There’s never a dull moment in CCP politics!

All right, well, there has been endless speculation about when Xi Jinping will step down. Multiple sources have pointed to August as a crucial window for a leadership announcement. Guess who? Even U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson has given some hint. In a TV interview, I believe it was last week, he confirmed this deadline. He confirmed the August deadline by saying this. He said, the Chinese leadership has a big conclave at the beginning of August. So many people interpreted that remark as a sign or as a signal that the CCP may be planning to replace Xi Jinping. The conclave Besson referred to isn't the fourth plenum or trade negotiations. It's believed to be a small secretive leadership meeting, one that will decide Xi Jinping's fate. So the use of conclave, which is a word associated with secret elections for a Pope, suggests the stakes are very high. But that isn't the only reason why August matters. The CCP must also decide who will inspect the troops at the September 3rd military parade. This is the parade that marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. The CCP has confirmed that Xi Jinping will deliver a speech, but there's no official word on whether or not he will inspect the troops. And that omission is significant. So if Xi Jinping, as chairman of the Central Military Commission, is absent from such a key role, it will be a clear sign that he's lost authority. If he does inspect the troops, it doesn't guarantee power or strength, but it will be watched closely. So that's what we heard. Now, of course, Xi Jinping isn't giving up quietly. He returned to the front page of People's Daily in the last two weeks and held a rare high-level urban development meeting attended by almost all provincial leaders and the entire Politburo Standing Committee, all seven of them. The spectacle promoted some people to declare Xi Jinping is back. Now, meanwhile, Western media carried out some important tasks for him. The Economist ran a piece called Xi Jinping is growing more elusive, claiming his disappearance is strategic and not political. And according to them, Xi Jinping is recalibrating his leadership style. But I'm not convinced these outlets have reporters based in China and employee staff with the CCP ties. So they're subject to influence and manipulation. And when it comes to elite power struggles, their coverage often serve Beijing's narratives. In fact, if you really follow China news, you could tell that Xi Jinping's entire PR campaign has been reactive. When people noted that he had disappeared from People's Daily, he reappeared on the front page. When rumors swirled about him skipping the parade, Xinhua announced that he will give a speech, although still no word on inspecting the troops. And when whispers spread about his wife, Peng Liyuan's disappearance, she suddenly showed up, awkwardly, after her meeting with Brazil's first lady on May the 13th in Beijing. Madam Xi dropped from public view and skipped all of Xi Jinping's subsequent foreign visits. Speculation exploded. Some said she had affair with one of his, one of her aides, and that she was under house arrest, and that she was divorced or fled to her hometown in Shandong. Absurd as they sound, the volume of these rumors forced an official response. So on July 17th, Madam Xi reappeared at the Gulin Friendship US-China Youth Exchange event and delivered a speech. But it was a strange appearance. The event had already ended on July 16th. So she appeared after it ended. She hadn't attended the opening or the closing ceremonies and only appeared afterward at the host organization, which is the Friendship Association. So she appeared at the host organization of that event, watched a recap video, and then gave a speech. Now, you must know that China's first lady is a professional singer, and that this event, this Gulin Friendship Youth Exchange program this year is a actual choir week, right? There was a week-long choir event. So for a professional singer, her absence during the actual choir week was bizarre, and her sudden post-event visit felt like a hastily arranged move to make a public appearance to quash rumors. Now, let's talk about the power plays, okay, behind the scenes. And on July 21st, the Ministry of Public Security finally appointed a new director for the Special Service Bureau, which is China's second most powerful security organ after the Central Security Bureau. Now, the CSB, the Central Security Bureau, protects Xi Jinping and the top leaders, like the seven Politburo Standing Committee members. The Special Service Bureau guards vice state-level officials. Their security service needs to be managed by somebody the party elders trust. So that position has been vacant since April, when the previous director, his name is Wang Zhizhong, who is a loyalist, who is a close ally of Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong, he was quietly reassigned in April. Within the ministry, he was transferred to a position to be in charge of immigration. During the three months that they were looking for someone to replace Wang, the minister himself, Wang Xiaohong, the outgoing director's name is Wang Zhizhong, and his boss is the Minister of Public Security, Wang Xiaohong. So Wang Xiaohong has been temporarily filling the position himself, and now they found someone, and his name is Lin