China's Fifth Plenum Mystery: A Political Shift and the Mbappé Scandal

All right. Hello, everyone. Sorry for the technical difficulties. I don't know what happened, but the live stream disappeared on me in my live stream app. I see it on YouTube, but I don't see it in my app. So I have to set it up again. Sorry. I have to look into that. All right. I like what you've done with the place. Okay. Hello from Southern California. All right. Well, welcome. Okay, sorry for the late start. Let's talk about this fifth plenum and the French football player. Thank you. Well, the fifth plenum wrapped up today and the official communique came out. So at first glance, the message seems very simple. No major shakeup. The CCP is maintaining the status quo. Here's what we know. Okay, I can give you a summary in like two minutes. No successor was named. Xi Jinping remains in charge of the party, the military, and the state, with no announced leadership change ahead of the 21st Party Congress. 34 officials who had disappeared from public view or rumored to be removed or came under investigation were now formally expelled from the party or stripped of their posts. And this includes familiar names such as Zhang Youxia, Liu Zhengli, and Ma Xinrui. The Central Military Commission was not rebuilt. Its sole remaining member, Zhang Shemin, was promoted to the Politburo, bringing its membership to 22, three fewer than the usual 25. And Hu Chunhua, the man rumored, I have a picture of him. Actually, I asked Chris. To find his picture, okay, so this is Hu Chunhua at the Fifth Plenum. The man rumored to be absent from the meeting or the man rumored to be detained and investigated was not only present, but was shown in a close-up shot on CCTV. So on the surface, everything looked settled. That's probably what most political observers would tell you. But when it comes to CCP politics, the surface really rarely tells us the whole story. And once we look beneath it, the picture becomes much more complicated and interesting and revealing. So what I did is that I compared the Fifth Plenum communique with those from previous plenums, and I found something extraordinary, extraordinarily interesting. Okay, so some of the most important political signals aren't in what the communique says. They are in what it no longer says. So there are four striking changes. Let me go through them one by one. The first is that Xi Jinping's signature political slogans have disappeared. And this is perhaps the biggest surprise. Now you know for years the CCP has relied on a set of political slogans to reinforce Xi's supreme authority, and they are commonly known by the shorthand 2442. The two establishes, four consciousnesses, four confidences, and the two upholds. In simple terms, they demand absolute loyalty to Xi Jinping as the party's core leader, allegiance to his political ideology, and obedience to the authority of the party's central committee. So together, these slogans have served as the ideological foundation of Xi Jinping's one-man rule and his dominance over the CCP. Now look what happened. Let's compare the communiqués from the third and fourth plenums. So the third plenum, the third plenum communiqué stated this. It said, party members must deeply understand the decisive significance of the two establishes, strengthen the four consciousnesses, reinforce the four confidences, uphold the two upholds. And maintain a strong awareness of the need to guide social revolution through the party's self-revolution. And then at last year's fourth plenum, its communique said this. It says the entire party must deeply understand the decisive significance of the two establishes, strengthen the four consciousnesses, reinforce the four confidences, and uphold the two upholds. So you see the entire 2442 formulation appeared in both communiques, but in the fifth plenum, nothing. The entire 2442 formulation has disappeared, not a single mention. Now think about the significance of that. Cai Qi, who oversees the party's propaganda apparatus, has repeatedly promoted the two establishes as the most important political achievement for Xi Jinping. Yet this supposedly historic achievement is now missing from the party's most important collective political statement. So does this signal a correction in the party's political direction? And more importantly, does it suggest that Xi Jinping's status as the unquestioned supreme leader is coming to an end? I think that's a question we have to ask. And remember, this isn't just some newspaper article or media commentary. This is an official central committee communique. I mean, state media under Cai Qi's influence may continue repeating the 2442 slogans, but a newspaper commentary is one thing. A formal statement issued by the party's central committee is quite another. The political weight is simply not comparable. So if you think that's significant, wait until I see you. The second change. All right. The second one is the military and the Chinese people have disappeared from the final appeal. And this one is very intriguing. So, we compare the closing paragraph of the fifth plenum communique with those of the second, third, and fourth plenums. All three previous communiques ended with exactly the same wording, which is The plenum calls on the entire party, the entire military, and the people of all ethnic