Hu Chunhua Missing as Xi Jinping Faces Unusual Military Signals

Hello, everyone. Hi, welcome. Welcome to Lei's Real Talk. All right. Happy Thursday. Happy Friday. Someone just asked me, Lei, have you heard of the rumor about Kim Jong-un's death? Yes, I have. The rumors are continuing despite the release of a video clip by the North Korean media. Some Chinese are still saying that he's dead. So it's hard to tell at this point. I think it's 50-50. All right, well, let's get started. Today is October 22nd. What day is today? The 90th anniversary of the CCP's Red Army's Long March victory. The Communist Party held a major commemorative ceremony. Xi Jinping delivered a speech, and the party's top leadership all attended, along with representatives from the military, Chinese society, and total attendees is estimated at 3,000. Now, it was a major event with all the pomp and political significance you would expect from a 90th anniversary. But one man was conspicuously absent, and he was this man. There he is. Yes, Hu Chunhua. Now, Xinhua reported that vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, or CPPCC, attended the ceremony. And who is one of those vice chairman. But CCTV footage revealed something very interesting. He was nowhere to be seen. The seats where we would normally expect to see him was occupied by other CPPCC vice chairman. And so with that, his absence immediately sparked speculation. Why? Well, Hu Chunhua is widely rumored to be the reformist faction's preferred candidate to succeed Xi Jinping. Two names have repeatedly surfaced in rumor mills recently in succession speculation. First is Premier Li Qiang and the second is Hu Chunhua. Li Qiang is seen as Xi Jinping's preferred choice, but Hu Chunhua is reportedly backed by Xi Jinping's political opponents. So if there's one person that Xi Jinping might see as a political threat, that is Hu Chunhua. That is why his absence raised so many questions. As soon as people realized he was missing from the event, people tried to get in touch with him. I remember Du Wen, who was his former legal counsel in Inner Mongolia, and Mr. Du now lives in Europe, and he's been trying to reach Hu Chunhua or people who know Hu Chunhua, and supposedly his entire family is missing. They can't get in touch with not just Hu Chunhua, but also his family. And that's why this issue has raised so many questions. Now, again, the view is divided. Some speculate that Xi Jinping has moved against him. Others believe Hu is being protected by the PLA because the reformist faction simply cannot afford to lose him. They cannot, how should I put this? Remember, Zhang Youxia was taken down in connection with a high-level leadership meeting at the Central Party School in January. So the reformist faction cannot afford to have that repeated again. So Hu's absence could point to two very different scenarios. He may be in serious political trouble, perhaps even facing personal danger. Or he may be staying out of sight because he's being positioned for a bigger role. We simply don't know. And that's how murky CCP politics can be. But there's one factor that could determine Hu Chunhua's political future, the military. If the PLA remains firmly behind Xi Jinping, Hu Chunhua's chances of succeeding Xi Jinping will be nonexistent. It will not exist. But if Xi Jinping has lost the military support, the entire succession equation would change. And that's why Xi Jinping's relationship with the PLA is so important to understanding this power struggle. And then this long March anniversary may offer some revealing clues. And here's what makes the timing so interesting. The anniversary falls just four days before the CCP's fifth plenum. Two major political events, practically back-to-back. And that makes the anniversary a perfect opportunity for competing factions inside the party to use history to send messages about today's power struggle. But first, there's something important to understand about the Long March. CCP celebrates it as one of its greatest victories, but what was the Long March, really? In Chinese, we call it Changzhen. It was a desperate retreat. In 1934, Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist forces had brought the CCP's Red Army to the brink of destruction. The communists were forced to abandon their stronghold in Jiangxi and flee across China. About 86,000 people set out with the Red Army Only a fraction reached their destination So the Long March wasn't a conventional military victory It was a desperate struggle to survive defeat And in the middle of the retreat The CCP leadership underwent a historic power struggle That marked the beginning of Mao Zedong's rise to supreme leadership And that's what makes today's political messaging so fascinating. Both Xi Jinping's camp and the military are invoking a moment when the Communist Party was fighting for its very survival. But they're drawing two very different lessons from the same history. And guess who made the first move? The military. So on October the 17th, the Central Military Commission's political work department published an article in Qiushi magazine. It's the CCP's leading theoretical journal, and the title was Forging a World-Class