Posted on 02/13/2022 8:47:56 PM PST by SeekAndFind
An article criticizing Chinese leader Xi Jinping was allowed to go viral in mainland China, reflecting the intense struggle among different factions in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its impact on Xi’s ruling.
China experts have said that Xi might not secure a third term, which will be revealed at the rubber-stamp legislature’s 20th conference in this fall, although Xi amended the constitution successfully in 2018 to remove term limitations.
“The 40,000 words long article listed mistakes that Xi Jinping has made in politics, economy, and diplomacy. It’s a summary of Xi’s ruling over the past nine years,” Li Hengqing, a China expert at the Washington Institute for Information and Strategy, told the Chinese-language Epoch Times on Feb. 8.
“After 2018, we all said that there’s no force to stop Xi from taking a third term. Now, we can see that the situation isn’t simple, and it’s unclear whether he can obtain it,” Li added.
He emphasized: “The article circulated broadly inside and outside of China. Even several friends from mainland China forwarded it to me [in the past days]. … It shows that the CCP factions against Xi are fighting to stop Xi from continuing in office.”
Xi became Chinese leader in November 2012 at the rubber-stamp legislature’s 18th conference, and won his second term in October 2017 at the 19th conference. The previous Chinese constitution ruled that each leader could only take two terms, which would have seen Xi retire in 2022. The amendment of the constitution paved the road to allow Xi to rule the country beyond the two terms—if he can secure support from the rest of the party leadership.
On Jan. 19, an author under the pen name “Ark and China” published the article “Evaluate Xi Jinping Objectively” on overseas Chinese blogs. Since the Chinese New Year on Feb. 1, the commentary of Xi’s leadership became viral among readers inside China.
Taiwan’s state-run Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Feb. 9 that people in China had spread the article widely although the Chinese regime banned and censored the piece.
The commentary reviewed Xi’s performance over the past decade in the anti-corruption campaign, the party’s ongoing eradication of independent religion and beliefs, human rights abuses, its tight surveillance and control of the people, enhancement of propaganda, further revision of children’s textbooks and history books, the strengthening of state-run enterprises and suppression of the private sector, fighting with the Western world, and winning over developing countries by squandering the national treasury.
Its author opined that they don’t believe Xi has the capability to rule the country, and has angered both CCP officials who supported him and opposed him when he took office. Meanwhile, the Chinese people’s benefits and interests being encroached upon under Xi’s administrations, but their voices can’t be heard due to the regime’s censorship.
“At present, it’s difficult for him (Xi) to continue his ruling. The year 2022 will be his biggest turning point,” the author wrote. “Even if he miraculously secures another term, he will face more difficulties and complete failure before 2027.”
The author then went on to list three factors that could cause the collapse of Xi’s ruling alongside a predicted worsening of the political situation; the achievements claimed by the Xi regime are fabricated, the political foundation of Xi’s administration has been destroyed, and “the entire CCP bureaucracy” is opposed to Xi and his handful of supporters.
“Don’t treat the CCP as a political party! It’s actually a political gang. Like the former head of the Soviet Union Vladimir Lenin said, the communist party grows by fighting internally and cleaning (killing) its members,” Cai Xia, a former professor of political ideology at the CCP’s Central Party School, wrote in an opinion piece on Feb. 6 that was published on U.S.-based Chinese media YiBao.
Cai pointed out: “All CCP officials clearly know the cruel and bloody of the factions fighting. All senior officials understand the hidden rule, which is to choose the faction and fight for the faction without thinking about what’s right or wrong.”
Li told The Epoch Times that the forces in the Chinese regime which are against Xi are gathering together now. “They are using all their resources and solutions to block Xi from taking the next term,” he said.
“The [viral] article is echoing the opinion of Chinese politicians. It stands on the point of maintaining the CCPs’s ruling in China but removing Xi Jinping,” Chen Weijian, New Zealand-based Chinese dissident and editor of online magazine Beijing Spring, told the Chinese-language Epoch Times on Feb. 8.
