Xi's Furious, Wang Qishan Under House Arrest? Cai Qi's Son in Trouble!

A small aircraft flew across the skies over Beijing for 20 minutes, passing through the most heavily guarded no-fly zone in China, without a single air defense system attempting to shoot it down. Then it slammed into the tallest building in the capital, China Zun. An accident? Or a message? Behind this shocking collision, some claim it was the mark of a financial purge targeting former power broker Wang Qishan. Others say it was linked to the son of Politburo Standing Committee member Kai Qi. And some go even further, alleging that the military deliberately stood by and did nothing. If these rumors are true, then this was more than just an aviation accident. It could be a sign of widening cracks at the heart of the Chinese leadership, at a time when Xi Jinping is laying the groundwork for an unprecedented fourth term. Was the China Zun crash tied to Xi Jinping and Wang Qishan power struggle? Chinese legal scholar Yuan Hongbing recently claimed that the small aircraft that crashed into China Zun was not a random accident, but an act aimed at Wang Qishan. Why does he believe that? To understand the claim, it's important to look first at the background of the CITIC group. CITIC was established under the direction of Deng Xiaoping, and founded by Rong Yiren and Wang Zhen. It was designed as a hybrid of state power and business, and has since grown into one of China's largest financial conglomerates, second only to the central bank in terms of influence. The group has long been associated with the Chinese Communist Party's princeling families, the descendants of senior revolutionary leaders. For many years, families such as those of Rong Yiren and Wang dominated China's financial sector through their influence over CITIC. As their political influence gradually declined, Wang Qishan emerged as the key figure overseeing the financial network. During Premier Zhu Rongji's administration, Wang served as chairman of China Construction Bank before becoming vice premier in charge of financial affairs. Over the years, he built an extensive network throughout China's financial and economic establishment. Within Chinese political circles, Wang's influence has often been described as resting on two pillars, the party's disciplinary inspection system and the financial sector. Some observers even dubbed him the godfather of Chinese finance. Many senior executives at major state-owned banks, along with overseas educated financial experts, reportedly regarded Wang as their most important political patron. Wang Qishan was also one of Xi Jinping's closest allies during the sweeping anti-corruption campaign known as the Tiger Hunt. After serving as secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection during Xi's first term, he was appointed vice president. But by Xi's third term, the balance of power had reportedly begun to shift, with Xi seeking to consolidate direct control over China's financial system. Beginning in 2024, CITIC came under inspection by the Central Inspection Team. Soon afterward, a number of Wang Qishan's former associates within the group were placed under investigation, with reports suggesting that the probe eventually expanded to officials at the bureau level and above. According to Yuan Hongbing, the plane crash into the CITIC headquarters occurred against this backdrop. He also said that political circles in Beijing have been circulating claims that the pilot was a woman who had been one of CITIC's mid-level executives and had recently become a target of the purge. In recent days, attention has focused on reports about this woman, identified as Liu Junhua, a former senior executive at CITIC. In an apparent effort to dispel the rumors, CITIC released a video showing Liu delivering a speech. Political commentator Wei Yu said that the woman in the video does appear to be Liu Junhua. However, he noted that the footage does not establish when it was recorded and could easily be an older video filmed before the incident. He also pointed out that, given the current capabilities of AI-generated media, producing a convincing video of this kind would not be especially difficult. As a result, the video does not conclusively prove that Liu is alive, deceased, or even that the person shown is genuinely her. Yuan Hongbing argues that the crash into the CITIC building should be viewed as a political event rather than simply an aviation accident. In his view, it reflects deep anger within the Chinese Communist Party's bureaucracy over Xi Jinping's increasingly harsh political purges, as well as what he describes as a willingness among some officials to resist at all costs. He believes the incident points to a major political crisis confronting Xi Jinping. In addition, the US-based magazine The Diplomat published an article claiming that Wang Qishan has been placed under house arrest in Beijing. According to the report, the extensive political and business network that Wang spent years building is being systematically dismantled by Xi Jinping. It also states that Wang's four closest aides have all fallen from power or come under investigation. The article argues that Xi has moved decisively against Wang because he wants to eliminate any potential obstacles to securing a fourth term at the 22nd National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. The author of the article is Dennis Wilder, who previously served as Special Assistant to the US, President and Senior Director for East Asian Affairs at the US National Security Council. He is now a senior fellow with Georgetown University's Initiative for US-China Dialogue on Global Issues. Over the years, Wilder met with Wang Qishan on numerous occasions. According to Wilder, after carrying out a sweeping purge targeting Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia and a number of other senior military officers, Xi Jinping has now shifted his focus to influential party elders in order to secure another term at the 22nd Party Congress. The latest target of this uncompromising campaign, he argues, is Xi's former ally Wang Qishan, who once served as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. The article also notes that although the Chinese government has not publicly accused Wang of any crime, he has effectively been placed under house arrest in Beijing. Furthermore, since October 2023, Wang has almost completely disappeared from the Chinese Communist Party's official media. Are these two developments closely connected? Let us know what you think in the comments below. Did Kai Qi's