two years ago? Whose drawer is that document locked in today? No one on the outside has seen it, but the blade that put Sun Zhigang in the defendant's box two years ago is now being held by a different hand.

Let us put this week's personnel shifts side by side: on the 24th, Wang Zhijun, Deputy Secretary-General of the State Council and former Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology promoted during Li Keqiang's tenure, was parachuted into Hunan as the top official. On the same day, Mo Gaoyi took charge of Yunnan. As we mentioned yesterday, Xiao Jie, the chief administrator of the State Council during Li Keqiang's premiership who holds the debt ledgers of various provinces, saw two officials with NDRC backgrounds appointed as principal and deputy to lock down Hebei on the 25th. One in the north and one in the south, figures associated with Li Keqiang and Wang Yang were all fully in place seventy-two hours before the plenary session. Every single one of these appointments had to pass through the Political Bureau and be personally signed off by the person sitting in the main chair. The faction he purged three years ago is now being personally escorted back to the command tent by him one by one. This is not called employing people; this is called being held at gunpoint to concede defeat. Li Keqiang's people have returned, so what about those who stood guard for the boss three years ago?

Just five days before the third anniversary of Li Keqiang's death, on October 22, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection dropped a bombshell: Xia Linmao, member of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and Executive Vice Mayor, was undergoing disciplinary review and supervisory investigation for suspected serious violations of discipline and law. What does an executive vice mayor oversee? Development and reform, finance, planning, and auditing. Much of Beijing's purse strings and major projects must pass through him. Which faction did he rise from? He became the Party Secretary of Miyun District in 2017, Party Secretary of Dongcheng District in 2019, and entered the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee in 2021. The municipal party secretary presiding over Beijing all these years has been Cai Qi. In 2022, Cai Qi entered the Politburo Standing Committee and became the Director of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee, and the following year Xia Linmao took over as Executive Vice Mayor under Yin Li. Yet everyone in Beijing's official circles knows under whose tenure he rose all the way up. Moreover, Xia Linmao is not the first; on June 6 this year, Wei Xiaodong, Chairman of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPPCC, was investigated. When Cai Qi governed Beijing in 2021, Wei Xiaodong was a member of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and head of the Organization Department, controlling the official hats of Beijing's entire bureaucracy. In four and a half months, the men in charge of hats and purse strings within Cai Qi's Beijing team both went down one after another. Between September and early October, there was a rumor circulating externally that investigating Li Keqiang's accounts was acceptable, but the flames could only burn as far as Wang Xiaohong, or at most Cai Qi, and must never go half a step higher. Put bluntly, this is a scapegoat list, a stop-loss order traded in a dark room between the man in Zhongnanhai and his opponents. And Xia Linmao and Wei Xiaodong are the first to be moved on this list.

We might as well imagine this using the old rules of handling cases: the investigators do not need to slam the table; they simply push a cup of hot tea in front of Xia Linmao and casually place two pieces of paper next to it. One is Sun Zhigang's suspended death sentence from two years ago, and the other is the announcement from the day before yesterday appointing Chen Shaobo in Hebei. Mayor Xia, you calculate accounts better than anyone. Why did Sun Zhigang, whose 800-million-yuan crime was set in stone, manage to keep his head? Solely because of the four words major meritorious service. Look at this other paper: his former NDRC director in Guizhou is now sitting as the executive vice governor of Hebei. The day after tomorrow is October 27; you know very well what accounts are being calculated inside the Xijing Hotel. During those five years Cai served in Beijing, who made the phone calls, who approved the slips, and which funds went through which channels? Are you prepared to carry it all into Qincheng Prison alone, or will you also earn yourself a major meritorious service? Put yourself in that chair and think about it: how many hours can you hold out? During the years Xia Linmao followed Cai Qi in Beijing, rising all the way from district party secretary to municipal standing committee member, he holds a complete ledger of where every shady account in Beijing originated. The moment he opens his mouth, the flames will lick at the cuffs of Cai Qi's trousers.

