Xi Just Broke All the CCP’s Rules | Heng He

There's been an unprecedented purge of top Chinese military leaders, including most recently top general Jiang Yuxia, a longtime ally of Xi Jinping. This never happened in the history of the communist rule. Of the seven members of China's Central Military Commission, five have effectively been purged or removed, only two remain. One of them is Xi Jinping himself. Even during the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong didn't really purge the high-ranking officials in the military. What's really going on behind the scenes? And what does this turmoil mean for the Chinese Communist Party's plans to invade Taiwan? In this episode, I'm sitting down with veteran China analyst Heng He, a longtime columnist with the Epoch Times, to unpack all of this. Soviet Union collapse is not because they don't have a strong military. It's because the system collapsed. Now, Xi Jinping faces the same situation. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Heng He, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders. The pleasure is mine. Thanks for having me. There is something absolutely astonishing happening among the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, with profound implications for the country, perhaps for the world. What's going on? I think what happened last week, it's very rare to find such a thing. So I would say we are witnessing the turning point of the Chinese Communist Party rule. There's at most three events that can be compared in Chinese Communist Party history after they took over China. One is in 1962, when the great leap forward failed, and tens of millions of people died. And then there's the power switch. And Liu Shaoqi, the second hand of Mao Zedong, who took over the power, but kept Mao Zedong in a symbolic figure. That's in 1962. And the second event that can be compared is during the Cultural Revolution. Lin Biao, the second hand of Mao Zedong, was purged, and escaped to Mongolia and died there. That was, I would say, it's the turning point of Mao Zedong's legacy. From that day, Mao Zedong's legacy is almost gone. The Chinese people rethink about what is the real nature of the Cultural Revolution, and that leads to the end of the Cultural Revolution. And the third one is, I think, is the end of the Cultural Revolution. They purged a gang of four. The gang of four is Mao Zedong's wife and the three others promoted by Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. So it's kind of like a gang of Cultural Revolution. They arrested the four of them, and that marked the end of the Cultural Revolution. So I think the fourth one is the purge of Zhao Ziyang in 1989. During the Tiananmen suppress massacre, they got rid of the head of the Communist Party, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. I think this event deserves to be compared with those big events. It's like once a decade. So what exactly happened? We're seeing a profound shift in the power structure. This is something we talked a while ago, perhaps a year ago, about big shifts within the Communist Party, big power changes. But here, we see another shift. So just kind of lay out exactly what happened for me, just shortly, and then we'll kind of dig into it a little bit. Yeah, basically, last time we talked about the power switch, it's basically somebody in the top leadership, all the retired, old leaders, work with the military, pretty much took over the power from Xi Jinping, especially in the military and some economic field, but not totally. It's a little bit similar to in 1962. Liu Shaoqi took some of the power from Mao Zedong. And this time, it was probably the retired, older leaders with this Zhang Youxia, who was pledged at this time, took over part of the power, not full of power. And this time, I think, after some preparation, Xi Jinping fought back, I think, and purged this head of the military. Basically, it's like the power switch back. I would say, this is what happened. So now, okay, let's get the dimensions of this exactly. Now you're talking about the vice chairman, Zhang Youxia, you're saying he was the head of basically the military, and now this is Xi Jinping purging, this is Xi Jinping reasserting power. Yes. And I believe, because Xi Jinping is not a military person, so the head of the military was this person who purged Zhang Youxia. And I'm pretty sure I can consider what Xi Jinping did is a coup. Okay, explain that to me. Because coup is a very strong word and there's been accusations of coups over the years happening with different leaders. But why does this reach the level of being called a coup? We can see from the public information that Xi Jinping purged Zhang Youxia is not following the procedure. It's totally against CCP's rules and even hidden rules. They have open rules and they have hidden rules. But what Xi Jinping did was against every single rule, even the hidden rule. For example, when they announced the purge, this statement is the CCP central, central, you know, CCP central, didn't say central what, CCP central, you know, like investigate this person. Actually, two generals in the military, it's top one and the top two, top one and the second one. So purging two, I would say the top leader of the military. Usually they will say who purged them, you know, the power, where the power come from. And they didn't say, it's a CCP central. Well, CCP central is a very, you know, confused name. Usually it would mean CCP central committee or CCP central committee, political bureau, or the standing committee of the political bureau. So three levels, they all can be called the CCP central, but the CCP central is very abnormal. You cannot say that. You have to have a meeting, you know, procedure, have a meeting. If you don't have the meeting, you don't have the decision, that's illegal. So if it's illegal, that's a coup. And this is one reason. Another reason is, you know, the