Assassinations, Purges & Paranoia: Inside Xi Jinping’s Final Crisis

Well, in less than two weeks, the CCP's fifth plenum will begin and the political drama in Beijing is heating up. And I must say, things are getting wild. According to an independent Chinese commentator who's followed CCP politics for years, the anti-Xi faction is already preparing to hold Xi accountable. They formed a special task force to investigate Xi and have come up with seven major charges against him. And guess who's supposedly leading this effort? none other than Hu Chunhua, the man who was once considered a leading candidate to succeed Xi Jinping and still is now. So the question is, why Hu Chunhua? So why this guy? Well, for one thing, he was the reformed faction's leading candidate to succeed Xi Jinping. And there's another reason. He is reportedly one of the toughest figures in the reformist camp. He does not want Xi Jinping to retire quietly and enjoy his golden years. He wants Xi and his political allies investigated and held accountable. And two cases at the top of his list are the sudden death of former Premier Li Keqiang and the alleged assassination attempt against Zhang Youxia. The concern is that if these cases aren't thoroughly investigated, they could establish a very dangerous precedent. If she has introduced political killing into the party's internal power struggles and nobody holds him accountable, what's to stop the next leader from doing the same? You kill me today, I'll kill you tomorrow. And before long, we're back to the political violence of the Cultural Revolution. But there's a problem. If you want to remove the party's top leader through formal procedures, you need a political justification. you need to convince the 200 plus central committee members why you want to do that you can't simply walk into a meeting and say we don't like Xi Jinping anymore he's fired you need charges you need evidence you need a formal case that the party can use to justify removing him and so that bring us to Hu Chunhua and his task force so uh what are the seven charges let's go through them one by one. Charge number one, Xi Jinping has thrown the military into chaos. The accusation is that Xi has not only destabilized the People's Liberation Army, he may have seriously weakened its ability to fight. Now, there are two parts to this charge. First, in his determination to consolidate power and take full control of the military, Xi Jinping pushed through sweeping military reforms. But according to the allegations, these reforms were poorly planned and badly executed. They created structural imbalances, disrupted the military's chain of command, and ultimately weakened the PLA's combat effectiveness. The second problem was Xi Jinping's habit of promoting loyalty over competence. He elevated people he trusted personally, regardless of whether they were qualified to lead the military. Among the most prominent examples cited are these three men, former vice chairman of CMC, He Weidong, who has disappeared for two years now, and then Miao Hua, a former member of the CMC and the director of political work department, and Zhong Shaojun, who effectively played the role of Xi Jinping's chief of staff inside the military. Among the three, Zhong Shaojun is particularly interesting. He was Xi Jinping's personal secretary back when he was running Zhejiang province. He followed Xi Jinping to Shanghai and then Beijing. He had never served as a soldier. But after he came to power, Zhong entered the military as a senior colonel. Within six years, he became a lieutenant general. And then there was Xi Jinping's wife, who was also problematic. According to the allegations, Madame Peng became involved in evaluating senior military personnel, serving as a full-time member of a committee responsible for assessing officers. That arrangement gave Xi Jinping's wife a role in military personnel decisions. This is something that's unprecedented in CCP's history. And the alleged result? The PLA's traditional promotion system was undermined. Resentment spread among officers, rival factions became increasingly hostile. And according to the report, the infighting became so serious that it even raised the possibility of armed confrontation within the military. Charge number two, Xi Jinping changed the constitution to perpetuate his rule. And this one takes us back to March 11, 2018. That was the day China's National People's Congress approved a constitutional amendment removing presidential term limits. With that vote, it's not even a vote. So with that action, Xi Jinping cleared a major legal obstacle to remaining China's president beyond two terms. The actual accusation goes much further than the constitutional amendment itself. The report argues that Xi Jinping systematically dismantled the collective leadership system established under Deng Xiaoping. He replaced collective decision-making with personal rule, encouraged a cult of personality, and positioned himself to remain in power indefinitely. And in the process, he destroyed the party's established leadership succession arrangements. The report also accuses Xi of bringing back Cultural Revolution-style political practices, damaging the party's internal political environment. In other words, the accusation is that Xi Jinping didn't simply change the rules to stay in power. He dismantled the system designed to prevent another lifetime ruler. That's the second charge. The third one is that it accused Xi Jinping staging a bloodless coup at the 20th Party Congress. Now, this is one of the most explosive accusations. According to the report, the Politburo leadership lineup had already been negotiated and agreed upon before the 20th Party Congress in October 2022, but Xi Jinping changed that list at the last minute, using his control of the military as leverage, I should say using Zhang Youxia and his influence in the military as leverage. Xi Jinping forced two leading reformist figures, then Premier Li Keqiang and CPPCC Chairman Wang Yang, into retirement. And Hu Chunhua, another prominent reformist, was abruptly removed from the Politburo. Then came that extraordinary scene involving Hu Jintao. What happened was Hu Jintao realized that something was wrong with the leadership list during the Congress. And then the man sitting next to him, Li Zhanshu, was preventing Hu Jintao from checking, from looking at the list. And eventually, Hu Jintao was publicly escorted out of the meeting. That scene unfolded in front of cameras from around the world. We all saw it. And according to this report, the entire episode amounted to a bloodless coup. The argument is that Xi Jinping overturned an agreed-upon leadership arrangement and imposed his own lineup, making the