Let's pan the camera back to the Jingxi Hotel and look at the situation Cai Qi is in on the podium. The most dangerous moment for a scapegoat is never the second they are named; it is the moment they suddenly realize they have become the last person on the list. What is Cai Qi holding? After the 20th National Congress, he served concurrently as the Director of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, becoming the chief steward of Zhongnanhai. What does the General Office manage? The receipt, dispatch, and circulation of the highest-level secret documents of the entire Party, the scheduling of the top leadership, and the Central Security Bureau. If we turn the calendar back three years to October 2023, Li Keqiang was resting in Shanghai, reportedly staying at the Dongjiao Hotel. The person sitting in the Director's chair of the General Office at that time was Cai Qi. How many calls were made between Shanghai and Beijing that night, what orders were issued, and how the security guards were deployed—according to the CCP's rule that everything leaves a trail, the records can only be in one place: the confidential archives of the General Office. Now you can see the deadlock between this monarch and his subject at the Jingxi Hotel. In the past, Cai Qi was loyal to the boss because following the boss meant having a seat on the Standing Committee and a good life. But today, Xia Linmao has been taken in, and the blade is pressed against his own throat. The only way for the boss to save himself is to push Cai Qi out as the final firewall and let the list stop with him. But for Cai Qi, the only way to save himself is to follow the examples of Sun Zhigang and Xia Linmao and perform a major meritorious service. And above the head of the Director of the General Office, there is only one person left in all of China he can use to perform such a service and atone for his crimes. The master wants to use the servant as a human shield, but the servant holds the master's trump card from that night three years ago. Whoever speaks first determines which path the person in Zhongnanhai must take.

As for what exactly was written on the two sheets of paper on the Politburo table on October 23, we will open that door right after the commercial. Speaking of which, those high-ranking officials at the Jingxi Hotel are all calculating how to trade others' heads for their own safety. For those of us outside the screen who stay up late every day following this grand drama, don't forget to take care of yourselves. This episode is sponsored by Puritang. For years, Puritang has adhered to the philosophy of natural purity, putting heart into every product, and winning the trust of more and more friends. Starting today, we are launching a limited-time super-value combo: the four most popular products in the family set for a trial price of $328. Get free ginseng on orders over $500, and extra premium ginseng on orders over $3,000—the more you buy, the more you get. Please support Jiang Feng, click the link below the video, and enter the exclusive promo code JF for global free shipping. If you want your daily maintenance to be more worry-free and regular, you are also welcome to subscribe to Puritang for regular deliveries starting at $10 a day, with gifts in every shipment. Subscribe to Puritang to upgrade your health.

What forced Cai Qi and the boss into a corner together were the two sheets of paper spread out on the Politburo table on October 23: one titled 'Resignation for Health Reasons' and the other 'Dismissal for Incompetence.' Another overseas blogger put it even more harshly: before the meeting, Hu Jintao issued a 24-hour ultimatum, forcing the person at the top of the pyramid to personally read out the timetable for a 'naked retirement' at the 21st National Congress during the meeting. Let's make a note of this; we will see the truth once the communique is released on the 29th. But there is one trump card that has already been flipped onto the table this week. In the round of personnel changes on the 24th, Shen Xiaoming of Hunan and Wang Ning of Yunnan were both replaced as they reached the age limit, but two others who also reached the limit—Yin Hong, Secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee, and Wang Weizhong, Secretary of the Inner Mongolia Party Committee—remained unmoved. Yin Hong was born in June 1963 and Wang Weizhong in March 1962. When the two provinces undergo leadership changes next month, both will have passed the 63-year-old threshold and, according to the rules, should have stepped down together. Let's look at the records from the previous term: in the 2021 reshuffle, only two provincial party secretaries were retained after passing 63—Shi Taifeng and Wang Dongfeng. Later, one entered the Politburo and the other became a Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress; both were promoted to the sub-national level. Simply put, being retained beyond the age limit is about reserving a seat for the sub-national level at the 21st National Congress. Think about it: with one year left until the 21st National Congress, the chairs for the sub-national level are already being labeled with names. How could the chair at the very top not be discussed? The two sheets of paper on the table on the 23rd grew out of this seating chart.

