Former CCP leader Jiang Zemin is dead
But that doesn’t mean
Xi Jinping can rest easy
Welcome to China Uncensored. I’m Chris Chappell.
Just when I thought the people’s favorite communist soap opera couldn’t get any crazier,
General Hostility goes and does this.
Previously, on General Hostility, the world was riveted as former
Chinese leader Hu Jintao was hustled away during a major party meeting.
His crime? Repeatedly trying to grab a piece of paper.
Then protests broke out across China, calling for Xi Jinping and the CCP to
step down. The protesters had one thing in common: they were grabbing pieces of paper.
Then just as Chinese leader Xi Jinping was poised to ban all pieces of paper,
Former leader and short-sighted toad Jiang Zemin pulled the ultimate power move and…
Died.
Wait, he can do that?
Seriously, he can do that?
This is the most shocking soap opera twist since “who shot J.R.?”
Can General Hostility survive without Jiang Zemin? Or does Jiang’s death mean that the
power struggle with Xi Jinping is finally over? Is this the end of General Hostility?
If you read Jiang’s official obituary from the Chinese Communist Party, you might think so.
In it, Jiang is referred to as “our beloved comrade Jiang Zemin.”
It also calls Jiang “a great Marxist, a great proletarian revolutionary, statesman,
military strategist and diplomat, a long-tested communist fighter,
and an outstanding leader of the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
As well as “the core” of the Party’s third generation of leadership.
And don’t forget Jiang’s “fine character and noble manner.”
Yep, his fine character.
And noble manner.
You get the idea. Jiang’s official obituary is so syrupy, reading it might give you diabetes.
But this is how the Chinese Communist Party treats
the deaths of former officials. As China Media Project points out,
some of the phrases used to describe Jiang were also used for other dead leaders.
For example, “an outstanding leader” was first used for
former leader Deng Xiaoping after he died in 1997.
In fact, even the official newspaper layout of
the People’s Daily looks virtually the same for Jiang’s death and Deng’s death.
Meanwhile the statement about Jiang being “a great proletarian revolutionary, statesman, military
strategist and diplomat” had only been used before for Deng Xiaoping and former premier Zhou Enlai.
So now Jiang has been put in the CCP pantheon along with Deng and Zhou.
His death is being used to reinforce the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.
But, to no one’s surprise, Jiang’s official obituary also glosses over some things.
It kind of mentions the Tiananmen Square democracy protests,
which it calls “a severe political disturbance.”
And that Jiang “upheld and implemented” the
CCP’s “correct” decision to “take a clear stand against the turmoil.”
In other words, Jiang supported the Tiananmen Square massacre.
That’s how he became the next Party leader.
But weirdly, the obituary doesn’t mention Jiang’s crackdown against the Falun Gong
spiritual practice at all, even though Jiang personally started that campaign,
and used it to amass a lot of power.
Why not? I’ll talk about that a little later.
But speaking of power, the obituary mentions how Jiang
kept power over the military even after he officially retired as Party leader.
But it tries to spin it as a good thing, like Jiang needed to do it for the good of the country.
How selfless of him to retain control of the military.
But the final paragraphs of Jiang’s obituary aren’t about Jiang at all. They’re about how the
Chinese people must express their grief over their beloved comrade Jiang with “concrete actions.”
What concrete actions? Why, by rallying around the
Chinese Communist Party and Comrade Xi Jinping, the new core leader of the CCP.
It’s what Comrade Jiang would have wanted.
Actually, no, he spent more than a decade trying to undermine Xi Jinping.
So it’s exactly the opposite of what he wanted. But hey,
Jiang’s dead and this entire obituary is a pack of lies anyway.
The point is, reading this effusive praise of Jiang and how it connects to Xi Jinping’s rule
makes it look like both sides of the power struggle have declared a truce.
So is this it? Are Xi Jinping and the Jiang
faction burying the hatchet along with burying Jiang?
Not quite. I’ll tell you more after the break.
Welcome back.
You know, everyone in General Hostility is a villain. But
there was something about Jiang Zemin that just made him the perfect soap opera villain.
Maybe it’s his twisted backstory. Jiang’s father was an alleged Japanese collaborator
during World War II. So Jiang claimed to have been adopted by his uncle,
a communist revolutionary who died fighting the Japanese.
Jiang later went to university in Japanese occupied territory.
There were reports that he also became a Japanese collaborator in
college. But his official biography says this is when he joined the CCP.
But most shocking of all, Jiang’s first job was working for a company
founded by American investors that made Pretty Girl brand ice cream.
