Who will Replace Xi? Rumors Ahead of the Secretive Beidaihe Meeting

Let's get back to the topic of the political reform plan we were just discussing. Wang Yang, what are the main points of this rumored political reform plan? First, it calls for the restoration of term limits and an end to the'one supreme leader' model. The primary content of this plan, its most important aspect, is the restoration of term limits. It clearly stipulates that the party and state leaders can only serve one additional term. As everyone knows, the Chinese Communist Party has had term limits in place since 1982, right? It was stipulated that the top leader could serve a maximum of two terms, which is ten years in total. But this rule was broken in 2018, after Xi Jinping established his authority at the 19th Party Congress. So, restoring term limits is, without a doubt, actually a return to Deng Xiaoping's original political path The idea is to use legal means to put an end to this 'supreme leader' model. In a way, it's a reflection on Xi Jinping's current 'one-man rule' approach, which has made a mess of things. Within the Chinese Communist Party, this actually has a fairly broad consensus. I think it's quite feasible, objectively speaking. The second point is that they're planning to implement competitive elections, right? Introducing mechanisms of competition and elimination. Uh, in other words, right now, from the central government down to the local level, the appointment of all these CCP officials—most of them, or you could even say all of them—are actually designated by higher-ups. Those so-called party congress elections and so on are really just a formality. So, Wang Yang's proposal, his suggestion, is that the elections for the Central Committee, including Politburo members and the Politburo Standing Committee should all implement competitive elections. Moreover, the proportion of excess candidates for the Central Committee should not be less than 15 %. Uh, for example, if there are seven members in the Politburo Standing Committee, then there must be at least eight candidates, and through the election, at least one person has to be eliminated. If there are nine people, then you need ten candidates and so on. The whole point is to use this kind of institutionalized competition to create a certain amount of pressure, to form a real sense of election, even if it's just a little bit. This is essentially the core of it—to promote, you could say, a culture of competition at the Politburo and Standing Committee levels. The third major political reform measure is that he wanted to standardize the succession process, to ensure that the transfer of power would be predictable. Uh, as we all know, during the Deng Xiaoping era, a convention called'designated successors two generations ahead' was established, but this was actually broken by Xi Jinping. That's why we saw Sun Zhengcai get arrested, Hu Chunhua get seriously marginalized, and even Xi Jinping's own successor position remains vacant to this day. Now, according to the rumored plan associated with Wang Yang, it was proposed that each term of the Politburo should include at least four cadres under the age of 45 . This is essentially a reserve echelon, a pool of candidates to be groomed, in order to continue the tradition of looking two generations ahead for successors. The number of successors would be expanded from two to four, which is also meant to create a sense of competition. The Organization Department of the Central Committee would be responsible for formulating a training plan for these successors, and through a process of competitive elections, the General Secretary and Premier would be selected from among these four candidates. So what does this move mean? Not only does it aim to standardize the practice of designating successors two generations ahead, but by expanding the size of the reserve echelon and introducing a competitive mechanism, it also seeks to ensure that the transfer of power is predictable, sustainable and, relatively speaking, more fair and transparent. The fourth major policy, or rather, the political reform plan, is to institutionalize the system of senior advisors—essentially, to balance out the influence of party elders. We all know that the phenomenon of'elderly statesmen interfering in politics' is a particularly prominent feature within the CCP system. In the past, Deng Xiaoping established what was called the Central Advisory Commission to influence decision-making, and in fact, it was this commission that held the real power. They were the ones who truly made the final decisions, right? And the Beidaihe meetings have always served as an unofficial platform for these party elders to participate in politics. So, Wang Yang's proposal is to establish an advisory committee. It would be limited to retired General Secretaries, Premiers, and Chairmen of the Central Military Commission Other retired members of the Standing Committee would all be excluded. This advisory committee would not take part in daily decision-making; it would only offer written suggestions Or it could be closed-door meetings, providing some advice to the Politburo. So, this move is mainly to balance the value of the elders' experience. After all, they're called elders for a reason—their connections