Military with the Spirit of the Long March. Now, this wasn't just another propaganda piece, and I'll explain why. The article opens by describing the Long March as a great turning point in CCP history, which is true. It survived, so it is a major turning point. Then the article shifts to the present, declaring that China has undergone historic transformations and that the PLA has been reborn from the ashes and renewed through a change of feathers. There are three things worth noting here. First, who's speaking? The article comes directly from the CMC's political work department, which is the military's political and ideological command center. So this wasn't some journalist's personal opinion. It's an institutional statement from one of the PLA's most politically sensitive departments. Second, the historical parallel. The Long March marked a fundamental shift in the CCP's leadership and political direction, which helped save the Red Army from destruction. Now, 90 years later, the military is talking about another historic transformation. Could it be suggesting that the party is approaching another turning point, one that requires replacing the old leadership and changing direction? That's how many people interpret it. Third, and the most intriguing, is the choice of words. Remember those expressions I told you? Reborn from the ashes and renewed through a change of feathers. Now in Chinese, they mean roughly the same thing, 浴火重生 and 焕羽新生. Yeah, they sound the same thing. They're a little redundant. So the question is, why use both? Perhaps the repetition is meant to emphasize that today's PLA needs another major transformation, but it's the second phrase that caught many people's attention. And let me share that, share an image with you. Here we go. It goes back to the old prophecy or, okay, the expression, a change of feathers. Now, in Chinese politics, the word carries a very special meaning. So Xi Jinping's surname written in traditional Chinese consists of two components. The top is feather, the bottom is white. Put them together, you get Xi. And when Xi Jinping was a local official in Fujian, he published articles under the pen name Bai Yu, White Feather. So the word feather carries political significance when people are looking for hidden references to Xi. Now back to the phrase, 焕羽新生, it means shedding old feathers and being reborn. but could changing feathers also imply changing Xi and that's exactly what some people suspected when military media used this expression before um when when this was used before it sparked speculation about whether the PLA was hinting at a leadership change um but you may say well maybe the the writer didn't realize how sensitive the phrase is maybe it's just a bad choice of words. But think about it. This is the CMC's political department, right? And this expression was causing so much speculations and rumors before. So why is it repeating again? So to me, that suggests the military isn't particularly concerned about avoiding language that could be read as a challenge to Xi. And like I said, this is the political work department, the very organization responsible for enforcing political loyalty inside the PLA. If there's anyone who should know this, it is the Political Work Department. And here's the final twist. Now, Qiushi Magazine isn't a military publication. It's one of the CCP's most authoritative ideological journals, and it's closely associated with Xi Jinping's leadership. So we now have the PLA's political work department publishing an article in a major party journal using an expression that can be interpreted as a call to replace Xi Jinping. Is that almost like a slap in his face? Now, we can't prove the phrase was intended as a coded political message, but its repeated appearance in official military publications is certainly worth noting. right okay and then what happened two days later on october the 19th xi jinping's camp fired back and of course they used the same occasion the 90th anniversary of the long march so on the 19th the people's daily published an article titled drawing lessons from the great long march on how to strengthen the party and ensures its success. But this article delivered a very different message, which is that Xi Jinping's position as the party's core leader must not be challenged. And the author was Xie Chuntao, the executive vice president of the Central Party School. And who is in charge of the party school? Cai Qi, one of Xi's closest allies. So I suspect this article had Cai Qi's blessing, if not his direct instruction. Now, the article is very long, but its argument is simple. It argues that during the Long March, Mao Zedong's central leadership position was established, and that turned the tide for the CCP and eventually paved the way for its victory. And then the author draws a direct parallel to Xi Jinping. He argues that since the 18th Party Congress, the CCP has established Xi Jinping as its core leader. And these are the article referenced an old Chinese saying, when a boat reaches the middle of the river, the waves grow fiercer. When a climber reaches halfway up the mountain, the path becomes steeper. In other words, the CCP is at a critical stage. The challenge