Which explains why Jiang never lost his taste for pretty girls.
But Jiang was also a great soap opera villain because of his unquenchable thirst for power.
Look at this guy. Even back then, he looked like Red Skull.
I told you earlier about how Jiang supported the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
That was when he was Party Secretary of Shanghai. That, plus the fact that he was able to put down
student demonstrations in Shanghai, got him appointed head of the Party later that year.
You see, Deng Xiaoping had to replace the previous leader Zhao Ziyang for opposing a violent
crackdown. Here’s Zhao trying to convince students to leave the square. He died under house arrest.
Jiang’s thirst for power also meant he needed to build up a huge faction of supporters so
he could maintain power even after he had to officially step down. Like when
he kept control of the military even after his successor Hu Jintao was supposedly in charge.
But how did he build up his army of supporters? First, with a good old
fashioned personal vendetta. Jiang hated Falun Gong. Why? Because there were too many of them.
And in a letter that Jiang wrote to Party officials,
he complained that there were even Party members and military personnel who were doing Falun Gong.
And worried that the Communist Party would become
the laughingstock of the world if they couldn’t defeat Falun Gong.
So that’s why Jiang ordered the Communist Party to “formulate a crackdown strategy,
and be fully mobilized to break and wipe out Falun Gong.”
He never did wipe out Falun Gong. Although he did torture and kill hundreds of thousands of people.
He even used his persecution of Falun Gong for profit...by killing them and selling their organs.
And he used the crackdown on Falun Gong to build a huge internal security system to cement his power.
People who joined the Falun Gong crackdown were promoted
and became loyal members of Jiang’s faction.
And that same security system was then turned on the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
And in some ways, on the whole country with China’s Zero-Covid policy.
It’s nice to know that even as CCP leaders die, their human rights atrocities live on.
Here’s the second way Jiang Zemin built up power: ill-gotten gains. Jiang ruled the Communist Party
using corruption. That’s how you got ahead in the CCP: by being corrupt and torturing people.
Party officials and their families amassed a huge amount of wealth.
A lot of it came from foreign investment in China.
And Jiang’s own family cashed in too. His son Jiang Mianhengmade
deals with Hollywood companies like DreamWorks.
He also made deals with Microsoft and Nokia. And had oversight of state-backed
investment vehicles that made a lot of money.
Jiang’s grandson Alvin Jiang went to Harvard, and then helped found private equity firm Boyu Capital
It has billions in investments in China and around the world.
All this corrupt wealth is why Chinese leader Xi Jinping could
use an anti-corruption campaign to take down members of Jiang’s faction.
But how did Jiang Zemin get away with all this? Another soap opera villain trick:
be really charming.
Ok, charming is in the eye of the beholder.
But Jiang was actually really good at elite capture,
that is convincing foreign politicians and companies to be on the CCP’s side.
He sang karaoke with California Senator Dianne Feinstein and San Francisco Mayor WIllie Brown.
He combed his hair in front of the King of Spain.
He danced with the wife of the president of France.
He visited Colonial Williamsburg and put on a tricorn hat!
Xi Jinping never puts on hats. Surely by putting on this hat,
Jiang is saying he wants China to have democracy, just like the US…eventually.
So that’s how Jiang Zemin got the US to help China get into the World Trade Organization.
Which is also how they got all that foreign money for all that CCP corruption.
Jiang’s uh, quirky, personality also led to an internet fad called Toad Worship.
Young Chinese people spread memes of Jiang and toads to make fun
of and admire Jiang’s weirdness, while also criticizing Xi Jinping.
Why? Because the internet.
And finally, like every good soap opera villain, Jiang has actually come back from the dead.
Back in 2011, there were reports that Jiang Zemin had died.
There were so many rumors flying that all references to Jiang,
which is the Chinese word for river, and even the English word “River,” were censored online.
Did Jiang actually briefly die? Or were rumors of his demise greatly exaggerated? We may never know.
But one thing’s for sure: General Hostility wouldn’t have been the same without him.
So what happens now that Jiang is actually dead? Probably.
I’ll tell you after the break.
Welcome back.
Jiang Zemin was cremated this week.
But before that, there was an official farewell
ceremony featuring Chinese Communist Party officials, like Xi Jinping.
And even former leader Hu Jintao. Guess he’s not purged after all! Probably.
I believe this is Xi Jinping doing his official “walk by
to make sure Jiang’s actually dead this time.”