are there, and they have significant experience and seniority, right? This way, a balance can be struck between the experience and qualifications of the elders and the decision-making power of the current leadership. It can limit the space for elders to interfere in political affairs. At the same time, you could say it subtly echoes the idea of a separation of powers among the Party, government, and military—there ’ s a kind of mutual check and balance. That ’ s more or less the idea behind it. Now, according to these rumors, it ’ s mentioned that this plan has reportedly already gained the support of Hu Jintao, Zhang Xiuxia, Wen Jiabao, as well as Li Ruihuan and others. And reportedly, Xi Jinping himself is also not opposed to it. So it seems that the possibility of Wang Yang succeeding is even greater. There ’ s also another, even more popular version of the story, which says that Wang Yang would take the lead on political reform, right? He would become the General Secretary, mainly in charge of party affairs. Hu Chunhua would become Premier, mainly leading economic reforms. They want to strictly implement the separation of party and government. As I just mentioned, there ’ s more or less a kind of tripartite separation of powers. It ’ s a shadow of separation of powers. The party, the government, and even the chairman of the Central Military Commission might be held by three different people. In that case, they would basically be separated, which would be somewhat of a return to the model from the early days of the reform and opening-up era. Of course, as for this so-called political reform plan from Wang Yang circulating online, in essence, as I see it, it ’ s clearly just an attempt to prolong the CCP ’ s rule. It ’ s not genuine political reform in any real sense; it ’ s still just a rejection of Xi ’ s faction ’ s Basically, it ’ s about returning to Deng Xiaoping ’ s path, except that it doesn ’ t emphasize opposing It ’ s not genuine political reform in any real sense; it ’ s still just a rejection of Xi ’ s faction ’ s Basically, it ’ s about returning to Deng Xiaoping ’ s path, except that it doesn ’ t emphasize opposing peaceful evolution in the ideological sphere as much. You know, back then, Deng Xiaoping, even though he pushed for reform and opening up, he was especially adamant about opposing peaceful evolution, right? And there ’ s also a major issue, which is that Deng Xiaoping ’ s path has a fatal flaw. The problem is that the current Chinese Communist Party has completely lost the international environment that allowed Deng Xiaoping to carry out his reform and opening-up deception back then. What was called'reform' was actually a kind of fraud against Western societies. In other words, the CCP today has completely lost its credibility in the eyes of the entire Western world. So this path is basically doomed—it may look good on the surface, but in reality, it ’ s still a dead end. And everyone knows that when Deng Xiaoping pushed for so-called'separation of party and government' and set up things like the Advisory Committee, in the end, it was still Deng Xiaoping alone who had the final say. Deng Xiaoping was, in fact, the one who held absolute authority. So in other words, this so-called attempt at political reform, trying to implement things like the separation of powers, actually goes back to Deng Xiaoping ’ s approach, which is fundamentally self-contradictory. There was never a truly viable path to make it happen in any real sense. So that's the second major version, which is also the most widely discussed. The third major version of the succession plan involves either Li Qiang or Chen Jimin taking over. Apparently, these two people—well, this combination, this plan— is mainly focused on taking a pragmatic approach to addressing the economic crisis and trying to save the economy. Of course, this version suggests that Li Qiang is someone who is acceptable to all sides, right? Because everyone can see that Li Qiang is n't actually forceful at all, is he? This kind of person is relatively easy to manipulate. So, he is someone that all sides can accept, and he could also become a candidate for General Secretary, working together with Chen Jilin to take over as Premier. So when you look at this version of the story, you can tell it's more focused on the economic field, right? For example, he might support things like tapping into domestic demand, expanding domestic demand, supporting private enterprises, and so on, because Li Qiang has actually done quite well in these areas. But when it comes to political reforms, you can basically forget about it—there's no chance of that happening. Also, you can see that both Li Qiang and Chen Jilin come from Shanghai. Obviously, there might be some background of the so-called Shanghai clique leaking this information. Of course, to be fair, Li Qiang has indeed shown quite a few strong and assertive moves recently. For example, last October, when Li Qiang visited Vietnam, he received a level of treatment almost on par with a state visit by Xi Jinping, right? He reached a lot of agreements with Vietnam in areas like defense, diplomacy, and security, and they signed many agreements. In fact, this actually exceeded the authority of a premier; normally, it should have been the