Xi's Daughter Turns Against Him, Defects to 'the Enemy' — 5 Unspoken Torments Haunting Xi

Xi Jinping's daughter, Xi Mingzhi, has long been a mysterious figure in the eyes of the public. On the June 28 episode of the program Breaking Down the Wall, 1989 democracy movement leader Wu Jianmin made a rare revelation about the love life of China's first princess, Xi Mingzhi. According to him, Xi Jinping is currently troubled by pressure from two sides, the elders of the Chinese Communist Party and his own daughter. Unlike the political pressure from the party elders, Xi Mingzhi is pressuring her father to allow her to marry a man 18 years her senior, someone who has been previously married and has a son. Wu Jianmin disclosed on the show that he learned of this romantic story from a comrade-in-arms who works close to the CCP's inner circle of power. Initially, Xi Jinping and his wife had arranged for Xi Mingzhi to marry a young military officer, but she firmly rejected the match. Instead, she is determined to marry a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, named Zhang Xiaoshuai. In this episode, we revisit the tragic crossroads of two very different lives, one, the undisputed emperor of China, and the other, a red princess forced to live up to the expectations of others. Xi Mingzhi was born in 1992 in Fuzhou, at a time when Xi Jinping was already serving as the city's party secretary and steadily climbing the political ladder. By 1999, when Xi Mingzhi was seven years old, Xi Jinping had become governor of Fujian province. Due to his demanding workload, he had little time to be involved in his daughter's education or upbringing. Her mother, Peng Liyuan, was also extremely busy, working with the song and dance troupe of the PLA General Political Department. Between rehearsals and performances, as well as her responsibilities as a visiting professor at both the Shandong Art Academy and the Central Conservatory of Music, Peng was based mainly in Beijing and seldom spent time with her daughter. As a result, Xi Mingzhe's relationship with both parents was rather distant from a young age. After school, she often ate, stayed, and did homework at the home of Wang Xiaohong, then the director of Fuzhou Public Security. It was during this period that Wang Xiaohong became one of Xi Jinping's close and trusted aides. In 2002, when Xi Mingzhe was 10, Xi Jinping was appointed party secretary of Zhejiang province. She moved with him to Hangzhou, where she lived for eight years until entering university. This period fostered a deep emotional connection to Zhejiang. During this time, she began using the pseudonym Zhuo Chen. In 2010, she transferred from Zhejiang University to Harvard University to study psychology. While at Harvard, she kept her true identity hidden, and few knew of her family background. After she went abroad, her parents imposed strict rules on her. Throughout her time at Harvard, a special security team dispatched by Wang Xiaohong closely monitored her and limited her interactions with others. By her third year, she had virtually no close friends, and her social circle was confined almost entirely to academics. Xi Mingzhe was an avid tennis player. In her third year, she participated in a friendly tennis match between Harvard and MIT, where she met Jiang Xiaoshuai, a doctoral advisor in his 40s and a lecturer at MIT. To her surprise, he spoke with a Zhejiang accent. During their conversations, she discovered that he had also graduated from Zhejiang University, just like her. For someone who had spent much of her youth in Hangzhou, his accent evoked a strong sense of familiarity and comfort. Over time, their interactions grew into a romantic relationship. However, Jiang Xiaoshuai only knew her as an international student from Hangzhou with parents working in the state system. He had no idea that she was China's first princess. Naturally, their relationship didn't go unnoticed by the security team assigned by Wang Xiaohong. Jiang Xiaoshuai's background was quickly investigated by the CCP. Born in 1974, he was a distant relative of Chiang Kai-shek's family in Fenwa. He was a leading researcher in the field of semiconductors at MIT. After graduation, he worked as a software engineer at TSMC's Research Institute in the U.S. Several years later, MIT invited him back to serve as an associate professor and PhD advisor in its semiconductor chip research lab. During his time at TSMC, he had married a brilliant Stanford graduate from Taiwan and had a son. These details were reported to Xi Jinping and Peng Liwan, enraging both of them. In the eyes of Xi and Peng, their daughter's relationship with Jiang Xiaoshuai was politically unacceptable and his background unsuitable. Not only was he distantly related to Chiang Kai-shek, a historical adversary of the Communist Party, but his work with TSMC, a chipmaker viewed as a technological