groups throughout the country to unite more closely around the party's central committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core. Three communiques, identical wording. But the fifth plenum, sorry, can people hear me? Am I coming through all right? Yeah? Can someone tell me if my audio, because I just jumped on this live the second I set it up. All right, can someone just, okay, someone said, Matthew Moore says, A-okay. Okay, everything is good, Chris said. All right, thank you, Chris. All right, so let's just continue with this interesting comparison. Okay, audio is good, excellent. I'm loud and clear. All right, so see how... All three previous communiques ended with the exact same appeal or same wording. The wording is actually identical. Now, the fifth plenum changed it. This time, it says, the plenum calls on the entire party to unite more closely around the party's central committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core. Did you catch that? The military is gone, and so are the Chinese people. Only the party remains. So now the plenum calls on only the party, the entire party, to unite more closely around the Central Committee with Xi Jinping at its core. It's no longer calling the military and the Chinese people to unite around whatever this Central Committee with Xi Jinping at its core. Only the party remains. In other words, The plenum is now calling on the party alone to unite around Xi Jinping as its core leader. Not the military, not the Chinese people. Why? Well, remember Mao Zedong famously said the political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. And the CCP has always claimed that its legitimacy rests on representing and serving the Chinese people. The military and the people are fundamental to the party's claim to power, yet both have now disappeared from the final appeal to unite around Xi Jinping's leadership. So what are we supposed to make of that? Does that suggest that Xi Jinping's authority over the military and the country is being redefined? Could it mean that his position as the party's core leader no longer automatically translates into Unquestioned authority over the military and the Chinese people. Now, we're talking about one of the CCP's most carefully drafted political statement. In a system this centralized, political language is never treated casually. Every word, every phrase matters. Every omission also matters. And when two such important groups suddenly disappear from a formula repeated word for word, In three previous plenums or plenum communiques, I don't think we should dismiss it as a simple editing choice. Okay, let's move on. Now, the third change may be even more revealing. This is the fifth plenum communique repeatedly emphasizes something called democratic centralism. And this is the CCP's formal organizational principle. Which combines internal party discussion with collective decision-making. And according to the source text, the term appears five times in the Fifth Plenum Communicate. Now, how many times did the Fourth and the Third Plenum Communicates mention it? Zero. Not once. But now, suddenly, democratic centralism is being emphasized repeatedly. And the language is unusually forceful. The communique declares that democratic centralism is the party's fundamental organizational principle and leadership system. It calls for greater internal party democracy and stricter implementation of decision-making rules. And here's the sentence that really caught my attention. It significantly demands Better quality internal party democracy, strict compliance with the leadership decision-making procedures and tighter regulation of how top leaders exercise their authority. Now let me ask you something. Who is the most powerful top leader in China? Xi Jinping. For years he has been concentrating more and more power in his own hands. He has weakened collective decision-making and placed himself at the center of virtually every major political decision. But now the Fifth Plenum, or the Fifth Plenum Communique, is emphasizing institutional rules, collective procedures, internal party democracy, and restrictions on how top leaders exercise power. Does that sound like a significant change in direction? Well, to me, this looks like the party is signaling a shift away from one-man decision-making, which is what we've seen in the past 14 years. And when you put this together with the disappearance of the 2442 slogans and the changes in the closing paragraph, a pattern begins to emerge, which brings us to the fourth change. There is a renewed emphasis on the party constitution. Now the final unusual change. is that the the communique states the party constitution must serve as the fundamental code of conduct for the entire party. That formulation was absent from the third and fourth plenum communiques. So why suddenly single out the party constitution? Why elevate it to such a prominent position? One China observer raised this question with Ms. Cai Xia. You know, she's a former professor at the CCP's Central Party School. And Professor Tsai made an important observation. She said that the party constitution doesn't explicitly impose term limits on the top leader, nor does it contain a direct prohibition. against personal dictatorship, but it does establish two fundamental principles, democratic centralism and