General Secretary or the President who signed those agreements right? The second thing is, on May 16, 2025, the CCP held its seventh National Model of Self-Reliance and Advanced Commendation Conference, or something like that. As for Xi Jinping, he did n't show up; instead, Li Qiang appeared on his behalf. In the past, events like this were usually hosted by Xi Jinping himself—it was his stage. Another example is on June 23rd, when Li Qiang gave Singapore's Prime Minister Lawrence Wong a high-profile reception at the Great Hall of the People, holding a very grand welcoming ceremony. He accompanied the inspection of the PLA honor guard and so on, right? So at the time, some netizens commented,'Hey, it kind of feels like Li Qiang is taking on the style of the General Secretary, does n't it? Also, on June 25th, Li Qiang attended the Summer Davos Forum in Tianjin, and in early July ... Right? He replaced Xi Jinping—especially this point—he replaced Xi Jinping to attend the BRICS summit in Brazil. You could say this broke the precedent that Xi Jinping had never missed a BRICS summit, and so on. Besides that, there are also some of Li Qiang's relatively moderate positions. That was also quite eye-catching. For example, everyone knows that in the past, Xi Jinping's crackdown on Jack Ma forced Jack Ma to leave for Japan for a while. But after Li Qiang became Premier, he brought Jack Ma back again. It's said—according to rumors going around—that Li Qiang used his own wife to persuade people privately, maybe because she has a good relationship with Jack Ma right? He persuaded Jack Ma, and Jack Ma's return to China showed that Li Qiang has a relatively good relationship with private entrepreneurs. Including just this April, Li Qiang also hosted some forums with economists and entrepreneurs, right? All of this shows that Li Qiang is doing quite well in the economic field and with these private business owners. In short, right now overseas you ’ ll see that there are some sources with Jiangsu-Zhejiang backgrounds who are really pushing the idea that Li Qiang is going to be the successor, right? They ’ re actively promoting this narrative, but just like we mentioned earlier. Li Qiang, in reality, actually lacks strong support within the Party. Because from beginning to end, Li Qiang has always been seen as one of Xi Jinping ’ s people. Plus, Li Qiang also started out as a secretary. So, in my view, the likelihood of this version where Li Qiang becomes the successor is ... is even lower than that of Ding Xuexiang. Right now, although people see that Li Qiang sometimes appears to be quite assertive, in reality, it ’ s mostly because after Xi Jinping ’ s power was curtailed Xi ’ s weakened position meant that a lot of things had to be handled by Li Qiang. It ’ s just a kind of rebound effect. This doesn ’ t mean that Li Qiang is going to be the successor, at least in my view. Of course, there ’ s also a fourth version, which is even less common. According to some rumors, Cai Qi might be the one to take over. There are very few rumors mentioning this, but everyone knows that Cai Qi is extremely closely tied to Xi Jinping, right? He ’ s one of Xi Jinping ’ s most loyal confidants. Moreover, Cai Qi not only reportedly has health issues but especially in the past—remember when he was in Beijing and carried out that campaign to drive out the so-called'low-end population'? That really damaged his reputation, and his standing within the Beijing political circles is actually very poor. If your reputation in Beijing circles is bad, how could you possibly hold on to such a position—like General Secretary? So I think the possibility of Cai Qi becoming the successor is almost zero. Alright, finally, we still need to talk about Chen Jilin. As for this person, you could say there are also different versions—rumors that he might be the successor, right? And there are actually two versions: one says he might also take on the role of General Secretary. The other version says he might become Premier, and there are even other claims suggesting he could take over as Director of the General Office, and so on. Chen Jilin is actually considered part of the Tsinghua clique—a rather typical representative of Xi Jinping 's Tsinghua group. He was promoted by Chen Xi, one of Xi Jinping's closest confidants. For example, from April 2013 to October 2017, when Chen Xi was serving as the Executive Deputy Head of the Organization Department, Chen Jilin was first appointed as Minister of Environmental Protection. He was very young at the time, becoming the youngest full minister among all the ministries and commissions of the State Council. After that, Chen Jilin successively held positions in Beijing, eventually rising all the way to become the Mayor of Beijing. Then, at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Chen Jilin was directly promoted to a member of the Politburo and transferred to Shanghai to serve as the Party Secretary of Shanghai, a position he holds to this day. Of course, when it comes to the rumors about Chen Jilin being the successor, the main reason is that he has this kind of multi-faction background, right? He has ties to the Tsinghua clique, and also has connections with the Fujian clique. His relationship with the Shanghai clique is also very