Purges, a plot and the real reason why Xi Jinping might be afraid to leave China
It’s hard to see into the Chinese Communist Party’s politics. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any. Only that they’re well concealed. But every now and then, the careful stage management slips and the red curtain twitches aside unexpectedly. We’ve been treated to a few revealing moments in the past few weeks.
President Xi Jinping projects an air of serene imperial command. He has the most comprehensive grip on power of any Chinese president since Mao, many sinologists tell us, as he prepares to enter a third five-year term.
A level of paranoia may lie beneath the air of serene imperial command the Chinese President projects.Credit:AP
But it seems that not all of the courtiers are as submissive as they appear to be, and Xi not quite as calm. Or, as the Lowy Institute’s Richard McGregor puts it: “We have election season; China has selection season, and we are moving into that now.
“Xi has a ton of enemies to handle. He can’t just coast into a third term on the basis of his personality cult.” Foreign media sometimes describe him as president for life. But while he removed the two-term limit on the presidency, he still needs party approval to win a third term when the Party Congress meets next October.
Sensationally, Xi has moved decisively against two of the topmost officials responsible for China’s internal security, a serving and a former vice-minister of public security, in less than a week.
One of them, Fu Zhenghua, served as vice-minister until October 2 and also as China’s Justice Minister. He was in charge of China’s police, secret police, prosecution and court system, putting him at the pinnacle of the country’s political-legal apparatus. He was described by Japan’s Nikkei newspaper as “the man who knew too much of Xi’s power plays”.
“Fu is an intriguing case, he was considered close to Xi for many years,” explains the eminent analyst of elite Chinese politics, Willy Wo-Lap Lam. The bland-faced and unwrinkled 66-year-old Fu was considered the ruthless enforcer of Xi’s political purges. “He did Xi a big favour by removing one of his main opponents in 2013.”
Indeed, Fu broke an unwritten rule of top-level party politics to do so. With Xi’s backing, Fu broke the convention protecting former or current members of China’s inner cabinet, the Politburo Standing Committee, against criminal prosecution. He jailed a retired Politburo member for life on a corruption charge in 2015, raising the stakes for political survival in China.
But now the chief purger has been himself purged. “Fu lost favour,” Lam tells me, “because he was seen to be involved in building cliques and factions within the police apparatus. What Xi and all party leaders are paranoid about is senior cadres building cliques and factions because they could be up to all sorts of conspiracy and so forth.”
But perhaps the most dramatic revelation in recent weeks was the publication of two articles last month outlining a foiled police plot against Xi. The exact nature of the plot isn’t clear – the reports didn’t mention whether they planned to swoop and arrest the President or to do something more grievous. McGregor points out that wherever he moves in China, his personal bodyguard unit has “a lot of people” around him.
A “a conspiratorial clique” allegedly was involved in “planning something illegal and improper” against the President during an expected visit to the city of Nanjing, in Jiangsu province.
Several high-level police figures from Jiangsu were named in the plot, supposedly financed by a billionaire who’d been executed for bribery in January, the prominent former head of the Huarong Asset Management company, Lai Xiaomin.
How credible is the story of the foiled plot, removed within 24 hours from the two sites that reported it?
“It seems very credible because the two media outlets – NetEase and Sohu.com – are not party mouthpieces, but I would describe them as semi-official,” says Lam, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “They are widely read and have been tolerated by the Propaganda Department for at least 20 years.”
So if Xi Jinping’s enemies are real and plotting against him, is he still paranoid? “Emperor-like figures, whether in China or other countries, because they are seen as demigods, they would be seen as paranoid” when they seek out enemies, says Lam, “and, in the case of Xi, paranoid about the security establishment”.
Xi launched a “rectification campaign” against the police and public security establishment in 2020 to ensure its loyalty in the approach to next year’s crucial Party Congress.
Between February to July this year alone, this purge meted out punishment to 178,431 security personnel, including 1,258 heads of departments, Lam points out in a recent essay.
And then there’s the army, Xi’s ultimate guarantor of power. The top officer of China’s Western Theatre Command has been changed four times in less than a year. Lam describes this as a sign that Xi’s control of the People’s Liberation Army is “less than ironclad”. This particular command is responsible for the sensitive areas of Xinjiang and Tibet as well as India and Afghanistan.
“There is speculation that these extraordinary personnel changes may have involved issues of loyalty to the Central Military Commission chairman”, who is Xi himself, according to Lam. “Xi still appears to harbour doubts about the loyalty of the military leadership.”
A top party publication, Quishi, last month carried a warning against “cliquishness” in the army. It related the object lesson of Marshal Lin Biao’s unsuccessful attempt at an army coup d’état against Mao in 1971.
Overall, how secure is the emperor? “The fact that Xi is still implementing purges against his enemies indicates he’s quite paranoid and the fact that he’s not been out of the country for 650 days suggests he may be insecure about leaving the capital,” says Lam.
“He’s made many, many enemies because of his ruthless purges, but I’ve seen no evidence that they’ve been able to coalesce and put up a united front against Xi. He divides and rules.”
When it comes to party discipline, Xi once said, “to forge iron, you need a strong hammer”. Even after nearly a decade in power, Xi is wielding the hammer as hard as ever.
Peter Hartcher is international editor.
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