Former leader Hu Jintao is removed from the Party Congress.
Is he being purged?
General Hostility is getting really hostile.
Welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Incogni.
You probably know that companies are collecting your personal data.
But you may not realize just how many.
Dozens, maybe hundreds—most of which you’ve never heard of.
And you have no idea what they’re doing with it.
Incogni helps stop them.
I’ll explain more at the end.
But first, you’re here just in time.
The people’s favorite communist soap opera is about to start.
Previously, on General Hostility: Hu Jintao.
Who?
Yes, Hu.
The forgotten CCP leader.
Head of the Communist Youth League faction.
Hu was allied with Xi against Toad King Jiang Zemin.
But just as Xi was about to grab his ultimate victory, Hu was suddenly hustled out of the
Party Congress.
Did Xi betray Hu?
Is this a warning to all to fear Xi Jinping?
Or is there danger ahead for the presitator?
Find out on this week’s episode of General Hostility.
I need way more popcorn for this.
It’s all anyone can talk about.
Last Saturday, Former Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao was physically removed
from the 20th Party Congress.
And it was all captured on camera by foreign media who had just been let into the venue.
Because everything the Chinese Communist Party does at these meetings is so scripted, Hu
Jintao being removed was like the CCP equivalent of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars.
Everyone wanted to know what the hell just happened.
People analyzed and reanalyzed the footage.
It caused “a stir.”
And no wonder.
These Party Congresses are usually so boring, the most exciting thing to watch is former
Chinese leader Jiang Zemin fall asleep.
Blow his nose.
And stare inappropriately at the tea girls.
And Jiang wasn’t even at the Party Congress this year!
But don’t worry, because General Hostility really delivered anyway.
But what really happened here?
Did Chinese leader Xi Jinping actually purge former leader Hu Jintao?
Let’s take a look at the replay.
This is the video most people have seen.
Hu Jintao is sitting next to Xi Jinping, when a staff member tries to lift him up out of
the chair.
Hu appears to resist.
He tries to grab a piece of paper on a red folder.
Looks like it’s Xi Jinping’s paper.
Xi stops him.
Li Zhanshu, the man sitting next to Hu Jintao, gives the staff member another red folder.
The staff member shows Hu the folder, says something, and manages to get him up.
But Hu refuses to walk away.
The staff member and another official try to get Hu to move, he resists.
Li Zhanshu tries to stand up to help, the guy next to him, Wang Huning, stops him.
Hu Jintao tries to grab some of the papers in the folder, the staff member stops him
and keeps gesturing for Hu to walk towards the door.
Of course, we can’t hear what they’re saying.
Hu finally starts to move, but he stops behind Xi Jinping, touches him on the shoulder, and
says something.
Xi nods.
Then Hu claps Li Keqiang on the shoulder, who also nods.
Hu is then quickly escorted out.
Most of the people in front of him ignore him as he passes.
The official explanation from Xinhua news agency is that Hu Jintao had been “recuperating”
from something, but insisted on attending the Party Congress anyway.
Then when he wasn’t feeling well, his staff took him to another room to rest.
But a lot of people aren’t buying that.
This video is like a CCP Rorschach test.
Some people see Xi Jinping ruthlessly purging his predecessor, sitting there ice cold as
Hu makes a final desperate appeal to Xi.
Others see a man who clearly has dementia.
It’s like everyone’s turned into one of those body language experts who talks about
the British Royals.
One of the arguments that this was a purge and not a health issue is that no one looked
at or helped Hu Jintao as he left.
To which I say, have you met the CCP?
Some believe that Xi Jinping was publicly purging Hu Jintao, or somehow using Hu as
a power play to indicate that Xi’s in charge now.
I know, it’s like an Abbott and Costello sketch.
Who’s in charge?
Xi’s in charge!
Hu?
No, Xi, that’s who.
That’s Hu?
No, that’s Xi.
Ok, that’s enough.
But to believe that Xi was deliberately planning to purge and/or humiliate Hu in front of the
world, you’d have to think that Xi has gone full mad emperor.
Sorry, I mean full mad emperor.
That he’s out to purge everyone, and willing to double cross Hu Jintao even if it benefits
his enemies in the Jiang Zemin faction.
That doesn’t really track with how Xi has handled the power struggle so far.
Meanwhile, there are some reasons a health issue could make sense.
Hu Jintao has been visibly not in good health for years.
Even back in 2015, there were rumors he had Parkinson’s disease.
Here he is back in 2019 during the 70th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule over
China.
And last year during the CCP’s 100th anniversary.
Both times he’s got that same bodyguard guy near him, as if he might need help.
He’s the only one who walks out with an escort.
And during the opening of this year’s Party Congress, Hu also had to be escorted to his
seat.
At one point, Xi Jinping gives him a hand to sit down.
So it’s possible it has something to do with his health.
But there could be more to it than that.
I’ll tell you more after the break.
Welcome back.
Hu Jintao does not seem in good health.
But people are speculating that there’s more to his sudden exit from the Party Congress.
Another video shows what happened shortly before Hu was escorted out.
It shows Li Zhanshu, the official sitting next to him, taking a piece of paper from
Hu and placing it under a red folder.
Hu touches the red folder, and then Li moves it away.