chairman or vice chairman of a CCP central military commission, you know, should be decided by the CCP central committee. And the central committee didn't have a meeting, so they didn't authorize the purge. You know, they must authorize the promotion and the purge, but there's no such a procedure. And second is, in the central military commission, CMC, you know, they have to have a meeting to decide who is in what position. And they also need to make the decision to purge somebody inside the military commission. The problem is, they already purged three of the members of the military commission, so only four left. And this time, four were purged. That means if they have a meeting to vote, and then it should be two to two, right? So two agreed to purge another two. That was impossible. None of the procedure written in the rules was carried out. That's why I said this is a coup. It's very illegal. I mean, this is absolutely fascinating, because in every system, like say in the mafia, there's certain rules that have to be followed, right? And when you don't typically break those, when people break them, they get in huge trouble. Why? Because otherwise you have utter chaos, right? So you're saying that these core rules, the core basics of what's been happening in the Chinese Communist Party, of how it's worked in the upper echelons, have been completely compromised now. And she just kind of went in and said, here's how it's going to be. Yeah. You remember several months ago, they confirmed nine top military leaders were purged, right? But now two top leaders were purged. So this will be the big issue. I think the first thing is the chain of command in the military is totally broken. It's totally broken. It's not partially or half. This never happened in the history of the Communist rule, even during the starting time in the Soviet Union. Of course, they purged a lot of military personnel, officials. But I think in the top leader, five of the top military leaders only purged three, two left. But now they have seven in the Central Military Commission, and only two left, five purged. So this is more serious than in the starting time. I would say that was a big influence of the whole Chinese Communist rule, because it's not in the military. The purges also happened in the civilian, in the government system, even though it's not so dramatic. And everybody will think this is not right. Why? Because usually the rule will tell people who is in charge and what to do. In China, you have to follow the right person. If you follow the wrong person in the government system or in the bureaucracy, then you will be purged. But now people don't know what is the right person to follow. Because even if you follow Xi Jinping, you still will be purged. So the hidden rule is broken. I think that will be the end of the whole system. Because the system needs to put people together, the officials together. You should be able to make the system work. But now nobody knows who to trust and who is the one you should follow. That's a big problem. And also, the command of the military has been broken. That means the military cannot fight. Another thing is Chinese military is different from the rest of the world. They belong to the party, not belong to the people, or the state, or the government, or any state. So they belong to the party. It's a party-ruled military. So the military design is totally different. It's designed to protect the CCP's rule, to protect the regime, not fight overseas wars. So the military is basically designed that way. They don't have the soldiers, and the guns have no bullets in it, because they are afraid that they will turn the gun to the wrong side, turn back their guns. So that's the design. But people are always afraid that Xi Jinping will take over Taiwan. But once they decide to have a foreign war against Taiwan, they have to put the generals in full control. Xi Jinping cannot fight himself. He has to give the power, the command, to the military leaders. That means the military has the power to turn the gun backwards. For now, it's impossible. But since everybody is afraid of their position and their safety, even in the military, that's never happened before. Because even during the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong didn't really purge the high-ranking officials in the military. The military is relatively stable. But now, the military is in a mess. Did you know that only 26% of young people trust the media these days? You wouldn't see this happening back in the old days. Journalism was just that—journalism. You would just focus on getting the facts, and you'd get prominent perspectives from different voices, all to try to get a clear overall picture of what was going on. What's right or wrong, that's for the reader to decide. That's for you to decide. But now, journalism has almost become a kind of a team sport. They pick a side, and they stick to it. And that's just how they do their business. But if you're tired of cross-checking each and every fact, I want to invite you to try the Epoch Times. Basically, for pennies a day, you're supporting some of the best independent journalism in the world. So please hit the link below and subscribe to the Epoch Times. Read the news that the White House is reading every day. He was consolidating his power, from what I understand you're saying. But at the moment, there is all these questions about what the strength of the Chinese military is. They've been building a huge navy. They've been building in space. They've been expanding their nuclear capabilities dramatically, way beyond anything that's official. From what we know, this is a potent military force in the world. And you're saying it's without leadership right now. This sounds concerning. Well, maybe it's good news for the world, not good news for Xi Jinping. Because Xi Jinping is different. I think his conflict with the military, part of the