collective leadership. So now does that sound familiar? Look at the four changes we've just discussed. Xi Jinping's signature 2442 slogans have disappeared. The military and the Chinese people have been removed on the final appeal to unite around Xi's leadership. Democratic centralism is suddenly emphasized five times and the party constitution is being elevated as the fundamental rule book or playbook for the entire party. So all four changes appear to point in the same direction. A renewed emphasis on institutional rules, a return to collective decision making, and a possible correction, I shouldn't say possible, a correction to Xi Jinping's It means highly centralized personal rule. So my interpretation is that the fifth plenum has pushed back against Xi Jinping's concentration of absolute power and may be signaling a return to collective leadership. And if this interpretation is correct, because you may disagree with me, I think it's correct. If that's correct, then the implications are enormous. Xi Jinping may still hold all his official titles, but his ability to exercise power without meaningful constraints could be changing. Of course, changes in political language alone cannot prove that she has lost power or control. But you know, in CCP's political system, words matter. And when carefully repeated phrases suddenly disappear from an official statement, those omissions can be just as revealing as the words. that have remained. So I believe these four changes point to one possibility. Xi Jinping's era of one-man rule may be coming to an end, and the party may be moving back to collective leadership. And this reminds people of what people call the Hua Guofeng moment. Oh, here's another picture of Hu Chunhua. The man on the far right is Hu Chunhua. Let's talk about Hua Guofeng moment. Okay. So he succeeded Mao Zedong and initially held the party's all top positions, including premier. He was, I believe, the only CCP leader who held all four positions. But his authority gradually slipped away as Deng Xiaoping consolidated power. So for a time, he kept his official titles, even as real power shifted elsewhere. And it took him two years to finally step down or go into retirement. So could something similar be happening to Xi Jinping? Under this possible arrangement, Xi Jinping could remain in office until the 21st Party Congress. He could retain his titles and public prestige while the party gradually moved toward a new leadership structure. So, in other words, Xi Jinping... will have a Hua Guofeng-style soft landing. The goal will be to preserve the Communist Party and avoid an open political rupture. But here's the problem. Xi Jinping is not Hua Guofeng. I do not believe she would willingly accept becoming a ceremonial leader while others exercise real power. If he finds himself increasingly sidelined, he may look for an opportunity to regain control. And whether such an attempt succeeds or fails, it could trigger a major, major political crisis. That's why I think from now until the 21st Party Congress next fall will be a very interesting time. The party elders may want a gradual transition as opposed to a sudden change. But in doing so, they could also be leaving the door open to another potentially far more dangerous power maneuver by Xi Jinping and his people, right? So that's my opinion. Now, this communique does not mention anything or give us any hint about Xi Jinping's successor. So what does that mean? Does that mean that Xi Jinping, there's no succession plan? Not necessarily. I see two possibilities. The first is that the different factions haven't reached an agreement on a plan or on a successor. They may be still negotiating. They have not reached some kind of compromise over Xi Jinping's immediate future, and they haven't settled on who should replace him, and the question is still up in the air. And the second possibility is very different. A successor may have already been chosen, but the leadership isn't ready to reveal that person publicly. Why keep the identity secret? Well, to preserve the appearance of party unity and continuity, to protect Xi Jinping's prestige, to prevent the outside world from seeing the extent of internal divisions. And perhaps most importantly, to avoid triggering another political confrontation before the transition can be managed. So if the second scenario is correct, then the fifth plenum is only the beginning. Over the next year or in the next 12 months, we should begin to see more revealing personnel changes because whoever is being prepared. To succeed Xi Jinping, we'll need time to assemble a leadership team, build political support, and place trusted people in key positions. And that kind of preparation cannot remain invisible forever. It will leave traces, and we will be able to see. So sooner or later, the personnel changes will begin to tell the story. All right. Right, um... Now, let's talk about something else. Let's talk about the numbers behind the Fifth Plenum. And this is, now, the above analysis, I don't think is picked up by mainstream media, but I think they might have already commented on the numbers, but I still want to tell you about the numbers. So according to the official communique, only 162 full Central Committee members and 117 alternate members attended. That's 279 people. And that represents 74% attendance. Previously, I