There is also no need to wait for a communiqué. In the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), if you want to force a General Secretary to step down, flipping through party history reveals two ready-made molds. Coincidentally, the two people removed using these molds back then were both reformers: Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. Let us first look at the first template: the Hu Yaobang style. In mid-January 1987, Zhongnanhai first held several days of intra-party criticism meetings for Hu Yaobang. Colleagues who usually called him Comrade Yaobang lined up to criticize him, and finally, he made a self-criticism in public. On January 16, an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau agreed to Hu Yaobang's resignation as General Secretary, leaving him with the title of member of the Political Bureau Standing Committee, with the full plenary session to ratify it afterward. What did this path mean for that person in Zhongnanhai? It meant he would have to bow his head and admit fault in a room full of people he personally promoted, people who didn't even dare to breathe heavily in front of him. For fourteen years, he has portrayed himself as the core who never makes mistakes; now, asking him to admit that the economy was ruined, generals were rounded up, and friends were entirely alienated—that humiliation hurts more than cutting off flesh. But this path has one advantage he cannot bear to part with: once the resignation letter is handed in, the organization returns two words: agreed. With those two words, he still has the qualification to sit at the table and negotiate the final condition: let bygones be bygones. The accounts of that night three years ago are permanently locked in the cabinet, and no one is allowed to bring them up. What if he grits his teeth and refuses to bow his head? The second template takes effect immediately: the Zhao Ziyang style. In the early morning of May 19, 1989, Zhao Ziyang went to Tiananmen Square with a megaphone to see the students on hunger strike, and said, "We have come too late." One month later, at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee, there were no polite phrases about agreeing to his resignation; instead, all his positions—General Secretary of the Political Bureau Standing Committee, member of the Political Bureau, member of the Central Committee, and First Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission—were directly stripped away, removing him completely from top to bottom. From then on, in his courtyard house on Fuqiang Hutong in Beijing, he was placed under house arrest for more than fifteen years until his death in 2005, never speaking a single word in public again. This time, the charges for the person at the very peak have already been drafted: incompetence. If it really reaches this step, it is equivalent to the entire party declaring to the whole world that the past fourteen years have led the country into a ditch. By that time, he will not even have the qualification to negotiate; what awaits him is not dignity, but a door that, once closed, will never open again.

Savor the destiny within this: Hu Yaobang was a senior veteran of the Communist Youth League, and Li Keqiang and Hu Chunhua were successors cultivated all along by the League Faction. Four years ago, at the closing of the 20th National Congress, cameras around the world captured Hu Jintao being escorted away from the rostrum. As he passed by Li Keqiang, he reached out and patted him on the shoulder. That year, Li Keqiang was 67 years old. According to the "seven up, eight down" rule, he could have served another term, yet he didn't even make it onto the list of the Central Committee. Three years ago in the spring, Li Keqiang bid farewell to the staff of the State Council, leaving behind a sentence: "Men are working, and Heaven is watching; it seems Heaven has eyes." Seven months later, he died in Shanghai. Three years later today, on his death anniversary, those two pieces of paper that took away the two reformist General Secretaries back then have been placed, completely unchanged, in front of the person who drove the League Faction out of the core circle. Whether this is Heaven having eyes is something you can savor for yourself.

