SinoInsight 1
The July 14 homepage of Xinhua.com featured several noteworthy articles:
Lead article: “Xi Jinping Tells a Story | Youyu: A 70-Year Green Relay” (习近平讲述的故事 | 右玉：绿色接力70年);
Second article in the important news stories column (leftmost on homepage): “‘Do Not Forget the Original Mission’ Topic: Learn from Problems to Rectify, Implement, and Genuinely Get Things Done” (「不忘初心 牢记使命」專題: 带着问题学 整改落实真抓实干);
Third article in the important news stories column: “‘Rewalking the Long March’ Topic: ‘Return to the Zunyi Conference,’ ‘Battle at the Four Crossings of Chishui River’” (「再走长征路」專題：《重回遵义会议现场》《四渡赤水出奇兵》)
The articles listed above are revealing of factional fighting in the CCP before elite cadres head to Beidaihe for their annual summer retreat.
OUR TAKE
1. Key messaging about factional struggles in the CCP can be discerned from the frontpages of Xinhua. We have written several pieces on decoding political messaging from official media (see here, here, here, and here).
The main articles on Xinhua’s homepage on July 14 reveal that Xi is still in the process of reasserting his political and military authority. We previously explained that Xi needs to reassert his authority to pushback against strong internal opposition to his structural reforms (see here and here).
2. We will briefly breakdown the political messaging projected in the articles we highlighted above.
The lead Xinhua article, “Xi Jinping Tells a Story | Youyu: A 70-Year Green Relay,” is a classic CCP tale of how the Party grooms model cadres. The preface, “Xi Jinping Tells a Story,” is likely aimed at making the tale more approachable to the common folk and projects the impression that the Xi leadership is responsible for everything.
The article “‘Do Not Forget the Original Mission’ Topic: Learn from Problems to Rectify, Implement, and Genuinely Get Things Done” highlights study sessions in the northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Jilin. The article attempts to show that local officials who listen to Xi’s exhortations do a good job under the guidance of his theory.
The article “‘Rewalking the Long March’ Topic: ‘Return to the Zunyi Conference,’ ‘Battle at the Four Crossings of Chishui River’” has the strongest political connotations of those we highlighted.
The Long March refers to the CCP’s famous retreat from the Jiangxi Soviet to Yan’an to escape completely annihilation by Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang troops. During the escape, the CCP leadership held a conference at Zunyi where Mao Zedong again seized authority over the military. And Chishui River was where Mao and the CCP won their first victory against the KMT since the Fifth Encirclement Campaign, a series of losing battles with the KMT which Mao did not oversee and forced the CCP to embark on the Long March. In reading between the lines of the Xinhua article, Xi Jinping is signaling that he, like Mao, has broken an encirclement by enemies, temporarily escaped danger, and is in the process of re-establishing his authority in the Party.
In May, we noted that the investigation of Xi ally Liu Shiyu suggests that Xi’s authority has been weakened. After Xi subsequently visited a Long March monument in Jiangxi, we observed that “touring revolutionary sites is a symbolic gesture which allows a Party leader to assert authority by tapping into the CCP’s revolutionary roots,” and that Xi is trying to “‘steady the ship’ before he makes a move against political rivals.”
We wrote: “Hence, by invoking the Long March, Xi is hinting that he, like Mao, faces tough internal opposition, but will eventually overcome adversity and triumph by the end of his ‘long march’ against the Jiang faction and other Party interest groups that oppose him.” We believe that Xi is again putting his political rivals on notice with the Xinhua article referencing the Long March, the Zunyi Conference, and the crossing of Chishui River.
SinoInsight 2
According to a July 11 article by the South China Morning Post, Chang Wanquan, a former member of the Central Military Commission and defense minister, was “demoted two grades to a deputy regional commander-level officer because of his close relationship with former commission vice-chairmen Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou.” On June 25, the SCMP reported that over 70 active and retired senior military officers were demoted for their connection with disgraced former chief of joint staff Fang Fenghui.
On July 3, the People’s Armed Police promoted three lieutenant generals and nine major generals. In late June, the People’s Liberation Army promoted a total of 16 lieutenant generals and 53 major generals across all four service branches (ground force, navy, air force, rocket force).
OUR TAKE
1. The SCMP reporting confirms our analysis that Xi Jinping’s control of the military is less secure than it seems and that he continues to face substantial resistance from opposing forces in the military. Thus, Xi moved to reassert his authority in the Party and military after the G20.
Corruption is endemic in the PLA. Many senior military officials bribed their way up the ranks when Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou were in charge. Xi’s military reforms and purges are undoubtedly aimed at clearing out the Jiang faction’s influence and preventing factional interest groups in the military from launching a coup.
Xi, however, cannot endlessly arrest or sack all corrupt generals without arousing fear in the ranks and provoking a coup. One way to curb the influence of senior officials with questionable loyalties is through the “soft landing” of demotion. Demotion allows questionable senior officials to retain some of their interests while they are being placed on notice indefinitely.
Finally, Xi cannot possibly throw a large number of generals in prison without turning the CCP regime into a laughing stock. In other words, Xi is being forced by circumstances to fix the factionalism problem in the military through demotions instead of arrests.
2. In our November 2017 article analyzing why Xi downsized the CMC, we noted that Xi needs time to groom a new guard of generals who would be loyal to him.
We wrote: “Xi’s senior military leadership problem might ease up at the three-year mark of his second term when new candidates become available. This is because the major generals whom Xi elevated in 2016 will be due for promotion in 2020. These major generals will likely be loyal to Xi and be more accepting of his policies than the current crop of senior generals, who were promoted during the Jiang era.”
