Strategy Insights Ep 114:Xi Sets the Stage for a Fourth Term Nearly 100 Absent from the Fifth Plenum

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Professor Ming's Strategic Insights. The Chinese Communist Party just finished their fifth plenum on October the 29th. Since this is a very important meeting, so I watched and read most of the related videos and articles and essays and analyses about the meeting, and I've made some interesting observations, and I'd like to share them with you today. The first thing that caught my attention was that There was the almost lowest attendance rate ever since the 1980s. A plenum is the annual meeting of the Central Committee, namely the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. In this Central Committee, in each of the Central Committee, basically there are 205 full members and 171 alternate members, but the attendance rate is very low. In the full members, there are only 162 attended this meeting, namely 43 of them were missing from the meeting. And for the alternate members, only 117 members showed up, and that means there are 54 of them missing from the meeting. So altogether, 97 members, full and alternate members, were missing from this very important meeting. The absence rate is as high as 25.8%. More than one out of four were missing from the meeting. That means there were a number of or a series of brutal and bloody crackdowns or purges. But according to the official news report, all of these 97 members missing from the meeting, only 33 of them are officially confirmed being purged. So that means 64 of them are still in limbo, waiting for the... The investigations are not waiting for the final verdict, but chances are they'll be purged eventually. But given the fact that 97 of them are missing from the meeting, but this time they promoted only 10 of them, but most of them are either civilian government leaders or civilian provincial party leaders or the managers or CEOs of the state-owned enterprises or state-owned media leaders. So none of them are soldiers. We'll talk about this point later on. So that's basically what happened in the Central Committee. But one level up, talking about the Politburo. We mentioned that there were three people being expelled from the Politburo. Two three-star generals and one local leader. But this time only one got promoted into Politburo. That is the only vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. Another three-star general, General Zhang Zengmin, and he's the one being promoted to the Politburo. So that means the Politburo has only 22 members out of the original 24 or 25-member body. And before I forget, let me remind you, none of these 10 people being promoted to the Central Committee were soldiers, were high-ranking soldiers. And there's a good reason for it, and I'll talk about it later. And as for the Central Military Commission, There were seven people, but five of them were purged. But this time, not a single person was promoted to this body. So that means the Central Military Commission has only two people, Xi Jinping himself and another vice chairman. The second thing that caught my attention was the communique that they issued. As a rule, they issue a communique after a plenum or after such an important meeting. And this time, in this communique, they put forward a very important document. They call it, let me read it out. The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the decision to engage in or to promote a comprehensive and strict party governance. That's important. I'll explain it later. Perhaps not today. And the second important thing that they put forward in this communique is that they put out this. They have Xi Jinping's thought on party building. Well, they haven't spelled out the details of the so-called Xi Jinping thought, but my gut feeling is it's going to be very important. So we're going to talk about it later when we have more details about it. Let's now take a closer look at the 33 people being officially expelled from the Central Committee. All of the 33 people, 16 of them are top brass from the PLA. And 12 to 13 out of these 16 generals were three-star generals, with three to four two-star ones. And in addition, out of the 17 people being expelled from the Central Committee, five of them were either top leaders or top CEOs of the state-owned defense enterprises, Enterprises with with the remaining 12 or 11 of them were purely civilian, civilian officials. And among the 16 top generals from the PLA, the first one is, of course, three-star general Zhang Youxia, the former vice president of the Central Military Commission. And the second one is a member of the Central Military Commission, the chief of staff, General Liu Zhenli. And the rest of them are commissars from the Eastern Command Theater or commanders of the Northern and Western Theater Commanders. And commander of the army and the commissar of the armed police and the commissar of the army and the deputy commander of the army and so on and so forth. And with two directors from the office of the Central Military Commission, namely the biggest military secretaries to Xi Jinping himself. Two of them. They were General Zhong Shaojun and General Fang Yongxiang. These two are the two star generals. So these are the 16 top brass from the PLA being expelled from the Central Committee. As for the head of the State-owned Defense Enterprises, we're looking at the president of the Nuclear Industry Corporation, President of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, and Weapon Equipment Corporation, and Weapon Industry Corporation CEOs and Presidents. So five of them. And the rest of them, as I mentioned, are local officials. The biggest one was the head of Xinjiang province, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, the first secretary. After reviewing the personnel shuffling of the 5th plenum, let me call your attention to one point that I mentioned last time. Last time I mentioned that there were 20 vacancies left in the PLA top posts, namely the commanders or commissars of this theater region or this theater command or that branch or that what. 20 vacancies for three-star generals, but this time none of them were promoted or being filled. So that means that Xi Jinping is kind of hesitant about promoting more people to fill up the post because he's not sure about their loyalty. So I think that's a big question not only for Xi Jinping himself, but also for the PLA in general. The third point I find intriguing about this fifth plenum is the theme, the theme of the plenum. Although it says they're going to engage in a comprehensive and strict governance of the party, and put it plainly, it's fighting corruption or fighting bribery and receiving bribery and things like that, but that's only nominal. So that's what I mean. I'm not saying it's superficial, but what I'm saying is, That's what is seen on the surface, but the essence, as I see it, is to eliminate or to eradicate the so-called two-faced people from the party. This is revealed by the Qiu Shi Journal, the flagship journal of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, about two weeks earlier. The Qiu Shi Journal reprinted a speech made by Xi Jinping earlier this year, in January this year. And he pointed out that they're going to fight six types of two-faced people, and I cannot remember them all, so I have to read them out one by one. The first type of two-faced people they're going to eradicate is that some pay lip service to directives while secretly acting against them. That's the first type. The second type, some embrace ideological liberalism, adopting principles when they suit their interests, and discarding them when they do not. That's the type two. And type three goes, some engage in political opportunism, pursue personal gains, and are ready to jump ship. Remember, jump ship whenever circumstances change. Questions, which other ship they gonna jump to? And that's type number three. Type number four, some form exclusive inner circles and cliques. And type five, some engage in departmentalism and put their own interests above the collective good. meaning the collective good of the party of Xi Jinping himself. And the last one, some practice a misguided form of people-pleasing, avoiding confrontation and refusing to take a principled stand for fear of offending others. These are the six types of two-faced people they're going to eradicate or they're going to eliminate. Namely, although they identify six types of two-faced people, Just exactly what they mean by these six types of two-faced people. In short, two-faced people means that they're disloyal. Disloyal to the party or disloyal to Xi Jinping himself. And the question is, why does Xi Jinping have to worry about this kind of disloyalty? Because he's not sure he's going to get the fourth term without any question. Because he knows it very clearly. He has little tangible achievement during his time in office. And he wants to enforce it, and he wants to make sure that he'll get it, he'll get a fourth term without any question, without any challenge. So the only thing they can do, or the only resort they can refer to, is to enforce the so-called party disciplinary to make sure that he will meet no challenge for his fourth term. So in conclusion, as I see it, that's the true reason for the so-called comprehensive and strict governance of the party. And that's what it is for. And personally, I call it the dictator's suspicion. And again, it's a mutual distrust between the superior and the subordinates. So that is to say, in other words, this fifth plenum is a preparatory meeting for the 21st Party Congress coming next year. And Xi Jinping is trying to pave the way for this 21st Party Congress and making sure no challenges. And no accidents. Well, that's all I want to share with you today. I hope you liked today's program. And please share it with your friends and subscribe to our program. 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