resulting leadership illegitimate. In other words, the accusation isn't simply that Xi Jinping secured a third term. It's that he seized control of the succession process itself. All right, the fourth charge is his disastrous handling of COVID-19. The accusation is that Xi Jinping turned pandemic control into a political campaign designed to protect his own power. For nearly three years, China endured sweeping lockdowns and strict zero COVID restrictions. And the consequences were devastating. Businesses went bankrupt, families were separated, livelihoods were destroyed, economies suffered enormous damage, some of which the report describes as irreversible, and public confidence in the leadership collapsed. According to the alleged document, Xi Jinping's handling of COVID was 10% natural disaster and 90% man-made catastrophe. It reportedly goes even further, comparing the damage to Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward movement and the Great Famine that followed. Here's something that I want to add to that accusation. because I've always, I think not just me, many people always found interesting about Xi Jinping's zero COVID policy. For a long time, people couldn't understand why he insisted on continuing those extreme lockdowns. Even when the economic and social costs were becoming unbearable, when the rest of the world has already opened up, was it really about public health or was it something else? Now, you know, after seeing this report, I realized something. look at the timing. Xi Jinping secured his third term as party leader at the 20th Party Congress in October 2022. Within weeks, Beijing began easing COVID restrictions. And by December, the government had abruptly abandoned its zero COVID system. And that timing raises an obvious question. Had zero COVID become so closely tied to Xi Jinping's political authority that he was unwilling to abandon it until his third term was secured? That timing certainly makes that question worth thinking. Okay, so that was the fourth charge. Number five, Xi Jinping's economic policies have been a complete failure. The accusation is that Xi reversed decades of economic reform by expanding the power of state-owned enterprises at the expense of the private sector. Private companies struggled or went bankrupt. The real estate sector collapsed into crisis, creating serious problems throughout the financial system. China's economy entered a prolonged period of deflationary pressure. Unemployment rose, consumer confidence weakened, and economic hardship spread. People began losing faith in the promise that working hard could lead to a better life. That's the deeper political problem. Because for more than 40 years, CCP's legitimacy rested heavily on one promise. That is, we may not give you political freedom, but we'll give you economic prosperity. And according to this charge, Xi Jinping's policies have undermined that bargain. The accusation is that he hasn't simply damaged China's economy, he damaged one of the foundations of the party's political legitimacy. And that's the fifth charge. Charge number six, Xi Jinping made catastrophic foreign policy mistakes. The accusation is that he fundamentally misjudged China's position in the world. He promoted his idea that the East is rising and the West is declining, and embraced his, what do you call, wolf warrior diplomacy, confronting other countries on multiple fronts. And the result? U.S.-China relations went from relative cooperation to an increasingly hostile rivalry resembling a new Cold War. And China's relationship with the broader Western world also deteriorated. Foreign companies began reassessing their investments, and many shifted production or capital elsewhere. The report also accuses Xi Jinping of aligning China with what it calls an axis of evil, driven by his ambition to challenge the U.S. and reshape the international order. And according to this argument, the result has been a major deterioration in China's international reputation. And China has faced or is now facing growing suspicion, restrictions, and resistance. And the report identifies two particularly damaging consequences. The first one is that his policies have undermined the possibility of peaceful unification with Taiwan. Second, his policies have severely weakened Hong Kong's position as an international financial center. So the accusation is that Xi Jinping has made China's international environment far more hostile. Okay, the last charge is that Xi has weaponized the anti-corruption campaign to eliminate political rivals. The accusation is that his anti-corruption campaign was never simply about fighting corruption. It was a tool for consolidating personal power. He selectively targeted political opponents, removed rivals, and used state institutions to enforce his political agenda. The campaign, according to this report, severely damaged unity within the Communist Party. And the document also allegedly accuses Xi Jinping's his circle or his camp or his administration of pursuing politically motivated persecution and creating serious miscarriages of justice. The broader accusation is that Xi Jinping turned a campaign supposedly designed to clean up the party into a weapon for controlling it. So that's the seventh charge. So there you have it, seven major charges against Xi Jinping. And according to the source, the proposal is to bring all seven before the fifth plenum for discussion. And the ultimate goal is to pass a formal party resolution demanding that Xi resign from his two most powerful positions, General Secretary of the Communist Party and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. It didn't mention the presidency because it's a party session, it's a party plenary session, which doesn't address the presidency. That will be handled by the two sessions next spring. That's essentially what the latest report is claiming. Whether or not this alleged document actually exists is not known. the accusation, or I cannot confirm that, the accusations reflect many of the controversies and policy failures that have defined Xi Jinping's years in power. So the real question isn't whether they are enough to criticize Xi Jinping or to bring him down. It's whether Xi Jinping's opponents have the political power to turn these accusations into consequences. If these seven charges really are on the agenda. Then the fifth plenum could turn into a political struggle session against Xi Jinping. Thank you so much for watching. If you're new here, please hit subscribe. Don't forget to give my video a like. If you want me to answer your questions directly, please join my live every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 9pm Eastern Time. I'd love to chat with you there.