reason is Xi Jinping wants to be a great leader, can be the same as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. As we talked the last time, he said Mao Zedong is the one to make China stand up. Deng Xiaoping makes China rich, and he will make China strong. But strong has no standard. You cannot say this is strong. So he has to do something to make his claim convincing. Taiwan is the best target for him. But the whole military has a different idea. Two major points. One is the military is totally corrupted. I'm not saying Zhang Youxia is not corrupted. He is corrupted. But the reason to purge him is not corruption. The reason to purge him is one is Zhang Youxia helped the others to take some of the power from him. Another reason is Zhang Youxia has a totally different idea about taking over Taiwan. I think these two military leaders who were purged, they were the only ones who had a real field battle experience. Others didn't have one. And they are very professional, those two purged, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhengli. They are very professional. Even American military recognize they are very good professional military person, and they are very good at communicating with Americans. Maybe that's one of the reasons to purge them. So they have a different idea. They thought this is a bad idea because the Chinese military is not ready to fight the war in the Taiwan Strait. So I think that means Xi Jinping's ambition is a conflict with the professional opinion about the war. I think that's another reason Xi Jinping cannot get along with those two purged military personnel. I want to jump into that in a moment. In a way, this could be creating a more dangerous situation. I'll get you to qualify this for me, but from what I understand, Xi Jinping has no military experience. And now, through this coup, he is trying to take control of the military. And he may make decisions that his professional leadership would never have made because of the cost, perhaps. Before we jump into that, I just have one quick question. So you don't think that Zhang Youxia actually did something with nuclear secrets and the Americans? No, no, no, not at all. The Wall Street Journal published an article, but you have to know that in the PLA Daily, which is the military official newspaper, they accused Zhang Youxia of five crimes. And the five crimes, the most serious one is broken the system of the CMC, the Central Military Commission chairman's full sole responsibility. That means the chairman, that means Xi Jinping, Xi Jinping is in full charge of the military. Nobody else should have the power, shared power. So that means a broken rule challenges Xi Jinping's authority in the military. That's a political crime. It's not corruption accusation. This is a half official statement. It has nothing to do with nuclear secret, nothing to do with corruption. It's all political. It's a fully power struggle. And in the last two days, there was a lot of Western media asking questions in the military press conference. And the answer is no. They denied any accusation about the nuclear secret. So I think somebody on Xi Jinping's side tried to make the coup look illegal. So they released intentionally to Western media. And I don't think Western media can create this story. The story is from inside. But the leaking has a purpose. The purpose is frame Zhang Youxia, make him look like a traitor. That's why. But officially, they won't be able to prove that. So they don't do it officially, but do it by leaking the information to Western media. Do you think they're basically just using the Western media to create narratives? Yeah, but not official narrative. Because there's no way Zhang Youxia would leak the nuclear secret to the United States. The reason is he is already in the top position. There's no way Americans can offer a better position. And for the money side, as long as he is willing to take the money, he must be already rich. And sometimes richer than a small country. Very rich. Americans cannot bribe him. You cannot pay more than he already has. If he is not so corrupted, that means he doesn't really need money. Then you cannot buy him. So there's no reason. By the way, he is not a nuclear expert. I don't think he knows a lot of CCP, China's nuclear weapon secret. I don't think so. In his position, he doesn't need to know the detail. If you don't know the detail, then you don't have the secret. Let's just jump back to this idea that Xi Jinping may have consolidated his actual power over the military. He has this interest in Taiwan as a way to show that he has made China strong. His generals have been saying, this isn't going to go well for us, so let's hold off. Does this mean that we might have created a more dangerous situation because of his ambition? It could be. But since the military is not willing to fight, that's the situation. How do you know that? There's no win issue for Xi Jinping. But of course, it's more dangerous. The whole story from the beginning, like in 2023, started with purging the rocket army and the military equipment and development department. That's Zhang Youxia's territory. Purging those is because Xi Jinping wants to take over Taiwan. He designed in 2015 to switch the military from the inside to the outside fight. But it looks like it failed. Because of the corruption, the military cannot fulfill his needs. That's why he started to purge Zhang Youxia's territory. That's why Zhang Youxia tried to fight back. And last year, all the military leaders purged, were all belonging to the Xi Jinping faction. So that's another reason we believe that the power switch last year happened. And now Xi Jinping took over the power and got rid of only two reasonable military top leaders. Another one left, we said two left in the military central committee. Xi Jinping is the one. Another one was promoted last year in October. It's Zhang Shengming. But Zhang