son get in trouble? Was the crash intentional? Another prominent figure whose name has been linked to the plane crash is Kai Qi. According to Yuan Hongbing, the flight school connected to the incident is Oriental Fashion, whose parent company, Dongxi Shuangyue, operates the Oriental Fashion Driving School, the first driver training institution in mainland China to be publicly listed on the stock market. Citing sources within the Chinese system, Yuan claims that the aviation school has ties to the family of Peng Liwan, Xi Jinping's wife, as well as to the son of Politburo Standing Committee member Kai Qi. According to official information released in 2025, Kai Qi's son, Kai Erjun, was appointed Deputy Director General of the Department of Low-Altitude Economy Development under the National Development and Reform Commission, NDRC, a department established in late 2024. He has also reportedly visited Beijing-based low-altitude AI company, Yansheng Intelligence. Yuan further alleges that the Oriental Fashion Aviation School also has connections to the Chinese Air Force. According to his account, the Air Force approved the school's establishment under the banner of training personnel for both civilian and military aviation. As China prepares for the possibility of future conflict, it is seeking to rapidly expand its reserve pool of civilian pilots. Since 2015, Xi Jinping has elevated military-civil fusion into a national strategy, promoting it on an unprecedented scale through numerous policies and initiatives. According to China News Network, Oriental Fashion has been actively expanding into this sector. Yuan argues that a project of this nature could only have been approved with substantial political backing at multiple levels of government, given the large number of official approvals required. Yuan also claims that Dongxi Shuangyu General Aviation effectively operates as a paramilitary organization, using a semi-military management structure. According to his sources, relatives of officials from the Ministry of Public Security, the National Security Commission, the Ministry of State Security, and other government agencies all work at the aviation school. He describes it as an institution that brings together members of China's political and business elite, suggesting that its students are typically either wealthy or well-connected within the Chinese Communist Party. One aspect of the incident that many observers find suspicious is that the aircraft reportedly flew for about 20 minutes before striking Beijing's tallest skyscraper. During that entire period, was there really no air traffic control or surveillance response? Yuan says the aircraft was never off the authorities' radar. According to him, it remained under continuous radar surveillance throughout the flight. He argues that the reason officials did not act lies in an internal protocol. Within Beijing, if an unauthorized aircraft is detected, air defense forces are only authorized to shoot it down without prior approval if it enters a five-kilometer radius of one of three highly sensitive locations. Jiangnanhai, the Great Hall of the People, or the Central Military Commission's command headquarters in Xishan. China's zone is located roughly six kilometers from Jiangnanhai. According to Yuan, that meant no one was willing to order the aircraft shot down on their own authority. Instead, officials repeatedly reported the situation up the chain of command. By the time approval could have been granted, the aircraft had already crashed into the building. Yuan argues that officials were most afraid of mistakenly shooting down an aircraft connected to people close to Xi Jinping, Peng Liwan, Cai Qi, Cai Qi's son, or other politically influential figures with ties to the Chinese military or security establishment. If the aircraft truly belonged to someone with such powerful connections, he asks, who would have dared to open fire? According to Yuan Hongbing, the incident exposed a fundamental weakness in the Chinese Communist Party's air defense system, political paralysis. He argues that under Xi Jinping's rule, many Chinese officials have adopted a do-nothing, avoid-responsibility mindset, leaving them unwilling to make critical decisions when major incidents occur. Meanwhile, Gao Fei, an aviation expert and veteran pilot now living in the United States, believes the aircraft's collision with the building was almost certainly not an accident, but an intentional act. Gao emphasized that Beijing's airspace is among the most tightly controlled in the world, protected by multiple layers of air defenses. He also raised another possibility, that the on-duty Air Force units under the People's Liberation Army's Central Theater Command deliberately allowed the aircraft to continue its flight while the military simply stood by and watched. According to Gao, the Central Theater Command, headquartered in Beijing, is responsible for air operations and air defense over Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Henan, and several other regions. Its highest priority, however, is defending the Chinese capital. In his view, once an unidentified aircraft entered Beijing's restricted airspace, the Central Theater Command Air Force should have responded immediately. Under standard procedures, while reporting the situation and seeking authorization from higher command, on-duty forces would normally scramble fighter jets to intercept the aircraft. Gao argues that none of those emergency measures appear to have been taken in this case, raising the possibility that the aircraft was intentionally allowed to pass. Coincidentally, on June 28th, independent Chinese scholar Wu Zuoli published two articles reaching almost the same conclusion as Gao. Citing a source said to have a military background, Wu wrote that the Central Theater Command operates three army groups with at least six air defense brigades and hundreds of radar systems. Around Tangshan alone, he said, there are four air defense regiments. Since the entire area inside Beijing's Sixth Ring Road is designated as restricted airspace, Wu argued that the only plausible explanation is that the military deliberately stood down. If that were true, Xi Jinping would have every reason to be deeply concerned. Even if he himself were never the target of an assassination attempt, such an incident would represent a serious blow to the authority and perceived invulnerability of the Chinese Communist Party. What do you think about this possibility? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you for watching, and we'll see you next time.