At a highly choreographed event like the Chinese Communist Party Congress, the surprise came when former President Hu Jintao was unwittingly removed from the podium during the closing ceremony. Beijing’s official statement, which came out only hours later, is that Xi Jinping’s predecessor was “not feeling well.” However, there are those who argue that it was a planned purge, designed to humiliate the former leader sitting next to the current one, who saw his power in Congress rise.
Hu Jintao, 79, looked visibly weakened at the party rally, which gathered 2,300 delegates last week in the Great Hall of the People, at the end of Tiananmen Square. The other ex-president still alive, Jiang Zemin, 96, was absent. According to a reporter from the state-run Xinhua news agency, the former president, who handed over the reins of the party to Xi Jinping in November 2012 and of the country in March 2013, insisted on participating in the closing ceremony, despite the fact that he was off to recover”, not clear from what. “When he was not feeling well during the session, his employees accompanied him to a room next to the meeting place for his health to rest”, adding that he was already “much better.” ” used to be.
Video of the moment (and cameras had been released shortly before) shows an employee forcing a reluctant Hu Jintao out of his chair. The former president tries to get some documents on Xi Jinping’s desk (they were sitting next to each other), but he gets them in time. Before leaving, Hu still touches his shoulder and says something to the Chinese president, who responds with a smile and makes the same gesture with Prime Minister Li Keqiang, who sat on the other side of Xi Jinping and is considered a political ally. . Huh.
Health or purification?
Even before Beijing’s official statement, the hypothesis of a health problem was put forward – but this tension seems to contradict the ex-president’s reluctance to leave the post and the fact that no one around has tried to help him ( only Li Zhanshu, whose title is equivalent to the leader of Parliament, and who sat on the other side of Hu, gestured to that effect.)
Foreign Policy Journalist James Palmer, an expert on China, recalled that Hu Jintao’s departure came just before a vote and there could be fears that he was preparing to vote against or abstain – causing it to idea of unanimity is called into question. by Xi Jinping. Another possibility it raises is that the situation was planned, in a sort of purge of the former president who was at the forefront of China’s fate for a decade, from 2003 to 2013.
Differences Between Hu and Xi
In Hu Jintao’s China, power still had a collective character, with the president having to act as a mediator between the various factions that were always at war. Moreover, it was a decade of economic openness to the world (and corruption) and tolerance for new ideas. In the China of Xi Jinping, who was vice president during Hu’s second term, the stakes are on nationalism and the censorship of dissent. And there is only one faction, his own, with Xi surrounding himself with allies ready to defend him, forcing the more moderate ones.
One example is the expected departure of the prime minister, who will not be on the next Politburo Standing Committee – the seven names will be known today. Li Keqiang, economically more liberal than Xi Jinping, was not even elected to the Central Committee, which has 205 members, from which today the Politburo with 25 will also emerge.
Four of the current seven members of the Standing Committee will leave – two of them have reached the informal age limit (they are over 68), under a rule that does not apply to Xi Jinping himself, who is already 69. But both Li and Wang Yang (head of the party’s consultative body), who could replace him, have 67 left. However, the prime minister will remain in office until the next election, which should be in six months’ time. Xi Jinping was previously expected to be elected to an unprecedented third term in March, after ending the existing term limit.
The resolution passed yesterday at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress says the nearly 97 million militants must “defend Comrade Xi Jinping’s central role”. The president, who is to be re-elected as party general secretary on Sunday, will become the most important leader since the founder of the People’s Republic, Mao Zedong. Xi Jinping, billed as “the core of the entire party,” reiterated in his speech that the CCP must “suffer” and “win” in order to “keep moving forward.”
Congress also approved, for the first time, the explicit inclusion of statements about the “resolute opposition” to Taiwan’s independence and the “deterrence of separatists” seeking it. The current text spoke only of “strengthening the unity of all Chinese, including compatriots in Taiwan” and efforts to reunite with the island – which Beijing sees as a rebellious province.
Source: DN