On the morning the plenary session opened, the People’s Daily published a long commentary on its front page. It quoted an old Party member saying that the 'Big Boss' is the nemesis of corrupt elements and the lucky star of the people across the country. It also quoted a writer saying that even in the Twenty-Four Histories, one could not find anti-corruption efforts of this magnitude. The claim of 'unprecedented magnitude' is true, but just imagine: that morning, the two or three hundred people who walked into the Jingxi Hotel clutching that newspaper—what did they feel in the back of their necks when they saw the word 'nemesis'? Even more ironic is that what this plenary session was reviewing was a decision on 'comprehensively strengthening Party discipline,' which the Big Boss himself read out. Every clause he read could become the basis for taking someone in that room away tomorrow. In the officialdom of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), there has long been no clear distinction between attending a meeting and being arrested. In November 2015, Bai Xueshan, Vice Chairman of Ningxia, attended a symposium on Party conduct and clean governance. According to a report by China National Radio, he was taken away during a ten-minute break, and the announcement was made that same evening. In July 2017, Politburo member Sun Zhengcai came to Beijing for the National Financial Work Conference; as soon as the meeting ended, it was announced he would no longer serve as Secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee, and he never returned to Chongqing. State media even wrote articles explaining why the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection loves to take people away at meeting venues: they are easy to find, hard to defend against, and taking them away in public has the greatest deterrent effect. By this year, this is no longer an isolated phenomenon but an assembly line. On June 6, Wei Xiaodong was investigated, and the Beijing Municipal Committee held a standing committee meeting that same afternoon to express their firm support. On October 22, Xia Linmao was investigated, and the Beijing Municipal Committee again held a meeting that same day to express firm support. The person who was sitting in the audience clapping the day before became the name announced on stage the next day. Caixin calculated the numbers: by the end of January this year, the 20th Central Committee had already seen 23 members investigated, and by early September, the number of centrally-managed cadres investigated this year had reached 48. What makes one's spine chill the most is January 20th of this year. That day, the Central Party School held a special seminar for provincial and ministerial-level leading cadres. The Big Boss spoke in person, but several people who should have appeared in the CCTV footage were missing. Most eye-catching were two men in military uniforms: Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission Zhang Youxia and Chief of the Joint Staff Department Liu Zhenli. Four days later, the Ministry of National Defense announced that both were under investigation. Overseas reports claimed they were taken away before they could even attend the Party School meeting. The ones who did the job were the Central Guard Bureau. Who controls the Guard Bureau? The General Office of the CCP Central Committee. Who is the Director of the General Office? Cai Qi. Who is Zhang Youxia? The son of founding General Zhang Zongxun. In the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, he was a company commander in the 14th Army, 40th Division, leading his troops through primeval forests to get behind the Vietnamese lines for a flanking maneuver, and later he fought at Laoshan. Liu Zhenli also fought in the Sino-Vietnamese War. A veteran who had fought in two wars and worked his way up from company commander to Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission left home in the morning to attend a meeting and never appeared again. Whether anyone in the military is keeping score of this, we will discuss later.

So you can imagine that in the room at the Jingxi Hotel today, when it is someone's turn to speak, they first recite their 'firm support,' and after finishing, they scan the room out of the corner of their eyes to see whose seat is empty. When the meeting adjourns, no one wants to be the first to walk out the door, fearing that two strangers might be standing there. There is a rumor circulating overseas that before some people came to Beijing for the meeting, they had already settled their affairs at home. Whether this is true or not is not important; what matters is that it can spread through the officialdom. This brings us to the most critical thought in the Jingxi Hotel today: these two or three hundred people are not hoping for who wins or loses; they are hoping for one thing: 'Stop the arrests.' So what they most want to see in their hearts is actually that 'piece of paper' from Hu Yaobang—not to save face for the Big Boss, but to leave a way out for themselves. If the Big Boss retires due to illness and everyone lets bygones be bygones, no one would have to worry about whether they can return home after leaving for a meeting in the morning. But those two or three hundred hands in the Jingxi Hotel don't have the final say. In the CCP, the gun always has the final say. Who holds the gun today? The answer is not in the Jingxi Hotel, but on a misty mountain thousands of kilometers away.