Meanwhile, another official behind him walks over to talk to Xi Jinping.
He’s one of the people who later escorts Hu Jintao out of the hall.
When the camera pans back to Hu, he and Li are still going back and forth on the folder.
Then Hu’s helper comes and speaks to Xi Jinping.
Hu doesn’t have much of a reaction.
Then there’s some more back and forth with the folder.
Ok, not the most exciting video in the world.
But it does give some context to the later video that shows Hu trying to grab Xi Jinping’s
folder, and then trying to grab the papers in his own folder when the bodyguard is holding
it.
This shows two things.
One, it looks like removing Hu wasn’t a premeditated decision by Xi Jinping, since
it seems that he had to talk to the two people escorting Hu out of the hall.
Two, Hu Jintao really wanted that folder.
It could be a sign of his confused mental state.
Or it could be that he’s really concerned about something in the folder.
Some people are speculating that what Hu is concerned about is the list of the appointments
to the next 25-member Politburo and the 7-member Politburo Standing Committee.
Those are the Party officials that rank below Xi Jinping.
These are hotly contested positions.
And the Party Congress is supposed to be “voting” to approve those lists.
Every faction wants to get their own people in there.
Here’s the new Politburo Standing Committee lineup: You’ll notice that there’s no
one from Hu’s Communist Youth League faction.
Li Keqiang and Wang Yang, who were in Hu’s faction, are gone.
Could Hu be upset about this?
Maybe.
But he would have likely known this months ago, since the Communist Party doesn’t actually
“vote” on who gets these positions during the Party Congress.
Normally, this is all decided in advance based on the power struggle.
Hu would have likely known that his guys weren’t in there.
Xi and Hu have worked together in the past because they both hate Jiang Zemin.
Because Jiang has tried to take both of them out before.
So Hu might not be that upset by this.
This lineup is pretty good for Xi Jinping.
He managed to get a few of his guys in there ahead of schedule.
Like Li Qiang, the Party Secretary of Shanghai, and Cai Qi, the Party Secretary of Beijing.
Normally you have to be in the Politburo before you can get into the Standing Committee.
These guys skipped straight in.
That shows Xi is consolidating power.
Plus, Li Qiang is ranked number two, which means he’ll probably be the next Premier
of China, replacing Li Keqiang.
That’s despite the fact that he kind of botched Shanghai’s Zero Covid lockdown.
But there are still a couple of guys in there from the Jiang faction.
Now, some people will call these guys part of Xi’s faction.
But they’ve both done some stuff that indicates they could actually be secretly Jiang’s
guys.
That’s happened before.
In fact, it happened to Hu Jintao.
Two people he thought were in his faction turned out to be actually working with Jiang’s
faction.
They both got purged during Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign.
So if Hu isn’t upset about the Standing Committee, what could he be upset about?
Well, there’s something weird going on with the 25-member Politburo.
Actually, it’s usually 25 members.
But now it’s suddenly 24.
And this guy, Hu Chunhua, who was in the Politburo, isn’t there anymore.
Hu Chunhua is not related to Hu Jintao.
But he is Hu Jintao’s protege.
People call him Little Hu.
And Hu Chunhua’s demotion from the Politburo, plus the fact that the Politburo is suddenly
24 people and not 25, makes some people wonder whether this was a last-minute decision.
One that was not agreed on beforehand between Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao.
That would break the rules, but Xi has been breaking a lot of CCP rules lately.
And that could explain Hu Jintao’s concern over the red folder.
Maybe an explanation for Hu’s exit is a combination of things.
Hu Jintao was upset about something, possibly Hu Chunhua’s demotion.
Because of his ill health, he might not be able to control himself the way that other
CCP officials would.
And so Xi Jinping hustled him out of there before he made a scene.
Maybe.
In any case, it doesn’t seem like what happened with Hu Jintao was at the level of a purge.
Because Chinese state-run media showed Hu Jintao prominently at the Party Congress on
the evening news.
If Hu had really been purged, he wouldn’t be there, either.
There’s no way to know for sure what happened.
We’ll have to watch for signs like what happens with Hu Jintao and his family.
And what happens in March with Hu Chunhua . Will he get another government position?
Or will he get purged?
You know, in a way it almost doesn’t matter what caused Hu Jintao’s removal from the
Party Congress.
Now that it’s blown up so much that everyone’s talking about it, even if it wasn’t a politically
sensitive issue to begin with, it is now.
Even if it was just a health issue, it’s being interpreted by many as a power play.
And Xi Jinping is getting the blame anyway.
You know who loves this?
Jiang Zemin’s faction . Anything that makes Xi look bad is great for them.
They’ll use this to their advantage against Xi, making him look power hungry, extreme,
and like he shouldn’t be leading the CCP.
And now Xi Jinping will have to fight back even harder.
So the upshot of all of this is that the power struggle goes on.
And Hu Jintao’s removal from the Party Congress may have made the CCP even more unstable.
That’s the thing about General Hostility.
It’s a soap opera.
There are no season finales.
It just keeps getting crazier.
Are Xi Jinping’s men secretly working for his greatest enemy?
Will Jiang Zemin turn the world against Xi?
Or will he get squashed like a toad?
And will Hu finally get the red folder?
Find out next time, on General Hostility.
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
Thanks for watching China Uncensored.