Sunday, September 9, 2012
Politics in China Turning Violent?
There is online chatter that two separate car accident incidents in Beijing have hospitalized both Hu Guochang and Xi Jinping. The accidents occurred within hours of each other on the day Xi Jinping was to meet with Hillary Clinton, September 4, 2012. The first accident involved two jeeps hitting Xi Jinping's car. Hours later the more serious driving accident involved Hu Guochang. Hu Guochang headed the investigation into Bo Xilai. Why Xi Jinping would be a target is less obvious. Both men remain in the 301 army hospital five days after their accidents. The blogs make these incidents sound like attempts at punishing the establishment by army elements loyal to Bo Xilai. The articles suggest that Bo Xilai wanted to get at Hu Jintao but Hu was too well protected so he went after Xi Jinping instead. Both Xi Jinping and Hu Guochang are two of China's future seven rulers.
Pretty serious if there is something to the speculations. Once politics are allowed to involve overt violence, the rules of the Party would no longer favor intelligence and diplomacy. Cunning and brutality would be accorded higher value. This new political paradigm would distract leaders from economic matters, and it would make reform more difficult as angered officials and power centers would have the precedent of resorting to violence. It would add another layer of complexity to a government already very hard to predict.
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From Bloomberg (By Bloomberg News - Sep 11, 2012 1:07 PM CT)
ReplyDeleteSince speaking at the Party School of the Communist Party on Sept. 1, Xi canceled a Sept. 5 meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. After foreign journalists in Beijing were told the same day that Xi would meet Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt on Sept. 10, the event wasn’t included in an official agenda distributed Sept. 7. The foreign ministry said yesterday no such meeting was planned.
....
n his last public appearance, at the Party School, Xi urged cadres to “constantly absorb new knowledge” to improve their level of leadership.
“We must firmly establish the correct view of the world, power and career, and develop a broad mind and vision, noble interests, and a plain style of living, and always be the loyal public servants of the people,” Xi said, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Other Chinese leaders have continued to make public appearances. Hu attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vladivostok, Russia, over the weekend and Premier Wen Jiabao was scheduled to speak today at the World Economic Forum’s conference in the Chinese port city of Tianjin.
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ReplyDeleteA second source confirms a vehicle borne assault against Xi Jinping and Hu Guochang. The son of a general, he confirmed that the military is holding its breath as if paralyzed. He does not know where Xi Jinping is, but he says the military is close to him, and they thought of him as Hu Jintao's successor. They did.
ReplyDeleteThe details he related are that there was a two jeep attack which occurred in a parking lot, or at least not out on the open road. The two jeeps rammed his car, and they may have left Xi Jinping alive but unable to assume leadership of China. The son of the general speculated that his father believes Zhou Yongkang the mastermind likely behind the attacks. Zhou Yongkang was a supporter of Bo Xilai and one of the seven supreme leaders, he himself charged with internal security which included leading the People's Armed Police. After his units were founds protecting Bo Xilai, army units were brought into Beijing and the PAP (People's Armed Police) was removed from Zhou Yongkang's control earlier this year. Resistance was expected but did not occur, and the army's leaders thought the threat had passed. They now believe that he bided his time to force the hand of the government at the last minute to install one of his people or even himself as ruler of China.
One scenario will be that in order to maintain face the leaders will release a plausible story, when they think of one, and install two others now. Another scenario, the current one, is that neither of the assaulted men ever existed. But the China that will be, will be different from the one that would have been ten days ago if the paraded and expected leader, Xi Jinping, does not assume the throne. If the legitimate successor to Hu Jintao is overthrown and someone else takes power, how do provincial leaders feel? How do the various regional army leaders feel if they think the leader of their country was not chosen according to protocol. When the U.S. Supreme Court broke protocol by choosing a president, the U.S. largely ambled on, and a great recession later, it has almost forgotten the incident. How China might react to such tussling for control at the top is hard to guess. More easy to guess is how the leadership of Zhou Yongkang might be somewhat like that of Saddam Hussein. We should take a look at what the wikileaks out of the U.S. Embassy in 2009 have to say about him.
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ReplyDeleteA third source tonight related the assassination attempt, with the only detail different being that it was not jeeps but two trucks that sandwiched the vehicles. Logically this does make more sense; two trucks could plausibly kill anyone in most any car were they to simultaneously ram it from each side. It was also said that Hu Guochang has not yet awakened but remains in a coma.
ReplyDeleteOnline birds disagree, stating that jeeps were used against Xi Jinping while one or more trucks was/were used against Hu Guochang. Hence the tactic may have been to make sure Hu Guochang would be hurt more.