told you Asia Society estimated an attendance rate about 77%. And just to compare the fourth plenum, the fourth plenum had attendance rate of 84% with 315 members attended. So it's a drastic decline. By another 36 people. And the most staggering numbers come from the military. At the 20th Party Congress, the PLA had 44 full central committee members. But last year's fourth plenum, only 14 attended. And this year, just five. So from 44 to 14, and now to five. Those numbers alone tell you how severely the military leadership has been shaken. Of course, not everyone missing from the meeting was necessarily purged, but the scale of the political upheaval is difficult to ignore. Now, here's the irony. In 2022, when the CCP concluded the 20th Party Congress, It's media. emphasized that Xi Jinping had personally Overseen and vetted the entire new central committee, meaning that he personally vetted the 300 plus or the 200 plus full members, possibly the alternate members as well. So these were officials who rose through the ranks under his watch, yet now many of them have been removed, investigated or disciplined or sidelined. Now, there is an important distinction. Not every fallen official was necessarily purged by Xi Jinping himself. Some may have been Xi Jinping loyalists brought down by his opponents. So, for example, some of Xi Jinping's loyal generals were removed by Zhang Youxia before Zhang himself was taken down. So what we're seeing, Maybe the combined casualties of purges carried out by both Xi Jinping and his rivals. But here's the problem for Xi Jinping. He is the one who insists on being the top dog. He has spent years concentrating power in his own hands and presenting himself as the ultimate authority. That means he also bears the political cost when the system falls apart, right? Think about it. But if Xi Jinping... is removing his own appointees, what does that say about his judgment and his ability to build a reliable leadership team? And if his opponents are removing them, what does that say about his ability to protect his own people? So either way, he comes out looking weaker. The very leadership he spent years building is being dismantled piece by piece, and the damage goes well beyond the The fifth plenum. Communique also reviewed disciplinary action involving several major figures in China's defense and high-tech industries. Here are some people who people have suspected, who have been suspected. to be removed, but their removal was never announced until now. Who are these people? Well, you have Yuan Jie, former chairman of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation. Wen Gang, former chairman of China State Shipbuilding Corporation. Yu Jianfeng, former chairman of China National Nuclear Corporation. Live F-A-N-T-A-Y A senior official in the party's military-civil fusion apparatus, and they have Zhang Zhongyang, former general manager of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, and Jin Zhuanglong, the former minister of industry and information technology, who was removed from his ministerial post in 2025. Now, these are minor bureaucrats. They were powerful figures overseeing China's aerospace, shipbuilding, nuclear, and defense industry sectors, which are the critical industries to the country's military modernization and technological ambitions. Now, they're gone under Xi Jinping's leadership. Oh, ----. So Xi Jinping has a famous expression. Or he has a favorite term for his anti-corruption and disciplinary campaigns. He calls it the party's self-revolution. He calls it self-revolution. So if his self-revolution is successful, or I should say, is Xi Jinping's self-revolution making the Communist Party stronger? Or is it consuming the very power structure he spent years building? Now, I think from the U.S. perspective, maybe keeping Xi Jinping around isn't a bad idea as he's dismantling the regime or the system from within. That's just a thought. All right, now let's talk about the fifth plenum's most unexpected star. Believe it or not, the biggest star of the fifth plenum wasn't Xi Jinping or any other Chinese leader. It was a French football superstar. Here we go. Where is he? I have pictures. Oh, there we go. You already heard about this. Killian, how do you say his last name? Mbappe. Is that Mbappe? Mbappe. OK, so this French superstar somehow found himself at the center of a political firestorm in China, right as the CCP's top leaders were meeting behind closed doors in Beijing. His offense, laughing at an internet meme depicting him as Mao Zedong. You see, football, he was given the nickname, the dictator, because of his influence or perceived influence over club decisions. So his fans began photo... I don't know. Photoshopping his face onto historical dictators, including Stalin and Mao. And during a casual conversation on a French program in April, Mbappé was asked about his favorite meme, and he picked the Mao image and mentioned using it while playing video games with friends. I think there are more of these. Now they're everywhere. Anyways. It was just a joke among football fans, right? Not in China. On October the 26th, the very day the CCP's fifth plenum opened, the clip began circulating online. China's leading football platform, called Dongqiu Di, quickly condemned Mbappe for offending China and the Chinese people. And