On October 24, a 29-second video on X reached 1.6 million views. The footage showed a mountain ridge half-swallowed by thick fog. On one side were the People's Liberation Army troops wearing camouflage helmets, and on the other were Indian soldiers. Two rows of people stood face-to-face, squeezed onto a narrow mountain path, with neither side willing to back down. Indian media reported that such a standoff had been ongoing since late July. On October 22, the head of India's Sashastra Seema Bal personally confirmed that Chinese and Indian forces were in a standoff at multiple locations in Arunachal Pradesh, and it was still continuing. According to Indian government sources, the PLA had pitched tents in the Takshing area of the Upper Subansiri District since late July, located six to seven kilometers deep inside the actual control line recognized by the Indian side. When the news first emerged in July, the local chief minister dismissed it as a rumor, but three months later, the Indian official side admitted to it themselves. From July to now, the two countries have held three rounds of high-level border talks, yet not a single tent has been withdrawn. If you look at the calendar, you will realize how bizarre this matter is. On September 12, the man in Zhongnanhai flew by special plane to New Delhi to attend the BRICS summit. This was his first time setting foot on Indian soil in seven years, and the top official accompanying him for talks with Modi was none other than the Director of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee, Cai Qi. Yet at the very moment he was shaking hands with Modi, the PLA's tents had already been pitched on the other side's mountain for seven weeks. A month and a half after he returned home, the tents were still there. On October 26, the day the plenary session opened, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson could only squeeze out a sentence when pressed: that the Chinese side was carrying out normal patrol and control activities in the border region. Normal patrols mean patrolling around and coming back, whereas pitching tents means staying put and refusing to leave. Staying for three months and failing to withdraw even after the heads of state met is not called a patrol; it is called a nail. There are only two explanations for this nail, and either one is fatal. The first explanation is that the tents were pitched under his own orders—shaking hands and making merry in New Delhi while having troops drive nails into the other side's territory is treating the whole world like fools. The second explanation is that the tents were not pitched under his orders, and the Chairman's words cannot reach the peaks of the Himalayas. Our assessment is the second one, for a very simple reason: if you check the current public list of the Central Military Commission today, only two people are left from top to bottom—himself and a Zhang Shengmin. Liu Zhenli, the Chief of the Joint Staff Department in charge of fighting wars, was taken down in January, and the outside world has not yet seen an official replacement to this day. He Weidong, Miao Hua, and Zhang Youxia have fallen one after another. The command chain of an army, from the August 1 Building in Beijing to the peaks of Tibet, has had the necessary links in the middle snapped by his own hands. When the chain is broken, who do the people on the mountain listen to? Let's look at who governs that mountain. Opposite Arunachal Pradesh is the Tibet Military District, which belongs to the Western Theater Command—formed by the merger of the former Chengdu Military District and Lanzhou Military District. Zhang Youxia, from serving as a company commander in the 14th Group Army in 1979 to leaving his post as commander of the 13th Group Army in 2005, spent a full twenty-six years along the Kunming Military District and Chengdu Military District line. Today, among those regimental, divisional, and army commanders leading troops in the southwest direction, how many of them served as soldiers under him back then? This January, their old commander went out to attend a meeting and never came back. You tell me who they listen to in their hearts right now.

In the history of the CCP, border gunshots have often been the sounds inside the Beijing conference halls. In September 1962, after the 10th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee concluded, Mao Zedong cried out never to forget class struggle, and the Sino-Indian War broke out on October 20. On March 2, 1969, gunshots rang out at Zhenbao Island, and on April 1, the 9th National Congress opened, with Lin Biao written into the Party Constitution as the successor. Smoke at the borders around the time of major congresses has never been a coincidence. This year, those tents pitched in late July followed closely behind the replacement of Ni Yuefeng in Hebei, and they were still nailed there when the plenary session opened in October. Therefore, our assessment is that these tents were pitched for New Delhi to see, and even more so, to be seen inside the Jingxi Hotel. They are telling those two or three hundred people who are about to raise their hands that the gun is no longer in the Chairman's hands. The people inside the Jingxi Hotel are hoping for that piece of paper of Hu Yaobang, hoping that everyone will let bygones be bygones. But there are people in the army who remember the account at the Party School gate on January 20, and they also remember that night in Shanghai three years ago. Which of the two pieces of paper to choose in a forced choice was not decided by the hands in the Jingxi Hotel; it was decided by those tents in the fog.

In two days, on the 29th, the communique of the plenary session will come out. You don't need to look at those boilerplate phrases; just focus on three places. First, how many Central Committee members and alternate members attended in total? It is a post-Mao era new low, dropping from the 315 people at the Fourth Plenary Session last year, and how many chairs are empty again. Second, the list for ratifying disciplinary actions and replacements: how the expulsion from the Party of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli is written, and whether there are any new names from Beijing and the knife-handle system. Third, the last sentence of the communique: the plenary session also studied other matters. Tomorrow we will continue discussing the three times hands must be raised at the closing ceremony. Thank you for watching today's Jiangfeng Horizon. Please like, subscribe, turn on the little bell, and share it with your friends. See you tomorrow.