Xi Jinping has not appeared in public for 11 consecutive days since April 2, when he was planting trees in Beijing with six other Politburo Standing Committee members and Wang Qishan. Outside analysis says that Xi has not appeared for such a long time, which is rare. In the same period, Li Keqiang and Li Zhanshu and other people open activities.
According to public reports in the official media, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan attended the “Capital Compulsory Tree Planting Activity” in Zhangjiawan Town, Tongzhou District, Beijing on April 2.
After that, the official media did not report Xi’s public appearance again until April 13. According to the “Xi Jinping Events Page”, a mouthpiece of the Communist Party, Xi made a phone call (not a video call) with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on April 7, but only to hear his voice but not to see him in person.
But news about Xi continued to fill the front pages of the mainland’s official media during his period of invisibility. According to an op-ed in the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao, Xi’s reports in the CCP’s official media are all about his instructions for a particular meeting or task, which he did not even have to handle personally.
According to the article, Xi’s absence for 11 days in a row was either due to health problems or “important business”. During the same period, Premier Li Keqiang, NPC Chairman Li Zhanshu, CPPCC Chairman Wang Yang and Executive Vice Premier Han Zheng all had public events.
Among them, Li Keqiang chaired two executive meetings of the State Council; hosted a forum for experts and entrepreneurs on the economic situation; and attended a dialogue with U.S. business leaders.
Wang Yang hosted a fortnightly consultation forum of the Chinese Communist Party’s National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, while Li Zhanshu left Beijing to inspect the “implementation of the Law on the Prevention and Control of Solid Waste Pollution in the Environment” in Shaanxi.
Han Zheng attended the plenary session of the National Greening Committee and delivered a speech.
The analysis article pointed out that during Xi’s invisibility, the local lords did not move, so the “important business” should not be a high-level meeting. On the other hand, Vice Premier Liu He and He Lifeng, the head of the National Development and Reform Commission, who often accompany Xi on his tours, were also in Beijing at the same time to attend various public events, indicating that Xi Jinping should not leave the capital either.
And during this period, Wang Huning, executive secretary of the CPC Central Committee’s Secretariat, and Zhao Leji, secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, were also invisible along with Xi.
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