then all hell broke loose. China's state media joined the condemnation. The Global Times warned that anyone who disrespects China shouldn't expect to make money from the Chinese market. China Daily warned about the consequences for Mbappe's commercial relationship. And so, And CCTV demanded apologies and suspended broadcasts. Spain's La Liga football matches. Meanwhile, some official media platforms removed previous coverage of Mbappe. In the end, the football player issued a written apology in three languages, English, French, and Chinese. La Liga president apologized too, and then on the 28th, Real Madrid apologized as well. All this over an internet meme. So here's where the story, I'm not done. You haven't heard the real story, the real funny part of this story. The real funny part is that the story is becoming comical. As the controversy exploded across Chinese social media and state media, millions and possibly tens of millions of people were being told that Mubappé had insulted China. Now, there was just one problem. Many had absolutely no idea what he had actually said. Why? Because none of the state media translated his remarks or talked about what he actually said, claiming they were too offensive to repeat. Now, think about that. People were expected to condemn Mbappe without knowing what they were condemning. Chinese netizens began complaining that the trending topics were full of companies cancelling contracts with Mbappé, yet nobody could explain exactly what he had said. So they started investigating. Some searched overseas websites, others used, I mean, eventually they found out, but they can't talk about it. So they used clever hints to explain the controversy to each other. Without mentioning Mao directly. So one user offered a particularly amusing clue. So he said, well, he was talking about the person on the 100 yuan banknote. Of course, Mao Zedong. Imagine that Chinese internet users had to solve a riddle just to figure out why they were supposed to be angry. It was almost like a nationwide guessing game. But the absurdity didn't end there. Chinese platforms and major brands began making Mbappé disappear. His accounts on Weibo and Xiaohongshu were restricted. AFP searched for Mbappé on the official Weibo accounts of luxury brands like Dior and And the watch brand, what do you call that? Hublot? Nothing. They couldn't find anything. At an Adidas flagship store in Beijing, reporters found Real Madrid jerseys, but not a single one bearing Mbappé's name. So one of the world's most famous football players had suddenly become a non-existent person, at least on parts of China's internet. Why shouldn't it be just internet? In parts of China as well. And here's the irony. Chinese companies have paid enormous sums of money to associate themselves with his fame, with this football player's fame. But after one joke about Mao, they couldn't distance themselves from him fast enough. The Chinese authorities and media had turned an old internet joke into a national controversy while making the joke itself practically unmentionable. Now, this might sound like just another episode of China's heavy-handed response to a foreign celebrity, but there's something about this particular controversy that I found much more intriguing, and that's the timing. Why now? Why October the 26th? Remember, when the controversy erupted, it was on October 26, the very first day of the fifth plenum. Now, here's what I found suspicious. The meme wasn't new. It had been circulating among football fans for years. And the video clip dated back to April, roughly six months earlier. And the Chinese football platform that started this controversy Dong Qiudi had reportedly translated and published the entire one and a half hour interview that Mbappe gave on that French, what is it called? The French program is called The Bridge. And they had already translated and published that interview months before the controversy. So they had seen the clip. They were fully aware of everything he said. So why did the controversy suddenly exploded on October the 26th? And why did the response escalate so quickly? It's so out of control. Football media condemned Mbappe. Major Chinese corporations cut ties. Social media platforms restricted his accounts. And state broadcasters and state media outlets, no, state broadcasters suspended football coverage. Some media platforms removed older programs containing him and state media outlets launched an attack on him, all within a remarkably short period of time. To me, this kind of a maneuver isn't... viral. There's a hand behind it. It's politically motivated. In China, it's politically motivated. The question is why? My answer is the fifth plenum. The fifth plenum was drawing intense attention because of the questions surrounding Xi Jinping's leadership, the ongoing purges, and the political struggle inside the party. So on the 26th, no. And also on the 26th, remember, an online letter purportedly representing students from 14 Chinese universities called for restoring presidential term limits, political reform, and freedom of expression. And then on the next day, there was a poster circulating calling for people to say no. Remember that poster? I asked Chris to post it after the live stream last time. Anyway, and then also on the 26th or the 27th, these two days marked the third