Zhifeng. Now, who is he? Well, he is a Zhejiang native, and most of his political career has been in Zhejiang, and he's a longtime subordinate of, guess who, Cai Qi. So people say that they, it's kind of interesting that they find someone who's closely tied to Cai Qi after all that time of looking. Well, that appointment marks a major win for Cai Qi, who is the director of central office, the party's central office, and the man who manages the other security bureau, the CSB, the Central Security Bureau. So now, if you really look at, think about it, with both the CSB and the Special Service Bureau under his influence, he manages one, and the other one is managed by somebody who is loyal to him. So it seems that Cai Qi has consolidated control over the entire senior leadership's security and surveillance apparatus. Now, we all know that Cai Qi has been a longtime loyalist to Xi Jinping, right? So what does this new appointment mean? Well, many people have believed that Cai Qi has switched sides. Any evidence? Let's take a look at an event that took place on July 7th. It's the Marco Polo Bridge Commemoration event in Beijing. This high-profile event, marking the 88th anniversary of the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, was attended by key officials, including the Minister of Propaganda, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, and the Minister of Public Security, Wang Xiaohong. And oddly, Zhang Youxia was there, too. Now, usually, Zhang Youxia appears in person only when his boss, Xi Jinping, is the main speaker. But this time, Xi Jinping is out of town, and the central speaker was Cai Qi. And even more surprising, the CMC member, Liu Zhenli, was also present. Another CMC member was already there representing the military. So Zhang Youxia's presence was not required at all. So people were shocked to see that he actually showed up at the event when Xi Jinping is not the speaker, but Cai Qi was. So there was only one possible explanation why he show up. He was there to support Cai Qi, and that's exactly what it looked like. And this is the reason why people believe Cai Qi has jumped ship. Now, interestingly, while Beijing hosted this grand ceremony to commemorate the Second Sino-Japanese War, Xi Jinping skipped it entirely and instead appeared in foggy Yangquan in Shanxi province. He was laying a wreath at a World War II memorial. Now, if you remember, the official excuse for skipping the BRICS summit in Brazil was a scheduling conflict. And this was precisely the event that Xi Jinping attended, the conflicts or the conflicted with BRICS. That's exactly where he went. It looks ironic because Xi Jinping went there without his usual entourage, right? Zhang Youxia didn't go. I mean, Zhang Youxia supposedly should accompany Xi Jinping to go to a war, I mean, a war memorial event because they are both, I mean, one is the chairman, one is the vice chairman of CMC. But instead, Zhang Youxia decided to stay in Beijing to attend the event that Cai Xi spoke. And Xi Jinping went to Shanxi only with one top official and that's He Lifeng, vice premier. The other man in the picture were local officials. I do not think Xi Jinping chose this at all. I think he was forced out of Beijing, out of that event. And he was sent to Shanxi to attend this event with He Lifeng and he was not allowed to go to Brazil for this BRICS summit, okay? And then came the purge warning. And then yesterday, the POA official newspaper revealed that the Central Military Commission had issued a directive calling for a comprehensive cleansing of toxic influences and a rebuilding of political officers authority. Now the language was very harsh. It laid out 22 rules across seven categories, demanding strict party loyalty and a self revolution. So from the wording, it's obvious that POA is about to start another political purging. But here's the twist, why another one? Haven't we seen waves after waves of political purging in the past two years? Why another one? But the strange thing about this announcement is that the document doesn't name anyone. Because when you say toxic influence, you have to say the toxic influence of so and so. I mean, what is this influence, right? You have to define what the influence is, right? So in the past, they say we need to purge the toxic influence of Zhou Yongkang, or Xu Caihou, or Sun Lijun, like all these bad actors that portrayed the party. And so this vagueness now suggests something more delicate. Because the reason they didn't name any names is because it's too sensitive. So who is it? Well, there are two names come to mind. I mean, it could only be these two men, right? Miao Hua and He Weidong. But they are both Xi Jinping's confidants. So Miao was stripped of all titles by this June, and He Weidong vanished months ago and is rumored dead. Yet neither has been officially accused of any wrongdoing. They're just, one is gone, and the other just removed of his positions, of his titles. In fact, He Weidong is still listed as the CMC vice chairman on official websites. So why the silence? Well, obviously it's not a corruption case. It's something that the CCP cannot elaborate, and is afraid to elaborate. In CCP's language, cleansing toxic influence, it's usually power grabs or even coup attempts. That's what this phrase is used for. And so the only toxic influence that fits the scale and the secrecy of this campaign is Xi Jinping himself.