obstacle to mainland China, was seen as an act of betrayal. To them, it was as if the country had nurtured him, only for him to serve the enemy, a classic case of biting the hand that feeds you. Furthermore, they were outraged by the fact that this man, already in his 40s, had a child, had allegedly cheated on his wife, and now dared to pursue a relationship with the first princess. Xi Jinping was furious. He immediately called his daughter, ordered her to return to China, and demanded she end the relationship. But Xi Mingzhi firmly refused to obey. In June 2013, during a state visit to the U.S., Xi Jinping requested that his daughter come to California to meet him. But Xi Mingzhi flatly refused. The situation escalated to the point where the princess of the Red Dynasty seemed on the verge of defecting to imperial America, something Xi Jinping found politically unacceptable. As a result, he secretly instructed Wang Xiaohong to pressure her through the Chinese embassy in the U.S., making it impossible for Xi Mingzhi to remain in the country once her F-1 visa expired. At the same time, Xi Mingzhi herself wanted to give Jiang Xiaoshuai time to finalize his divorce, so she reluctantly returned to China. Upon her return, she was barred from contacting Jiang. Xi Jinping reprimanded his daughter, saying she could be with anyone else, but to become the other woman to a married man was disgraceful. Xi Mingzhi pushed back, pointing out that her own grandmother had also been the other woman when she married Xi's father in Yan'an. If not for my grandmother, she said, there would be no General Secretary Xi Jinping today. This remark reportedly sent Xi and Peng Liwan into a rage, but they were powerless to do anything about it. Recently, rumors have spread not only of senior CCP elders applying pressure on Xi Jinping, but also of the possibility that his daughter might defect to the U.S. If true, this would place Xi in a deeply troubling position. While his daughter's forbidding romance is a source of personal anguish, Xi Jinping is also under far greater pressure from within the political system. What former Inner Mongolia Government Legal Affairs Office Director Du Wen calls five deep torments that are imprisoning Xi. The first torment is the loneliness at the peak of power. The more power Xi holds, the fewer real friends he has, and true confidants are nearly non-existent. He is surrounded by sycophantic officials, flatterers willing to call a deer a horse if it pleases him. Though Xi has purged numerous political rivals and tigers, he has also sowed the seeds of deep mistrust. As a result, Xi is arguably the most insecure person in China today. And without a sense of security, how can there be any real happiness? Xi reportedly worries that the same people who chant Long Live Xi Jinping by day might be conspiring by candlelight to overthrow him at night. According to Du Wen, there are even rumors that Xi keeps a bulletproof vest under his pillow so he can sleep more soundly. That loneliness is compounded by the fact that Xi himself eliminated his own circle of comrades. The allies who once helped him climb to the top are now in prison, many locked away in Qincheng prison. His tiger hunts have left him without anyone brave enough to speak the truth. All that remains are the silent, submissive, or puppet-like subordinates who parrot his words. Second, the anxiety of sitting atop a volcano. According to Du Wen, the more pressure that's applied to a volcano, the more anxious one becomes, because the magma beneath the surface is silently building. Sooner or later, it will erupt with force. Don't be misled by the glowing images on the Xinwen Lianbo evening news, where Xi Jinping appears beloved by all. The blank sheets of paper held high and the chants of Down with Xi Jinping and Xi Jinping step down during protests were enough to force a powerful party leader to retreat. There's an old Soviet-era joke that has long circulated in China. It tells of a man standing in Moscow's Red Square, holding a blank piece of paper in protest, only to be arrested. Why are you arresting me? the man asks. I didn't say a word. Everyone knows what you were going to say, replies the policeman. This old joke inspired many protesters in China to raise blank sheets of paper in silent resistance. Xi Jinping lives in constant fear of public unrest, like a volcano that could erupt at any moment. He fears that one night, a phone call will jolt him awake. Reporting to the chairman, something has happened. Third, a prisoner inside the kingdom of manufactured information. Du Wen argues that, as China's top leader, Xi should be the person most informed about the country's true situation. Ironically, the very information control system he built has now trapped him in a cocoon of filtered narratives. Each day, he hears only praise, chants of, Long live Xi, and reads reports that have