or the challenges are growing and retreat is not an option. So what must the party do? Well, according to the author, defending the authority of the central committee begins with defending Xi Jinping's core leadership. The message? Protect Xi, defend Xi, and do not replace Xi. The party is halfway through its journey. Changing commanders now could undo everything it has achieved. In other words, let Xi Jinping finish what he started. Now, here's where things get interesting. Let's compare the two articles. The first one is the PLA's political work department's article in Junshi magazine. the one calling for a change of feathers the other that one okay so in that article it refers to Mao Zedong becoming the party core leader during Long March only once but Xi Jinping's core leadership not a word now look at the Xie Chuntao's article in the People's Daily how many times did the word core or core leadership appear? 17 times. Three references concern Mao Zedong. The other 14 emphasize Xi Jinping's core leadership. So let's break down the numbers. For Mao Zedong, three versus one. For Xi Jinping, 14 versus zero. That's a striking in contrast. Same historical event, two very different political messages. That's quite a contrast, isn't it? All right, I'm not done yet. There's another comparison that's even more revealing. And this time, let's look at two of China's most authoritative state media outlets. One represents the military. The other represents the party state. First, the PLA's official media platform uh china military online today it published uh i would say yesterday yeah 21st it published a major front page commentary under the pen name jie xinping okay that name oops sorry that name is significant uh jie xinping that's a pseudonym associated with PLA commentary PLA News Commentary PLA News Commentary The PLA article is titled The Long March Never Ends On the 90th Anniversary of the Victory of the Chinese Red Army's Long March The article is enormous It has more than 10,000 Chinese characters It has a very long political commentary And here's what caught people's attention. In those 10,000 plus characters, how many times does the word core leadership appear? Zero. Not once. And that's not all. What about those familiar political slogans praising Xi Jinping, the famous 2442 formulations not mentioned? So for those unfamiliar with CCP political jargons, the 2442 refers to two establishes, four consciousnesses, four confidences, and two upholds. There are standard political loyalty formulas under Xi Jinping. Okay. And the most important ones explicitly demand recognition and protection of Xi Jinping's core leadership. That's what 2442 means. And in this major PLA anniversary commentary, they are nowhere to be found, not a single one. And then other standard political languages, such as CMC chairman responsibility system or authority, the very doctrine emphasizing Xi Jinping's ultimate authority in the military, that's not mentioned. What about follow Chairman Xi's command, which has always been a cookie-cutter expression to pledge loyalty? Not mentioned either. These used to be standard political language in PLA publications. And here's the most extraordinary part. In an article of more than 10,000 Chinese characters, none of the above political jargons were mentioned. Let me tell you, do you know how many times does the name Xi Jinping appear in an extremely long article of over 10,000 words? Zero. Not a single mention of Xi Jinping. Now, let's compare that with what Xinhua News Agency published on the very same day. Xinhua released a major political commentary commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Long March victory. And I want you to pay attention to how it was presented. It was explicitly labeled Xinhua Political Commentary, which gives it considerable political weight. The article was also very long, roughly, I think, between 5,000 to 6,000 words. But the language couldn't have been more different. How many times did the word core leadership appear? Nine times. How many times was Xi Jinping mentioned by name? Also nine times. And what about those famous 2442 slogans? They were there too. So now, do you see the difference? On one side, we have the military's official media, controlled by the PLA. On the other side, we have the party state's official media, controlled by Cai Qi. Same anniversary, same historical event, same communist party, But when it comes to Xi Jinping and his core leadership, their language is strikingly different. And I don't think that difference is accidental. In fact, I believe it helps explain something we've been saying for a month ever since Zhang Youxia was taken down. Why haven't we seen senior PLA commanders publicly rally behind the denouncement and the investigation against him? why hasn't the military come forward with a strong unified declaration of support instead what we what we've seen is silence and that silence in my view looks increasingly like resistance and i think the answer may be hiding in plain sight in the language of the military's own publications okay so that brings us back to a point i've made repeatedly my assessment is that although Xi Jinping succeeded in