“At the Sixth Plenary Session of the rubber-stamp legislature’s 19th conference, the CCP factions presented their severe disagreements [on regime policies]. [The long article] is the latest bomb that the anti-Xi’s faction has detonated amid the factional fighting,” Gao Wenqian, former official biographer of the CCP’s first premier Zhou Enlai told VOA on Feb. 8.
Gao said that the CCP’s rigid dictatorship is growing increasingly fragile, and may break at any time.
Cai listed the crises the regime in Beijing is facing across China now, which include more white- and blue-collar unemployment, the financial crisis facing China’s largest real estate predators, the regime collecting more tax and fees from people who can’t earn a living and unprofitable enterprises, extreme COVID-19 policies that further damage the economy and threaten peoples’ lives, and young Chinese who refuse to have children even after marriage.
“This is a strong article that can drive public opinion against Xi,” Cai wrote.
More likely is anyone caught reading the article will be tossed into a prison camp. Mao did something similar when he allowed people to criticize and then knowing who the outspoken critics were he had them rounded up and mostly exterminated.
Xi is militant, he's been saber rattling around the Pacific, building up the Chinese military, obviously working on bio-weapons (one of which we already got hit with, perhaps inadvertently), and aggressively crushing dissent in Chinese territories. He's bad news but I can imagine a worse sort being the boss over there. Sometimes the enemy of your enemy isn't your friend, he is just another of your enemies.
I’ve been familiar with the Epoch Times for a lot longer than people have been linking to it here. They started giving it away free in San Francisco probably a dozen years ago, maybe more.
It was pretty obvious after reading it four or five times who was behind it, because in addition to general news it always had an article here or there about Falun Gong and how loveable they were and how picked on they were. And how they TOTALLY, TOTALLY, weren’t any kind of organized group, perish the thought.
Also the Epoch Times advertised that Chinese cultural show, Shen Yung or whatever it was, with a special glossy insert, leading me to surmise that the show was also a Falun Gong vehicle, which it was.
The overall effect reminded me of how the Moonies had all these front groups who would present themselves as independent, but they would all “coincidentally” show an affinity to Reverend Moon. Usually by giving him an award which he would so humbly accept.
BTW, I know someone who is a Moonie, and through them I actually saw Reverend Moon once, ate his chicken dinner, and EVEN drank the grape juice, although I had Jim Jones in mind as I was doing it.
Anyway I’m no fan of the Moonies, but don’t consider them to be the worst characters out there, and have even less problem with the Falun Gong people except to the extent they sort sort of disguise who they are.
But the Epoch Times, which used to routinely publish stories of how many million Chinese had resigned from the Party each week, greatly exaggerates the weakness of the regime. If so many were quitting as the Epoch Times would have you believe, every member of the party would have quit three times by now.
In this regard they reminds me also of Gordon Chang, who used to be on the John Batchelor show, which I loved to listen to because he had the most erudite tone and portentious music, but none of the stuff he reported on ever panned out, PARTICULARLY what Gordon Chang said, about how the regime was tottering on its last legs. I don’t buy it.
Term? The chairman of the CCP doesn’t stand for elections.
Term? The chairman of the CCP doesn’t stand for elections.
“Anti-Xi Article Goes Viral, May Derail Xi Jinping’s Plans for Third Term”
I’ll believe it when I see it.
[More likely is anyone caught reading the article will be tossed into a prison camp. Mao did something similar when he allowed people to criticize and then knowing who the outspoken critics were he had them rounded up and mostly exterminated.]
Despite the Moonie association, the WAshington Times remains an above average newspaper, and a useful source of good material.
Frankly, “Falun Gong” or not, their billboards in Phoenix advertise “Shen Yung” as “China BEFORE Communism”. This is a message worth spreading, as the Chinese had a very developed culture and civilization, and Communism has only worked to tear it down. Same with Russia.
When Francis Xavier went to China, he was impressed with their achievements, and implored Rome to build within their civilization, unlike say, the Aztecs, who were bloodthirsty savages (calendars notwithstanding) and had to be completely eradicated.