been carefully polished. Xi now wrestles daily with the lack of transparency surrounding him. Du Wen wryly remarks that, despite his absolute power, Xi may be no different from someone sneaking around on the internet, reading internal reports in the middle of the night, searching for truths that cannot be spoken aloud. Xi both detests and depends on his own propaganda machine. He relies on it to sustain the myth of his greatness, yet loathes it for blinding him to reality, much like the emperor in the emperor's new clothes. Fourth, Xi fears the shadow of history's judgment. Power can control the present, but not how the future will write history. Du Wen points out that Xi Jinping is deeply ambitious, intent on leaving a lasting legacy, one that rivals the great figures of the Qing dynasty. In 2018, the Chinese Communist Party amended the constitution to remove term limits for the presidency. Xi aimed to break more than two decades of precedent within the party and return to a system of lifetime rule. After Xinhua News Agency announced the change, social media exploded. Many users voiced their opposition, some openly, others more subtly. One satirical article titled Why I Want to be Emperor, an imaginary interview with Yuan Shikai, spread rapidly across WeChat friend circles before being swiftly deleted. Within hours, Weibo activated its censorship mechanisms. Countless accounts were silenced or outright removed. Public opinion at the time described Xi's move as a massive step backward, likening it to a return to the Mao Zedong era. Du Wen observes that deep down, Xi dreads being remembered for the wrong reasons. That's why he has taken strict control over historical narratives within China and launched a campaign against so-called historical nihilism. Xi has essentially used administrative power to define and seal his place in history, while he is still alive. But around the world, criticism of Xi is growing. He is still in power, but many already speak of him not with reverence, but with condemnation. Du Wen speculates that in the quiet hours of the night, Xi must sometimes wonder. When I'm gone, will the people remember me with respect and praise, or with derision and regret? Xi is obsessed with how he will be judged after death, and he seems to have found his solution. Never retire, never name a successor. If there's no one to take over, then there's no one to purge him, no posthumous reckoning. Fifth, International Isolation At home, Xi Jinping is surrounded by fanfare and loyal subordinates, but on the global stage, he is increasingly isolated. In recent years, China's external environment has grown noticeably colder, and things continue to deteriorate. The CCP's diplomats have adopted an increasingly aggressive and combative posture, widely described as wolf-warrior diplomacy. The Times of London once published a lengthy article noting how China's wolf-warrior diplomats have repeatedly issued statements that defy diplomatic norms. These individuals were described as a new, aggressive breed, roaring across the globe. According to the Times, earlier generations of CCP diplomats followed Deng Xiaoping's mantra of hide your strength and bide your time. They generally stuck to official talking points and refrained from personal commentary. But around five years into Xi's rule, that began to change. Chinese officials started openly clashing with foreign governments, discarding the previous tone of formal restraint and civility. Duen notes that, as the mastermind behind wolf-warrior diplomacy, Xi has had to swallow the bitter consequences. On the world stage, he is increasingly portrayed as a villain, an expansionist with grand ambitions. To much of the international community, Xi appears like a misfit, someone unwilling to be questioned, and uninterested in integrating with the West. In the eyes of liberal, easygoing Western leaders, he often comes off as foolish. Xi once said that a true official must have sleepless nights, waking with a start in the middle of the night. Duen suggests this wasn't just rhetoric, but a lived reality for Xi himself. In the ruthless political drama of Zhongnanhai, no one truly escapes the shadow of fate—neither Xi Mingzhe nor Xi Jinping. Mingzhe longs for a simple love, yet finds herself imprisoned by the invisible walls of power and duty. Xi Jinping, at the height of power, is crushed beneath the very crown he wears, tormented by loneliness and fears over his legacy. In that world, father and daughter, though standing at opposite ends of authority, are both bound by the invisible chains of the regime. The Chinese Communist Party does not grant people the freedom to love or to be free. In the end, after all the brutal political battles, will they have left for themselves? Perhaps only tragic and bitter outcomes. What do you think? Leave a comment below. And thank you for watching. We'll see you next time.