anniversary of former Premier Li Keqiang's death because he actually died on the 26th, but the announcement came on the 27th. People believe he died on the 26th, but legally, he was pronounced dead midnight, after midnight, on the 27th. So that's another politically sensitive occasion. So at this precise moment, China suddenly found itself consumed by outrage over a French football superstar. Was that just a coincidence? Did the Mobapei controversy become a convenient way to divert public attention from what was happening inside Beijing? Now, in the past, Beijing has routinely created viral events to stir up public sentiment, to avoid or divert public attention. They have done this many times before. So in the end, it's not just about what people are allowed to say in China. It's also about what they are encouraged to feel, to be angry about. But in the French football players' case, I don't think Beijing's plan worked because it created more curiosity than anger as people didn't know what to be upset about. In the end, as people looked for the answer or for the truth, They may end up agreeing with Mbappé than anything. So, yeah, so that's the story behind this French player. I thought it's hilarious. People went wild trying to find out what did he do, what did he say to get the state media or the propaganda machine so worked up. And I thought that was funny. Anyways, this is what I have for you. Sorry for the late start and then the confusion of the of the link. I hope people have been able to find this link, this live stream. I have to look into the technical difficulties to find out what happened. All right, what do you think? I think I did the most incisive An in-depth analysis of the Fifth Plenum communique in the English-speaking world after the Fifth Plenum. Would you agree? Yeah? And I tie it to the French football player. I literally laughed when I was reading the Chinese comments about the controversy. I think it was just too funny. It's funny. People are encouraged to be angry, but they don't know what to be angry about. And this happens only in China. It's almost like people say, okay, I want to be angry, but tell me how I'm supposed to be upset. This is too funny. Anyways, all right, let's see. What do people say? Questions? Someone say yes. Good job. Okay, yes, good job. You, yeah, they are angry all the time. Five minutes of hate, as in the dystopian novel. Okay. I didn't realize the China state was so soft. Get over yourself. I don't know if that's addressed to me. I don't see any comments. I don't see any questions. Oh, here's one forwarded by Chris from Chen Wing, 4539. Did she have a stroke in India? So that means how many strokes has he had? No, I don't believe he had a stroke in India. That's what a lot of people were saying, but I don't think so. He was not feeling well. Maybe he felt weak. He was not feeling particularly strong. But because he was able to, video showed him walked up the air, what do you call that? The, um... His airplane. Yeah. Unless some people say that was not him. That's his body double. Who knows? But I don't think he had a stroke in India. I think he was not in good health, generally speaking. And then he was able to come to the US, come to the White House to meet Trump. All right, let's see. Fall outage. All right, here's a question from Anne Furry Boss. Who is the salty Chinese bombshell Alice Wong? Who tried to cozy up to Jensen Huang and passing secrets to Beijing and shipping banned AI chips to China. Is she a honey trap? I can, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. But I think the mainstream media is reporting that, right? So I did not look into that as the story is already picked up by mainstream media outlets. Um, Anytime you see a beautiful, Chinese woman hanging around on one of those, around those tech tycoons, you know, they should, they should watch out. If someone said, Mbappé, the French player, he's innocent. Yes, I think he's innocent. I think he didn't do anything wrong, anything wrong. He should not apologize, nor should his club. Why should they apologize? It's just a joke. Do not have weak bones. This is the Chinese expression, right? The CCP is calling its officials or warning its officials not to have weak bones. So we shouldn't have weak bones either. All right. What's the latest with Fang Fang? Has she found a new congressman boyfriend? Well, she's in China, so it's impossible for her to find a new congressman boyfriend. Yeah, he, she showed up, I think a year ago, was having lunch with formal chief editor of the Global Times. So I did a program. I did a program on Fang Fang in Lay's Looking Glass. You can check it out. All right. In China, in Indian, oh yeah. I will talk about that. The border, the quote-unquote border conflict between China and India. At the center of the issue is. The PLA's relationship with Xi Jinping. I think it's a politically inspired incident. All right, so I'll talk about that maybe this Saturday. All right, that's all for today. I want to end it early because I don't know if my other channel, other link was canceled. Were people on the other link? I have no idea what's going on. I hope people are joining this live stream. All right, I'll finish early. I'll be back on Saturday with more information about the PLA and the conflict with India. Okay? All right, I'll see you then. Bye.