removing Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, he failed to regain full control of the armed forces, and PLA has not returned its loyalty to Xi Jinping. Instead, I believe the military's power center has shifted toward the party's central decision-making body, a rival center of authority within the CCP. And now the competing messages are becoming increasingly visible. Both sides are using the long March anniversary to make their case. Both are pointing to the same historical crisis, but each side is drawing a completely different lesson from that history. Xi Jinping is saying, look at Mao Zedong. Once Mao became the party's core leader, the Communist Party won. Xi Jinping is today's core leader, therefore the party must continue to follow me, just as it once followed Mao. That's his narrative. But the military's message is almost the opposite. Why did the Long March become a historic turning point? Because the party abandoned a failed leadership line. It moved away from the old leadership, established a new center of authority, and took a different path. And that's what allowed it to survive do you see what's happening here uh it's a textbook example of competing factions using the party's own history to serve their own interests all right so um and that brings us to something fundamental about the CCP despite all its talk about the party commanding the gun the reality of the communist power struggle is that the gun determines who commands the party. Now, there's another piece of evidence that makes the growing distance between Xi Jinping and his military even more obvious. That is, Xi Jinping has apparently stopped visiting his own troops. As chairman of the Central Military Commission and the commander-in-chief, who commands more than 2 million personnel visiting military units, meeting officers and soldiers, is his job, is his routine, I mean, routine parts of his job. But something changed in 2023. Since January, he has not made a single, I should say, publicly reported inspection of a military unit outside Beijing. Not one in nearly 10 months. And that's very unusual. Now let's compare Xi Jinping's military visits over the past four years. In 2023, he visited military units outside Beijing seven times. 24, nine times. 25, five times. And in 2026, zero. What's particularly strange is that he hasn't stopped traveling. So in March, he visited Xiongan in Hebei, but he skipped the nearby 82nd Group Army Headquarters. In April and July, he traveled to Shanghai but didn't meet the troops stationed there. In June, he visited Shandong but didn't inspect local military units. And just last week, October the 16th, he traveled to Inner Mongolia but skipped the Zhurihe Military Training Base. Remember Zhurihe? I should show you a picture. This was July 30th, 2017. Xi held a massive military parade at the base to celebrate the PLA's 90th anniversary. More than 12,000 troops participated. Nine years later, he returned to Inner Mongolia, but there was no visit to Zhuzhihe, no military inspection. What a contrast, right? And even before the Chinese New Year, He broke his usual practice of visiting troops in person. Instead, he greeted military personnel by video link from the military building, from the PLA building in Beijing. So why has Xi Jinping continued to travel around China while apparently avoiding military units? I see three possible explanations. First, he has made too many enemies in the military. Someone did the math. Ever since he took power in 2012, he has carried out one military purge after another. Now, as many as 418 generals have been investigated or removed over the past 14 years. And the purges have accelerated dramatically. During his first 10 years, only seven full generals, China's highest military rank, were investigated. But since the 20th Party Congress in 2022, as many as 58 full generals have been investigated, removed, or disappeared from public view. So it took him 10 years to take down seven full generals. But in the last four years, 58 full generals are out. these officers hold key positions across virtually every branch of the military now think about that every general who falls has colleagues subordinates and allies right how many of those people still trust xi jinping okay that's first reason the second reason is xi jinping may not even trust his last remaining CMC member vice chairman Zhang Shengming uh in the past Xi Jinping's military inspections were arranged by the CMC general office with senior commanders accompanying him. So like Zhang Youxia and He Weidong used to accompany him on these military inspection tours. Sometimes both vice chairmen were there, were next to him, sometimes at least one. So if he goes, then Zhang Shengming would be going with him. And the other problem is Xi Jinping may not trust Zhang Shengming. Because Zhang Shengming spent nine years as military's top discipline chief. He knows exactly how investigations and secret detentions work. And he has played an important role in taking down some of Xi's own military allies like He Weidong and Miao Hua. So Xi Jinping may not trust Zhang Shengming at all. So here's the question. Will he feel safe allowing someone he may not trust to arrange