The removal of Xi’s alleged ex and a high-ranking mistress hints at a power struggle

First, I'll talk about the sudden fall of two women. They are not ordinary figures. They were once closely connected to the top leaders of the Communist Party. Their abrupt removal could show how much control Xi Jinping still has, or how much he has already lost. On March 20th, Zhang Hongsheng officially took over as chairman of the China's Writers' Association, replacing a famous woman, Tianying, who had been holding that position for nearly two decades. Now, this woman is no ordinary figure in China's political and literary circles. She's not only a prominent writer, but also serves as a vice chairman or vice chairwoman of the National People's Congress, a role she retained after the 20th Party Congress. And in October last year, she even acted as Xi Jinping's special envoy to attend the inauguration of Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum. It's exceedingly rare for a mainland Chinese writer to hold such high political office. But again, Ms. Tianying is no ordinary woman. Ms. Tianying was one of China's famous writers and was a very attractive woman when she was a young lady. So for years, rumors have swirled about her personal connection to Xi Jinping. In the 1980s, when she was the party secretary of Zhengding County in Hebei, he reportedly met Ms. Tianying, then a talented young editor working for a magazine under the Baoding Literary Federation. Ms. Tianying is five years younger than Xi Jinping. She was in her 20s. According to reports, a senior colleague and another writer introduced them. It's said that Xi Jinping went to the magazine's pub publisher to visit her personally. And Radio Free Asia's China expert Gao Xin once interviewed an insider familiar with the alleged relationship. After Xi Jinping rose to become China's top leader, Mr. Gao re-interviewed the source, who became much more cautious but left one telling remark. Had Ms. Tianying not been too much of an artist at heart back then, China's first lady today might not have been singer Peng Liyuan. So when they first met, Tianying reportedly asked Xi Jinping what he was working on. And she returned the question by asking her, what was your first published work? The exchange reportedly helped spark their acquaintance. Intriguingly, when Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan went on their first date, the very first thing Xi Jinping asked her was exactly the same question, a detail that has fueled plenty of speculation. As for why Ms. Tianying and Xi Jinping never married, insiders point two reasons. First, Tianying's father, who is an artist, reportedly opposed the match, believing that children of high-ranking CCP officials were unreliable. Secondly, Ms. Tianying's own artistic temperament was seen as ill-suited for a political life. As you can tell from the picture, she was very modern and Western by Chinese standard. That was in the 1980s. Not a lot of young Chinese women dressed the way she did in the picture in the 1980s. So she remained single for a long time and got married at the age of 50 to an economist. The fact that she remained single for such a long time remained a detail that fascinated Chinese media. Some sources suggest that Xi Jinping felt a sense of responsibility or guilt over leaving Tianying unmarried for so long. Perhaps this explains why she was later granted such unusually high political status for a writer. Now, after Xi Jinping became China's top leader, Ms. Tianying publicly adored Xi Jinping as an official and a writer, of course. On October 15, 2014, Xi Jinping presided over a major symposium on literary and artistic work, and this took place not long after he became the top leader. At the time, Ms. Tianying was on a business trip in Austria, but abruptly cut her trip short to return to Beijing and was the first speaker at the event hosted by her alleged former boyfriend. In her speech, she notably praised one of Xi Jinping's essays, saying that many of its details were unforgettable. By the way, Xi Jinping is not known for his writing skills. Fast forward to today, Ms. Tianying's sudden removal from her long-held position as the chairwoman of China's Writers' Association is widely seen as a sign of the CCP's intensifying internal power struggle. Her ousting, without any warning, is directly tied to Xi Jinping's ongoing political crisis. Meanwhile, the fallout continued. On April 4, Chinese authorities announced investigation into three individuals. There they are. They are chairman of the China Dancers' Association, Feng Shuangbai, and then the vice chair of the same association, Luo Bin, and Ms. Wei Li, deputy director of the Art Exchange Department at the Dance Arts Center. Ms. Wei Li, the woman at the center of the attention, has been described by Chinese state media as beautiful with an outstanding figure, but unfortunately too corrupt. State media also remarked that Wei Li quickly gained favor from a sugar daddy and climbed the ranks, only to fall at the threshold of corruption. While official reports avoided naming names, it's widely rumored that Wei Li is the mistress of one powerful man in CCP politics, and there you have him, Cai Qi, the Politburo Standing Committee member who is known as Xi Jinping's key enforcer in party affairs, I would say his most loyal follower, his diehard follower. Adding to the scandal, it's reported that it was Feng Shuangbai, the chairman of the Dancers' Association, it was him who introduced Ms. Wei to Cai Qi. So now Ms. Wei is being investigated with the man who brought her and Cai Qi together. Well, the fate of Cai Qi is often seen as a barometer for Xi Jinping's grip on power. If Cai Qi is stable, Xi Jinping's power is stable. If Cai Qi's position wavers, it signals trouble at the very top for Xi Jinping. Last year, rumors swirled that Cai Qi's son, Cai Erjin, had been taken away for investigation by the CCDI, the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection. While little has been heard about Cai's son, the downfall of Ms. Wei Li, his alleged mistress, suggests that Cai Qi's good days are over. In the opaque world of CCP politics, where black box operations are the norm, details remain murky. Still, the timing of the two women's simultaneous downfall is no coincidence. Such moves would not have occurred if Xi Jinping's power remained absolute. Private scandals among CCP top officials are nothing new, but they reveal the deep rot inside the system. So that's all we'll say about the mistresses. Powerful women, once intimately tied to the party's top brass, are now being suddenly purged.