Shengming is a political leader of the military. He doesn't know anything about the military, doesn't know anything about war. So he was a commissar person. People call him a commissar person. And that means now amateur replaced the professional. So it's more dangerous. I believe it's more dangerous. But also the military power, the power for the war is much, much weaker than before. So they have no way to win a war. To control the conflict is less possible. With the professional, they can control the conflict. But without the professionals, now it's amateurs in charge. There'll be more chance to have uncontrolled conflict. But not necessarily, they have a strong military power to win the war. I don't think so. You're saying that the military power is dramatically reduced because of the lack of professional leadership. What about overall for Xi Jinping? He has consolidated power. He's had this coup, as you've described it. What does this mean for the CCP's power on the external stage, on the world stage? So far, the military claim that the communication with the foreign military will be continued, and that won't stop. That was one way they tried to make things like nothing happened, nothing serious happened. But actually, there will be a lot of changes in CCP's international policies. But I don't think they will, because CCP doesn't really have a good strategy, international global strategy. Basically, their strategy is against the United States. Even since 1949, when CCP took over China, and their strategy is against the United States, because CCP has the basic theory of Marxism, communism, and their theory has overtaken the whole world. They have never changed. The reform and openness is just one exception during Deng Xiaoping's time. And I think Xi Jinping is back to the CCP's basic ideology, and they won't change. So I don't think on the international level, I don't expect to see many changes. That's my thought. I know that it's very difficult to predict what will happen. But this is a profound shift, and you say there's a more chaotic situation. Would it be fair to say there's an overall reduction in power for the system? Yeah. Actually, we can predict some of the future in CCP's rule, because for the past one or several years, there was a saying that the officials in the government, in the party system, in the government system, had a trend to lay down, don't do anything, because they don't know what to do as a right, can be promoted or keep their position or even keep them safe. They don't know what to do. So doing nothing is the safest choice they have. So there's a very popular trend that the officials in the government system lay down, doing nothing. Now, this extends to the military now. So it means Xi Jinping has the superpower. All the power came to himself. But the whole bureaucracy becomes less power and less efficiency. And everybody knows Xi Jinping, the sole dictator, cannot do everything, right? You have to depend on the system. Now the system was destroyed by Xi Jinping. And that will be the big problem. The Soviet Union collapsed. It's not because they don't have a strong military. It's because the system collapsed. Now, Xi Jinping faces the same situation. He wants to have full power, but in the same time, by destroying the system. Of course, I think maybe it's not a bad thing, because the Chinese Communist Party is the one who created all the trouble in the world, or in China. And Xi Jinping is in another way to destroy the party, destroy the system. It's a little bit like Mao Zedong in the early stage of the Cultural Revolution, destroy the whole system he built. But of course, in several months, in early 1967, Mao Zedong rebuilt the system. That's his system. But Xi Jinping, I don't think he had the chance or the ability to rebuild anything he destroyed. It's very interesting, the analogy now to the Soviet Union, because there were a few things happening. One was, like you said, the system of power sharing and being able to affect policy, make things happen, was crumbled internally. The other side was the economic difficulty. This is part of the American plan was to outspend and get them to economically hurt themselves. The CCP is indeed in a very difficult economic situation right now, especially with these tariff regimes that are coming from the US. Can I get you to comment on that a little bit? I think the basic problem is inside China. Because even if there's no help from the United States, if they have a policy, they have the biggest market in the world. So when the United States does something like a tariff, something like that, it shouldn't be damaging. It totally destroys China's economy. The problem is when the Chinese Communist Party, during Deng Xiaoping's time, to start the free market or some reform, it was a crippled reform. It has only economic reform without the political system reform. So everything is listened to. You have to follow the party. You have to listen to the party. You have to have a socialist planned economy. At the same time, you have a full free market. That's impossible. So that's why the conflict is already there. But with the Western investment, lots of money pouring in, that problem is not so obvious. It was covered by the Western investment. But the problem is still there. After years of accumulation, the problem becomes worse and worse. Of course, the CCP is afraid of the economy freedom. We'll have those who get rich from the free market and demand more political power, share political power. So that's why Xi Jinping is the resolution. When Xi Jinping took over the power, he tried to promote the planned economy and suppress the private section of the economy. This is the Communist Party's reaction to the free market. I think the problem is there. Deng Xiaoping knew that, but he doesn't want to destroy the Communist Party. So that's why he said, we leave the problem to the next generation. So now it's the