his visits or to even go with him to military bases? That's the second question. And the third is the recent events in Venezuela and Iran may have raised new security concerns for him. Remember on January 3rd, U.S. special forces captured Nicolas Maduro in a lightning operation. And then on February 28th, U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader, along with some other senior officials. These operations showed how vulnerable even heavily protected leaders can be. And some analysts believe that these events have left a psychological medical scar on Xi Jinping, because he has removed too many senior officers. And he could be very concerned about his own safety when visiting military bases. So that raises a fundamental question. Is Xi Jinping avoiding the military because he no longer trusts his generals, or because he can no longer count on their loyalty, right? All right. So the absence of military inspections alone doesn't prove Xi Jinping has lost control of the armed forces. But put it together with everything we've discussed, the military's official publications are avoiding Xi Jinping's name and his core leadership position and his political loyalty slogans. Instead, they're now using phrases like changing feathers, which can be interpreted as a coded reference to replace Xi. Senior commanders have not publicly rallied behind the investigation of Zhang Youxia in the way we might have expected. And now the commander in chief himself has apparently stopped visiting his troops. The public displays of loyalty have diminished. The military inspections have stopped. And you can't stop people from concluding that the rift between Xi Jinping and his military appears to be growing. Now, if Xi Jinping can no longer count on the military's support, his political future could be far less secure than many people realize. We started the program with Hu Chunhua. Now, I want to end it with another update involving Hu Chunhua. Yesterday, a Chinese political commentator reported an extraordinary claim He said that Hu Chunhua secretly, with Hu Jintao's help Okay, this is what it's being said With Hu Jintao's help, Hu Chunhua has secretly met with several retired senior PLA generals So these are the military elders You have the party elders, you have the military elders So they are Chi Haotian and Fu Quanyou, served under Jiang Zemin as members of the Central Military Commission. Chi Haotian was one of the two vice chairmen. And then you have Chao Gangchuan and Chang Wanquan, who served under Hu Jintao, and Chao Gangchuan was the vice chairman and the other was a member. So the report claims that these military elders supported Hu Chunhua succeeding Xi Jinping as both CCP party, I would say both CCP general secretary and chairman of the Central Military Commission. But not everyone was on board. There was one notable exception was General Zhao Kexi, who was a member of the CMC under Xi Jinping. He served under Xi Jinping. He was the former commander of the PLA's 31st Group Army. And that's an interesting detail. The 31st Group Army was based in Fujian, where Xi Jinping spent much of his political career. And Xi Jinping's military base is the 31st Group Army. Like He Wei, Dong Miao, Hua all came from there. So Zhao Kexu was reportedly, he wasn't against Hu Chunhua. He basically remained quiet. He didn't give his open support. So according to this account, some retired military elders, Wang Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhengli, rehabilitated, while others favored holding Xi Jinping and his allies accountable. Now, I want to emphasize these claims have yet to be verified. But if they're true, they would suggest that Hu Chunhua's absence from the meeting is political. It's not health. Because some people say, well, what if he was just not feeling well? I don't think it has anything to do with health. I think it's political. So is Hu Chunhua in political trouble because Xi Jinping has staged another ambush? um if so then it's going to be i think the the ccp would would experience major chaos yeah if Hu Chunhua is taken down because taking down Hu Chunhua in the name of corruption is very difficult because for more than a decade xi jinping has sent officials after officials to investigate Hu Chunhua trying to find anything that that he can use to to investigate him but they couldn't find anything um you know like the the reform people like Hu Jintao and Hu Chunhua they're extremely careful with their behavior and conduct because they know that their opponents because they they come from their commoners shall we say they don't have any political background they came from ordinary families so uh if they have any misconduct of any kind their opponent could use that against them. So using corruption to bring down Hu Chunhua is almost impossible. If Xi Jinping could do it, he has already done it. So the only possibility is staging another ambush and take him out, like how he took out Zhang Youxia. So we don't know what happened. So is Hu Chunhua in political trouble? Or is he being kept out of sight because he's involved in a much bigger power struggle and his security is number one. And for now, we don't know. You could tell me what