Keeping a Low Profile · Full chronicle and history

On September 21, official announcements stated that Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli were expelled from the Chinese Communist Party and the military due to serious violations of discipline and law.

It was officially announced that Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to the United States from September 23 to 25, with an itinerary including a tour of the National Archives and attendance at a state dinner.

On September 21, the CCP Politburo meeting reviewed and approved disciplinary decisions for Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, both of whom were expelled from the Party and the military, and their suspected criminal matters were transferred to the military procuratorial organ for investigation and prosecution.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Xi Jinping was absent from the BRICS summit banquet due to illness, and Wang Yi attended on his behalf.

The US Department of State has approved a foreign military sale of air defense systems to Ukraine, including S-300 clone missiles, with a total estimated value of up to $2.68 billion.

Following Wang Zhongwei's protest in Washington, D.C. against Xi Jinping's visit to the US, his family in China was harassed by the police under the guise of persuasion.

On the final day of the Russian parliamentary elections, the skies over Moscow were hit by a large-scale drone attack. An oil refinery in the Moscow Oblast caught fire, billowing black smoke, and the area near the Kremlin was also affected.

Between late 2025 and early 2026, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli were plotted against and confirmed to be taken down. Subsequently, in late August 2026, the National People's Congress explicitly relieved Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli of their positions as deputies to the NPC and members of the Central Military Commission, among other posts, drawing external attention to the rift between the military and the central leadership.

On the tenth day after the disaster at the Gyirong Port border, Nepalese rescue forces successfully rescued Chinese worker Lu Haitao from a tunnel buried by a mudslide, demonstrating the scale and persistence of local rescue operations.

Desmond Shum, author of Red Roulette, published a long article in September 2026, publicly detailing for the first time his interactions, reading groups, and the last meeting with Ling Gu before the accident, while analyzing the impact of the car crash on Chinese politics and Xi Jinping's consolidation of power.

During the mudslide disaster relief efforts on the China-Nepal border, the Nepali side rescued and transferred 2,697 people on August 30 alone, including 72 Chinese citizens. Nepal subsequently announced a cumulative total of 13,396 people rescued and transferred, with over 25,000 personnel from the army, police, and armed police participating in the rescue. These figures have been used to compare against the lower rescue input and results from the Chinese side.

On August 28, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress issued an announcement declaring the removal of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli from their respective positions.

In late August, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress removed Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli from their State Central Military Commission positions.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced that Jiang Hongwei, Deputy Secretary of the Heilongjiang Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission and Deputy Director of the Provincial Supervisory Commission, has fallen from power. This is seen as a key breakthrough by the anti-Xi alliance attempting to pry open old accounts from the period when Li Zhanshu governed Heilongjiang.

After accompanying Xi Jinping to receive Myanmar leader Min Aung Hlaing, Cai Qi has successively missed important diplomatic events such as receiving Cambodia's Hun Sen and the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, triggering external speculation that he has gone missing or lost power.

Driven and spearheaded by Li Zhanshu, the First Session of the 13th National People's Congress passed the decision to amend the constitution, removing the limit that the president of the PRC could serve no more than two consecutive terms.

The first Politburo meeting after the 19th National Congress adopted relevant regulations requiring Politburo members to submit written performance reports to the CCP Central Committee and the General Secretary annually, further strengthening supreme centralization of power.

Following Ling Plan's departure, Li Zhanshu officially assumed office as the Director of the CCP Central Committee Office on September 1, 2012, stepping into the core power circle of the General Office in advance.

In the early morning of March 18, 2012, Ling Gu, the only son of Ling Jihua, died in a Ferrari crash near the Baofusi Bridge on Beijing's North Fourth Ring Road. Two young women in the car were severely injured, triggering high-level political maneuvering and intensive news censorship.

On March 15, 2012, Bo Xilai was dismissed from his post as secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the CCP, and three days later Ling Gu died in a car accident in Beijing. These two incidents became critical turning points in the restructuring of the top leadership power structure of the Chinese Communist Party on the eve of the 18th National Congress.