next generation's problem. That's the current generation. What would be your recommendations in terms of how, for example, a US administration might approach this somewhat new reality? Let me summarize what I'm seeing. You're saying basically Xi Jinping has once again consolidated power among himself, but his bureaucracy is not as eager to follow anymore because he's torn apart some of the fabric of the system that kept everything functioning well. At the same time, he has these Taiwan ambitions. Of course, the US has reiterated its support to protect Taiwan. It has its own challenges. But there is this aspect of instability and ambition perhaps beyond the ability of the military to affect. And here we are, we have American and other Western leaders wondering, how do we deal with this? What do you say to them? The current American policy towards China is on the correct track, because no matter what you say, the important thing is what you do. I think it's on the correct track. So I don't have many suggestions, but I think the most important thing is realize that the Communist Party won't change. This is a major point. You cannot expect the Communist Party, CCP, or Xi Jinping as a normal leader or a normal regime. Even the regime is not normal. It's not a normal government. So you cannot take it as a normal opponent or another party of the negotiation or anything. So I think this is important to realize that CCP cannot cooperate with the United States. They use international organizations like United Nations or something like that. So I think now the current US government realized that. That's why they quit some international organizations, because those international organizations are not fully controlled by CCP. So I think just don't expect they are normal. That's most important. Once you know they are the troublemaker of the world, you see all the terrorists, all the troublemaking countries, always the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, is behind. So I think that once you recognize, they know what to do. So I don't have any suggestion. You just know exactly who you are dealing with. So something that I've written about in my upcoming book, Killed to Order, about the forced organ harvesting industry in China and how that system works, is something that's not necessarily very obvious to people in the West. Because in the communist system, the supremacy of the Communist Party is really the absolute top priority of the system, even beyond the basics of human life and dignity and things of this nature. We kind of assume that it's a normal system, but it's not. The Chinese Communist Party, when it was established, was the branch of the international communist movement until the 1930s or 1940s, when starting to dissolve this organization. They're still part of the movement of the international communist movement, and they never changed their course. Since the communist is not fit with human nature, all the communist experiments in every country fail, except in China. But in China, the economic development is against all the odds, because they give up a little bit communist ideology, give some space to the free market. That's why they look successful. But it's not the communist movement that's successful. It's the free market. CCP never gives up their power. It's always in the society, it's the number one power, and they never give up. Now it's more concentrated. Even though CCP destroyed the system, broke the system, but still, he is in the name of the communist party, to protect you. So I think that's exactly what happened in China. You expect every time when the history ends up turning point, every time it turns to the worst. There's nothing that turns better. It always turns to the worst, except Deng Xiaoping's reform. But Deng Xiaoping's reform is the whole system, the whole country is in the lowest point, and you go any direction, it will be up. So that's the only exception. And now we can see the system getting worse and worse. So all because the CCP's ideology is against human nature, is against any international rules, and against any normal country, normal rule. So I think that means in China, there's no other power so far can be considered as the balance. Even the purged military leaders, they are not the balance of the two sides. It's like one side who is more extreme, that's the party nature. I think you are absolutely right. It's this zero-sum thinking. It's always a battle to the death. This has been an absolutely fascinating conversation. We're living in profound times. I myself have no idea how it's all going to play out. Do you have a final thought as we finish today? Yeah, when Lin Biao was purged by Mao Zedong, actually, it hit Mao Zedong so hard, and his health becomes a big problem. And four years later, Mao Zedong died, and the revolution ends. I think this is not a success of Xi Jinping. When he purged the most important, considered as his partner, of course, he doesn't consider them as a partner, but the outside was surprised to see that he purged Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhengli. This is not successful of Xi Jinping, not at all. It's a failure. Because if you cannot, you purge everybody you promoted, that means it's your failure. And I think he realized that, just like Mao Zedong realized purging Lin Biao was a mistake, or was his own failure. And Xi Jinping also recognized that. It should be. I think we are witnessing the turning point of the history. Maybe not immediately, but consider in a couple of years, probably. I think somebody in America mentioned 10 years ago that we should prepare for China without communist rule. So I think this is a better way for our preparation to be ready for the big change in China. Well, Heng He, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. Thank you for having me. Thank you all for joining Heng He and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.