Online reports claim that retired elders such as Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao and Zeng Qinghong held a private brainstorming session, discussing the political line, the retirement system, and how to pull back the recent overemphasis on national security; whether the meeting actually took place cannot be verified.
In mid-September 2026, overseas reports circulated claiming that Wen Jiabao hopes to push the agenda after the Fifth Plenum further, from the top leader's departure toward restarting political system reform. Another account says conservative forces within the Party have hit the brakes on this. At present, no official document has confirmed any of it.
Overseas leaks claim that Wen Jiabao adopted a strategy of "let the person go up first, settle the accounts later," planning at the October Fifth Plenum to push Hu Chunhua onto the Politburo Standing Committee and add him as a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, so that the successor takes up the gun first, bypassing the political deadlock over whether Xi Jinping should step down immediately.
Thirteen retired state-level elders, including Wen Jiabao, Zeng Qinghong, and Wang Qishan, attended a high-level political ceremony at the Great Hall of the People. Hu Jintao's absence has sparked various rumors regarding Beidaihe secret talks and power succession.
Wen Jiabao appeared at the Institute of Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and waved and interacted with the crowd.
Wen Jiabao made an appearance in Beijing at the end of March, and related reports subsequently linked it to the settlement arrangements of Xi Jinping's old system.
Wen Jiabao visited the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in Beijing. The license plate of the vehicle he was riding in was identified as belonging to the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, sparking speculation about connections between party elders and the military.
There have been claims that generals including Li Zuocheng proposed a plan to bring the 38th Army's heavy units into Beijing, impose air traffic control, and declare martial law in the capital, only to be blocked by Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao; this claim has no public reports to corroborate it.
In January of this year, Wen Jiabao personally met with Foreign Minister Wang Yi several times, demanding the clearance of internal hazards within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the covert pipelines laundering money for red families.
Rumors say that the central decision-making deliberation and coordination body established in late June 2025 consists of seven people: Wen Jiabao serves as the head, and members include Li Ruihuan, Zeng Qinghong, Wang Yang, Xi Jinping, Zhao Leji and Li Qiang, with one vote per person, and Politburo members must first request instructions from and report to this group.
Overseas sources claim that Wen Jiabao pushed for the establishment of a Party Central decision-making and deliberation coordination body and personally serves as its head, that major decisions do not go through the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, and that Xi Jinping has been effectively placed under house arrest at Fengze Garden in Zhongnanhai.
Wen Jiabao stepped down from the office of Premier of the State Council, ending his term as premier.
The New York Times published a world-shaking investigative report revealing that relatives of Wen Jiabao's family secretly controlled assets worth approximately USD 2.7 billion.
On March 14, 2012, Wen Jiabao delivered a speech at the Two Sessions Chinese and foreign press conference, emphasizing that without political structural reform, economic structural reform cannot succeed, and warning that the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution could happen again.
In March 2012, Wen Jiabao spoke about reform of the system of Party and state leadership at his final press conference as premier, warning that if political reform stalled, the gains of economic reform could be lost again and even a historical tragedy such as the Cultural Revolution could happen once more; the next day, Bo Xilai was removed from his post as Chongqing Party Secretary.