I know little of Falun Gong. I doubt Falun Ging will EVER tell Chinese women how many children they can have, or seek hegemony over the entire pacific rim and economic dominance of the entire world. I doubt they will try to convert westerners to Falun Gong in any serious way. It might be a hip fad among some folks like the Yogi Mahesh (TM) or Buddhism have been, but never a mass movement among westerners.
If they are an enemy, they don’t have the malice or international allies the Chicoms have. I’ll take them.
Oh yeah. I know a Chinese expat who was in line for a ministry post and he declined and left China. He said that being a deputy (something, I forget) was attractive because of the privileges until he learned that the privileges attract ambitious people like spiders attract flies. And like spiders do with flies the job will kill its victims.
It’s one bit of nuance about China that speaks volumes about their system.
[Oh yeah. I know a Chinese expat who was in line for a ministry post and he declined and left China. He said that being a deputy (something, I forget) was attractive because of the privileges until he learned that the privileges attract ambitious people like spiders attract flies. And like spiders do with flies the job will kill its victims.
It’s one bit of nuance about China that speaks volumes about their system.]
China’s system is one of pure power politics. The “Communist” aspect is just cant, just like all of the previous versions, including the ones where the ruler was supposedly revered as a god king. It’s a hereditary aristocracy with a somewhat wider circle of blue bloods than its predecessors.
[But the Epoch Times, which used to routinely publish stories of how many million Chinese had resigned from the Party each week, greatly exaggerates the weakness of the regime.]
Hua Guofeng was Mao’s designated successor. While he took power after Mao died, his ousting by Deng Xiaoping did not end the reign of what I’ll call the Red Dynasty - a fairly exclusive group of hereditary aristocrats not far removed from the imperial aristocracies that preceded them for thousands of years.
It would not surprise me if what happened to Hua Guofeng also happened to Xi Jinping - without the Party actually collapsing. What holds back many opposed to Xi Jinping (for reasons of personal ambition, differences of opinion or personal pique) is probably the prospect of civil strife after he is ousted. After Alexander died, the Companions fought each other for power. After the First Emperor died, all-out civil war ensued. For Xi Jinping to fall, his enemies in the regime have to be legion, and hate him to the point that they are oblivious to the ructions that could follow his departure from the scene.
Kind of like all the articles over the decades that grandly assured us of the imminent collapse of the Islamo-Fascist government of Iran.
Wake me up when the totalitarian regimes of China or Iran ACTUALLY collapse.
Or when the dolts in Russia have finally had it with being serfs for literally centuries.
Think about it: Russians essentially have been serfs under one group of despots or another for a much longer period of time than the USA has been the USA.
Until then, this board should be spared the worthless prognostications of the collapse of China or Iran. Or North Korea, Venezuela, or Cuba for that matter.
I worked with a Chinese girl back in 2000 and I think I saw her get sucked into the Falun Gong as it was actually happening. I seem to remember a business trip to the Bay Area and then she started talking about what a great group they were etc. etc.
Having had a college roommate 25 years previous who had been an actual Moonie - (and the abducted by his parents and deprogrammed as the saying went) I recognized the symptoms.
But yeah having said all that be they Moonies, be they Falun Gong there are definitely worse things out there for sure as your post implies.
Funny
We will see if the author is correct or not just about the time that the Marxists Democrats lose the House in congress.
Xiao might just be foolish or shrewd enough to start a limited military action in order to call for national unity and jail his opponents or to put the whole country under unlimited martial law from a non-existent outsider threat.
Grab a lot of popcorn and soda now. It’s going to be a long summer and even longer Fall.
Your point?
Oh no! If he doesn’t get a third term, a different communist will win!
The Epoch Times, which used to routinely publish stories of how many million Chinese had resigned from the Party each week, greatly exaggerates the weakness of the regime. If so many were quitting as the Epoch Times would have you believe, every member of the party would have quit three times by now.
The Epoch Times, which used to routinely publish stories of how many million Chinese had resigned from the Party each week, greatly exaggerates the weakness of the regime. If so many were quitting as the Epoch Times would have you believe, every member of the party would have quit three times by now.
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