Interestingly, Xi Jinping is the chair of the Jiang Zemin funeral committee.
That, plus all the effusive praise for Jiang in state-run media show that the Jiang faction is
still pretty powerful, according to China risk consultancy SinoInsider.
Both sides seem to have declared a temporary truce because of Jiang’s death.
However, SinoInsider also says the omission of Falun Gong from Jiang’s
obituary could be significant for Xi Jinping.
“The omission of the Falun Gong persecution campaign from Jiang’s
official obituary suggests that Xi has, at least for the moment,
refrained from clearly stating the CCP regime’s stance on Jiang’s political
legacy and [is] keeping the ‘Falun Gong card’ in play against the Jiang faction.”
What’s the Falun Gong card? It means Xi Jinping could use the threat of exposing
exactly what Jiang and his faction did to Falun Gong as a threat to keep them in line.
Like I said earlier, Jiang’s people built their careers on corruption and doing things like
killing people and selling their organs. Having that come out would be…unpleasant for them.
But it’s also a risk for Xi Jinping because it doesn’t make the Communist Party look good,
either. And things aren’t exactly stable for the CCP right now.
What with the protests against Zero Covid, some of which have called for Xi and the CCP to step down.
And the general wreckage of China’s economy thanks to Zero Covid as well.
Speaking of instability,
the Jiang faction could also be trying to stir that up in order to hurt Xi Jinping.
“The Jiang faction could be hoping for or looking to provoke potentially
destabilizing countrywide displays of public mourning over Jiang Zemin…which
could lead to savage crackdowns that bloody Xi Jinping’s hands and discredit his leadership.”
That’s how the Tiananmen Square protests got started back in 1989,
after Chinese official Hu Yaobang died.
There were also protests in 1976 after Zhou Enlai died.
As of this recording, there haven’t been big protests over Jiang’s death.
But that doesn’t mean Jiang’s faction is giving up. They could also try to
turn the Zero Covid white paper protests into protests against Xi Jinping, but not the CCP.
Jiang’s faction is basically trying to pull a Weekend at Bernie’s with his death,
to be able to use it to their advantage.
Well, Weekend at Bernie’s metaphorically speaking, since Jiang was cremated.
Hey, at least we know that Jiang won’t come back as some kind of CCP zombie. Probably.
Or…what if this is actually Jiang’s not-evil twin,
and Jiang’s still out there plotting against Xi Jinping after having faked his own death?
Look, it’s General Hostility, it could happen.
You know what else could happen?
After this truce is over, Xi could decide to go after Jiang’s number two guy: Zeng Qinghong .
Zeng Qinghong has been close to Jiang since the ‘90s.
Here he is on the right during Jiang’s 1997 trip to the US.
Given that there’s been rumors since this summer that Jiang was dying,
it’s possible Zeng has been calling the shots in the Jiang faction for a while.
He’s 83 now and officially retired, but you can never retire from a power struggle.
There have been rumors that Xi agreed to leave Zeng alone while Jiang was still alive,
so that no longer applies now. If Xi Jinping does decide to go after him,
we should see some indications of that in the next few weeks.
So don’t worry, loyal viewers of the people’s favorite communist soap opera.
As long as there’s the CCP, there will always be…General Hostility.
And now it’s time for me to answer a question from a fan of the show who supports China
Uncensored on the crowdfunding website Patreon, or the exclusive social media platform Locals.
Nick Allen 1 asks on Locals: Now that Jiang Zemin is gone,
is there no one in the CCP who can challenge Xi? Is the timing of Jiang's passing suspicious?
Well Nick, Jiang Zemin may be gone, but his faction lives on. And it looks like they are
still strong enough to challenge Xi Jinping, or at least cause a lot of problems for him.
There are also other members of the Party who don’t belong to Jiang’s faction but who
could be upset at Xi Jinping for other reasons, so he’s not all-powerful yet.
The timing of Jiang’s death isn’t suspicious, but it is kind of awkward for Xi Jinping,
given that it happened right after the nationwide white paper protests.
We’re talking the kind of protests that haven’t happened in China since Tiananmen. Jiang’s death
could be one reason the Chinese Communist Party seems to be backing down on the Zero Covid policy.
They don’t want any excuse for more protests right now.
Thanks for your question, Nick Allen 1, and for supporting China Uncensored on Locals.
And if you’re not a supporter already, join us on Locals. For a small monthly contribution,
you can chat directly with me, Matt, and Shelley,
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Once again I’m Chris Chappell, thanks for watching China Uncensored.