you think. Type one, if you think Hu Chunhua is in trouble. Type two, if you think he's just staying out of sight to be safe until the fifth plenum. Regardless what the real reason is, one thing is clear. His whereabouts and political standing have become one of the most important questions in the speculation surrounding Beijing's succession struggle. That is for sure. All right, so let's see what do you say. Ones and twos, I see a lot of them. One, Xi Jinping, okay. Andy Zhu says, one, Hu Chunhua is in hot water. And then we have two, we have three. Threes are, I don't know. Okay, two, two, ones, okay. A lot of twos, a few ones, right? a few ones what do you what do you think not sure yep not sure yeah it is hard to tell um but would you agree it's not health related it's it's political i think it's political three so we have twos mostly we have twos and then we have then we have threes and then we have the very few ones yeah okay he may be in seclusion i think he's hiding i think he's hiding if i were him i would I would not go to that meeting you know because anything could happen with Xi Jinping he could do anything why go to this meaningless meeting when you're gonna do some of the most important um some of the most important tasks are four days away um if i were him i would not go i would miss that meeting all right here's a question from Jeremy Thomas Lay any update on the POE inventory audit seem to drop off the face of the earth yeah that's no that's politically motivated the POE inventory audit is politically motivated um i think for officers they probably are not interested for those responsible individuals they're not interested in this inventory audit being taken out um they want to hide they want to cover up the problem the discrepancies um so they may use all kind of excuses to say ah you know we we're not in the position we're not in the right situation to do this audit i think that audit didn't go anywhere okay we have more twos some ones okay all right paranoid leaders are dangerous to their closest subordinates true save an effective depopulation agenda Here's a question from Ahmed V6 I have a question with the October 1 nationalization of the data and the travel ban Does that bring the conflict over Taiwan closer than earlier projected? The travel ban, in my opinion, is not inspired by the situation or the relation with Taiwan. The travel ban is inspired or is put in place because too many officials and wealthy individuals are fleeing China with their assets and secrets, shall we say, trade secrets or national secrets, who knows, military secrets. They're fleeing China and if you don't stop them they're gone so yeah that's why they put a they put a travel ban i don't it's not it's not related to taiwan it's national security related and also uh it's also economically motivated yeah money because when people leave they're going to bring their money with them and and the ccp tries to stop that galia galia lei thank you you are a beam on the dark prc hill any comments on foreign minister Wang Yi's visit to azerbaijan bulgaria croatia tour this week what what it was needed for just before the plenum um huh i mean he's a foreign minister I don't think he is. I'm sure he will return to Beijing for the for the plenum. Maybe he's trying to collect a few scores or bring a more impressive scorecard for his boss at the plenum to say, hey, this look, look, look what I accomplished diplomatically. Maybe that's the goal. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Let's see. Hello, everyone. She is a psycho. All right. I saw your votes. I don't see any other questions. People asked me about Kim Jong-un. I already answered. I think it's hard to say what really happened to him. The rumors are still spreading, and the Chinese have continuously said that he's dead in a chinese hospital so uh yep interesting isn't it all right uh no more questions i think i reached the end oh uh here is one more she is a paranoid okay that's a comment now um i will not have a live stream this weekend because chris will be away and i will also be away. And I think Chris deserves a break for the whole weekend. And so do I. So we decided to skip a live stream this Saturday and Sunday and give ourselves a full weekend to rest. So I'll be back next week. Responsible for downfall. Someone said, Lei, you said that someone born in the year of the horse would be responsible for the downfall of the CCP. No, I didn't say the year of the horse, the year of the goat. Yep. That's according to some prophecy. Yeah. Someone asked me, God, do you think that Kim's dead rumor is a warning for Xi? It will certainly have a psychological impact on him. Not good. Not good. All right. That's all for tonight. I thank you very much for joining me and I will see you next week. Unless there's breaking news this weekend, I may be doing a live stream if there's major breaking news like Kim Jong-un is really dead or there are strong evidence showing that he's dead who knows what will happen this weekend if something like that happens I will do a live stream I'll tell you about it if I find something otherwise I'll enjoy the weekend all right thank you very much I'll see you soon okay bye