close, right? This makes people see him as someone who can skillfully navigate between the Jiang faction, the Xi faction, and many local power groups. So, what happened in May this year? Xi Jinping went to Shanghai for an inspection, and he said something like,'The baton needs to be passed on to the younger generation. Why did he say this in Shanghai? For a while, outsiders saw this as—well, this statement sounded rather meaningful, even a bit loaded. And then, in November last year, when former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong met with Chen Jilin in Shanghai, he said something like,' I also hope to establish new connections with the next generation of Chinese leaders. At the time, outsiders immediately interpreted this as well, maybe it was a hint—was Chen, was Chen Jilin being groomed as a successor? At the very least, that he was entering ... ... the ranks of the succession team. But in my view, Chen Jilin actually has two major fatal flaws. One is that, as one of the core members of Xi's inner circle, his factional background makes it really hard for him to gain the trust of the anti-Xi camp, especially now that the anti-Xi faction is in power. The other reason is that Chen Jilin graduated with a PhD in environmental engineering from Tsinghua University. And he also studied abroad in the UK. He ’ s a returnee, and in the past, he ’ s always been seen as a technocrat—that ’ s the image he ’ s presented to people. So just think about it: in the current political climate, you ’ re a returnee, and on top of that, you ’ ve always been known as a technocrat, right? Suddenly putting you in charge of this kind of overall responsibility actually doesn ’ t do you any favors—in fact, it ’ s actually harmful. Under normal circumstances, this kind of background would generally be advantageous for him, but in the current situation ... In this special environment, it ’ s actually more of a disadvantage for him. Overall, you can see that there are all kinds of rumors now about who the successor might be, right? The different versions all vary—from Xi Jinping ’ s loyalists, like Ding Xuexiang or Li Qiang, to so-called reformist dark horses like Hu Chunhua and Wang Yang, and then to representatives of technocrats, such as Chen Qilin and so on, right? There are all sorts of opinions out there, which really shows that the divisions are quite significant. Also, among the rumors circulating, the depth of political reform being discussed ranges from none at all to limited, and then to some institutional tweaks—each with a different scope. But you ’ ll notice that none of these so-called political reforms are really about touching the fundamentals they ’ re not going to cause any upheaval, right? In other words, these different versions are actually just different factions putting out feelers or testing the waters in the media for their own interests, right ? It ’ s really just a kind of projection. Now, the latest rumor we ’ re seeing even claims that Xi Jinping, with the backing of party elders from the Jiang faction like Zeng Qinghong and others, is ... He supposedly only wants to step down halfway, for example, he still wants to keep the position of State President. The idea of a'half-retirement' means he wants to retain some power, so that he can bide his time and possibly make a comeback when the opportunity arises. This is one of the versions that has come out. It's said this version, at Beidaihe, especially people like Zeng Qinghong, have connected with several other party elders, stirring up trouble. So whether Xi Jinping will step down completely is still a big question mark. That's basically what it means. Let ’ s do a quick summary for everyone: no matter which version you look at, the biggest thing all these rumors have in common is that they ’ re all discussing different scenarios for the post-Xi era. This shows that Xi Jinping losing power has already become a potential reality. But to be objective, we have to say this : Most of these various rumored scenarios are probably unreliable. We can just treat them as a kind of alternative public opinion poll—they reflect some genuine public sentiment, including, indeed, some fairly real political attitudes within the system itself. On the surface, it looks a bit like tabloid news, right ? But in reality, it carries some people's hopes for changes in the current situation. The widespread circulation of these kinds of rumors actually highlights the deep dissatisfaction among the public and some within the Party with the current situation. Through these rumors, people are expressing their hope for a major shift in the Chinese Communist Party's political landscape, a change in power, and the possibility of taking a new path. You can see this as an emotional outlet, or you can view it as a form of potential political mobilization. Of course, as for what the final version will actually be, we might as well play the long game and be a bit patient. I suspect that after the Beidaihe meeting, there may be even more rumors coming out. Ultimately, the truth will be revealed—will it all come to light at the Fourth Plenary Session? Or maybe it will have to wait until the 21st Party Congress—let's just let the dust settle a bit longer and see what happens. Alright, thank you all for watching.