Recently the Chinese Communist Party has had a difficult time, and this centenary of the party’s founding can be considered quite difficult. Two days ago, the G7 plus four meeting, the communiqué after the meeting, the Chinese Communist Party has become the target, including Xinjiang, Hong Kong and other human rights issues, trade inequity and imbalance, the problem of virus information is not open and transparent, that is, the problem of virus traceability, the Taiwan Strait East China Sea South China Sea threat issues, have become the target, and even the “Belt and Road” is also targeted Even “One Belt, One Road” has been targeted. This is diplomacy. There have been a lot of internal affairs, the most notable being the many vendettas within mainland society, especially involving Fudan University, China’s highest academic institution, where the party secretary had his throat slit by a professor. There have been other epidemics, floods and economic problems.
But of all these problems, the most concerning is the rumors of defections of senior officials.
The defection of senior officials is far more destructive to the dictatorship than any other issue. The turning point in Mao’s power, which reached its peak in the early 1970s, was the defection of Lin Biao. Although Lin Biao did not escape and died after his plane fell in Inner Mongolia, Mao’s position in the Party has since taken a sharp turn for the worse. For example, some time ago, I read an article by Du Guozheng, the former director of the State Press and Publication Administration, who was the director of the Xinhua Branch in Guangdong during the late Cultural Revolution and actually discussed with Guangdong leaders such as Wei Guoqing about raising an army against Mao in Guangdong. I used to know that many party officials and young people started to resent and even hate Mao in the 1970s, but I didn’t know that there were already people preparing for a mutiny.
In fact, all communist dictatorships have at one time or another had senior officials defecting. The most famous, such as Trotsky of the Soviet Union, who was once the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Red Army, then ran away and was finally axed to death in Mexico by agents under Stalin. North Korea and Vietnam, for example, both had politburo-level officials who escaped, mainly to China. This is the kind of thing that hits very hard within the authoritarian system, especially within the party.
So, this time, there is news on the Internet that one of the highest-ranking officials in the history of the CCP has defected.
Let’s count the highest ranking defected officials in the history of the CCP.
Of course, the highest ranking person must be Lin Biao. The company’s main business is to promote the development of the company’s products and services.
However, there are many doubts about Lin Biao’s defection: was he on the plane? Did he take the initiative to run away? Or was he held hostage? There are actually many accounts of what happened, and many doubts.
Another person, perhaps, is Xu Jiatun. Xu Jiatun was formerly the secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, and later became the president of the Hong Kong Xinhua News Agency, which is actually the secretary of the Communist Party’s Hong Kong and Macau Working Committee. He was a supporter of Zhao Ziyang during the June 4 Incident, but was pressured by the purge in 1990 and ran away to the United States. Xu Jiatun is considered a provincial ministerial official, except for Lin Biao, he should have the highest rank.
The next in line is probably Yu Qiang-sheng. Yu Qiang Sheng was the director of the North American Intelligence Division of the Ministry of State Security, not a very high ranking official, but a very damaging one to the Chinese Communist Party. It is generally believed that it was Yu Qiang Sheng who did it, that is, his castigation. Jin Wuyi was a senior CIA agent, specializing in espionage activities against the CCP, and his revelation was considered a great loss to the CCP.
The second is probably Colonel Xu Junping, head of the North American Intelligence Division of the PLA’s General Staff Department, who defected to the United States in 2001. There were also two officers from the General Logistics Department, Major General Liu Liankun and Major Shao Zhengzong, both from the mid-1990s. These two did not defect, but provided information to Taiwan about the PLA, and were later broken up and shot. Both now have plaques in the National Army’s Loyalty Shrine in Taiwan.
If we go further back, before the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, there was Zhang Guotao, a member of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party and a major leader of the Red Army, who later defected and lived in Hong Kong and Canada in his later years. There was also Gong Chu, chief of staff of the CCP’s Jiangxi Red Army, who later defected and lived in Hong Kong in his later years, etc.
The defection of senior officials caused a great impact on the regime, mainly after the establishment of the regime, so Zhang Guotao and Gong Chu cannot be counted.
So, if the rumors on the Internet are true, then this person should be of a very high rank, even if we don’t count Lin Biao, who has many doubts and suspicions, shouldn’t he be of a higher rank than Xu Jiatun. However, although Xu Jiatun has been identified as a defector within the CCP, he has not been made an enemy externally, nor has he been criticized for going to the United States to “recuperate”.
If Xu Jiatun is also excluded, he would be even more powerful than Yu Qiansheng.
Yu is the brother of Yu Zhengsheng, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China. They are the princelings of the CCP. His father, Yu Qiwei, alias Huang Jing, was the first mayor of Tianjin after the establishment of the CCP.
Therefore, if the Internet rumors are true, this fugitive official would be of a higher rank than Yu Qiansheng. Yu Qiang Sheng is the former director of the North America Division of the Second Department of the Chinese Communist Party’s General Staff, which is considered a deputy military rank. So the rumored fugitive should be at least a provincial ministerial-level person.
