How Zeng Qinghong Thwarted Li Keqiang

According to the CCP’s official propaganda, power transitions are always described as “far-sighted and smooth.” However, beneath this facade of unity, the succession struggle preceding the 17th National Congress of the CCP in 2007 was actually a political gambit orchestrated by Zeng Qinghong, the chief strategist of the Jiang Zemin faction.

False democracy and real conspiracy at the Party School

Let’s return to the Party School and Beidaihe in 2007. In the first half of that year, only a few months remained before the 17th National Congress was to convene. At the time, General Secretary Hu Jintao was working hard to promote Li Keqiang, the core figure of the “Youth League faction” whom Hu had personally promoted, into the position of first in line for succession. For Jiang Zemin and Zeng Qinghong, this was an absolutely unacceptable life-or-death crisis. Once the Youth League faction seized full power, the Jiang faction’s vast political privileges and family-based corrupt interests would inevitably be investigated.

To thwart Li Keqiang, Zeng Qinghong devised a scheme. Leveraging his positions as Secretary of the Central Secretariat and President of the Central Party School, he organized an “exploratory vote” on June 25, 2007. This unprecedented event, held in Beijing, was attended by more than 400 senior Party officials. This event was dubbed an “unprecedented trial run of intra-party democracy” in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. 

However, it was not democracy at all, but rather a meticulously orchestrated power grab. Internal sources indicate that, prior to the vote, Zeng Qinghong had secretly coordinated with provincial and municipal “feudal lords” and high-ranking military officials through the Jiang faction’s vast underground network. He conveyed a clear political signal: “Concentrate votes to protect Xi Jinping and suppress Li Keqiang’s vote count.” Why was Xi Jinping chosen? At the time, he was a “second-generation Red” figure with no distinct factional affiliations, and he appeared simple and honest. After receiving these instructions, the Jiang faction’s regional power brokers colluded to rig the vote. As a result, Li Keqiang received a dismal number of votes in this preliminary poll, while Xi Jinping’s tally was exceptionally high. This “public opinion card” became Zeng Qinghong’s nuclear weapon when he forced Hu Jintao to step down.

The Beidaihe power struggle to force resignation

Armed with this “intra-party public sentiment,” Zeng Qinghong delivered a fatal blow to Hu Jintao at the subsequent closed-door, high-level meeting in Beidaihe. Of the members of the Politburo Standing Committee at the time, Zeng Qinghong was Hu Jintao’s most troublesome obstacle. To secure the Jiang faction’s long-term interests, Zeng Qinghong proposed a political deal that Hu Jintao could not refuse.

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Rumored internal meeting minutes indicate that Zeng took a hardline stance during the session. He offered to use his “voluntary retirement upon reaching the age limit at the 17th National Congress” and his decision not to seek reelection to the Standing Committee as political leverage. In exchange, he asked Hu to abandon Li Keqiang’s status as the absolute successor. Instead, Hu would designate Xi Jinping as the first-in-line successor. Faced with the formidable influence of the Jiang faction within the military (Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou) and the political and legal systems (Zhou Yongkang), coupled with the manipulated “democratic nomination votes,” Hu Jintao ultimately had no choice but to compromise.

The lineup of the 17th National Congress was thus finalized: Both Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang leapfrogged the usual promotion sequence to enter the Politburo Standing Committee. However, Xi was ranked ahead of Li and assumed the posts of Vice President and President of the Central Party School. This formally established his status as the designated successor.

Faction maneuvering and reverse selection: The backlash of the totalitarian machine

This seemingly shrewd political deal ultimately became the starting point for the Jiang faction to dig its own grave. The CCP’s logic of power is rife with reverse selection. At the time, the Jiang faction and Zeng Qinghong viewed Xi Jinping as mediocre and lacking a support base—a figurehead who could easily be sidelined. They believed that by handing over nominal supreme power, they could secure permanent control from behind the scenes.

However, in the Communist Party system, the General Secretary has the legal authority to activate the purge machinery. Zeng Qinghong’s resignation was intended to protect the Jiang faction’s trillions of dollars in assets in sectors such as telecommunications, oil, and finance. They needed a successor without a power base to serve as a protective umbrella. The umbrella Jiang and Zeng had cultivated turned into a guillotine aimed at them.

Zeng Qinghong’s behind-the-scenes vote counting and forced abdication revealed the Party’s complete lack of institutionalized succession procedures, which rely entirely on mafia-style coercion and the division of spoils. In turn, Xi Jinping used even more ruthless methods to devour the “kingmaker” who had originally propelled him to power.