Now the news on the Internet, some say it is Wang Qishan, some say it is Li Yuanchao, and some say it is Meng Jianzhu.
Wang Qishan, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and vice president of the country, was once in charge of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and helped Xi Jinping knock out a large number of his political enemies. Legend has it that he ran away, presumably because something happened to Dong Hong. Dong Hong was Wang Qishan’s secretary and Wang’s right-hand man, accompanying him to serve in Hainan, Guangdong and Beijing, all as secretary-general, and eventually Wang Qishan took charge of the CCDC, and Dong Hong also became the head of the CCDC inspection team. The arrest and double firing of Dong Hong is absolute proof that something is wrong with Wang Qishan, or at least with Xi, in the Communist Party.
Li Yuanchao is also the vice president of the state and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, because of his close relationship with Ling Plan, so he has been frozen after Ling Plan’s accident and retired at the age of 68 before the 19th Congress. The news about Li Yuanchao’s accident is very much in recent years, and there are rumors that he committed suicide. Li Yuanchao’s most recent appearance was at the Shanghai Import and Export Fair last year, which was also reported by Xinhua News Agency.
There is a video of Li Yuanchao on the Internet, saying that he offended many people when he was the head of the Central Organization Department, so now there are many rumors and people are unhappy with him, etc.
Meng Jianzhu, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee and secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, is also considered a big brother of the former dynasty. Recently, Meng Jianzhu’s original right-hand man who had an accident, a total of seven people. These include Vice Minister of Public Security Sun Lijun, Chongqing Public Security Bureau Director Deng Cullin, Shanghai Public Security Bureau Director Gong Daogan, Jiangsu Provincial Political and Legal Committee Secretary Wang Like, Jiangxi Provincial CPPCC Vice Chairman Xiao Yi, Shanxi Provincial Public Security Department Director Liu Xinyun, and Central 610 Office Deputy Director Peng Bo.
Among these people, except for Xiao Yi, vice chairman of the Jiangxi CPPCC, who was promoted by Meng Jianzhu in Jiangxi, all the others were powerful generals in the CCP’s political and legal system when Meng was secretary of the Political and Legal Committee.
Last year, Beijing began a purge of the political and legal system, which has not yet ended. Both secretaries of the political and legal system have had problems, and it goes without saying that the previous one, Zhou Yongkang, was succeeded by Meng Jianzhu. Xi Jinping’s unease and dissatisfaction with the political and legal system began as soon as he took office in 2012. During Xi’s first term, all the provincial political and legal secretaries of the Communist Party of China were replaced, and most of them were replaced by people who were not from the public security system. The second term began with the continued purge of the Political and Legal Committee, and the original political and legal leaders either stepped aside or were arrested and prosecuted.
In this, Meng Jianzhu’s pressure can be imagined. In fact, last summer it was rumored that Meng Jianzhu was under investigation, then it was rumored that he was seriously ill and hospitalized, and then there was no news. But until now, Meng Jianzhu in the people’s network of leading cadres is still in the introduction, but also “Comrade Meng Jianzhu”.
I’m sorry to say that we don’t know who ran away. But these few people, all have motives, all have political pressure, all have the possibility.
The escape of top officials from the Communist Party’s authoritarian system is usually related to the party purge. To be honest, it should be quite a surprise that no one has escaped from the CCP since 2012, except for Wang Lijun, a vice provincial-level defection attempt.
The reason why the escape of senior officials in a dictatorial regime is so shocking is related to the characteristics of the system. Because the authoritarian system power fixed point of the figure, need to rely on a large group of core people to support, this group of people can not be more, otherwise can not control, but too little can not control the whole country. In the Chinese Communist system, this group of people is probably in the hundreds. The loyalty of these hundreds of people actually determines whether the position of the highest power holder is secure. But in turn, this group’s own political and economic interests must be secured to a considerable degree in order to maintain the security of the entire system.
Once this group loses its security, meaning that their own political and economic interests are seriously threatened from above, which also greatly affects their loyalty to the top of the power pyramid, there will be pandemonium.
Mao’s Cultural Revolution shook up the CCP system precisely for this reason. The loyalty of those few hundred people in the inner circle of power determined how solid the authoritarian system would be.
Over the past seven or eight years, the CCP has carried out a series of power purges. It is this circle of a few hundred people, or a few hundred families, that has had the greatest impact, so the Communist regime is now in a state of extreme instability and weakness. If we add to this the economic downturn, the situation will be even worse.
This is why rumors of a senior official defecting have attracted so much attention. Next year, in 2022, the Communist Party will hold its 20th National Congress, which will determine whether the power structure of the Communist Party will change or be solidified. Many officials within the CCP are afraid of being fixed, and many have adopted a strategy of hiding their light, not talking and doing less. This has also been a feature of the CCP’s officialdom in the past few years.
Chinese officials “lie flat”, but before the people.
But like the people, this also means that there is a growing passive resistance within the CCP. It is expected that between now and the middle of next year, there will be a lot of surprises within the CCP.
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