SinoInsight 1
Coronavirus lockdowns in China have led to humanitarian issues in at least one northeastern city, Tonghua in Jilin Province. Tonghua authorities instituted a draconian lockdown in the city of over 2 million people, and sealed residents in a district of over 360,000 in their homes. The authorities then failed to fulfil promises of food deliveries to sealed-in residents, sparking a huge uproar on Chinese social media.
A brief timeline of events follows:
Jan. 18
Starting 11:00 p.m., Tonghua authorities placed the city under complete lockdown to deal with the recent wave of COVID outbreaks.
Jan. 20
Dongchang District in Tonghua’s city center was designated a “high-risk area” at 1:00 a.m. Tonghua authorities announced that Dongchang residents would be sealed in their homes starting 10:00 p.m. on Jan. 21 and forbidden from leaving. The authorities also encouraged residents to report on rule breakers with a “one-time reward of 5,000 yuan.”
Jan. 21
Tonghua authorities began building centralized quarantine shelters to house coronavirus patients in its port area. According to mainland media reports, the authorities plan to complete 1,186 shelters by Jan. 27.
Jan. 22
Tonghua authorities sealed Dongchang residents in their homes, promised to make food deliveries, and said that residents would be notified when they will be allowed out.
Dongchang residents took to social media to air their grievances, noting that the authorities went from restricting their movement to within the district to sealing them in their apartments very rapidly, giving them almost no chance to stock up on food and necessities. According to one social media post, “We listened to the government and didn’t stock up on food. As a result, we’re sealed in without food for the family or milk powder for the kids.”
Jan. 24
Tonghua residents swarmed to Weibo and other social media sites to broadcast their plight. Residents report food and medicine shortages, rising grocery prices, and poor support from the local authorities. Some even reported an uptick in suicides as residents struggled to cope with the sudden and harsh lockdown.
The outpouring of criticism forced the Tonghua government to issue an apology. Jiang Haiyan, Tonghua’s deputy mayor, held a press conference to “sincerely apologize on behalf of the government for not being able to deliver daily necessities in time for our citizens and for causing inconvenience to everyone’s lives.” She added that 800 volunteers had been tasked to do food deliveries. Later that evening, the Tonghua government announced that it would deliver bags containing enough groceries for five days to residents, and sell those bags for half price. However, netizens later posted photos showing that the bags did not contain what the government stated they would, and was not worth the reduced price.
Jan. 25
During a press conference, Tonghua’s Epidemic Prevention and Control Department announced that all its employees would undergo a third round of nucleic acid testing.
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According to various mainland media reports, the current coronavirus wave has hit at least 20 provinces and cities across China. Lockdowns or partial lockdowns have been imposed in Shanghai, Beijing, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Hubei, Tianjin, Guangxi, Zhejiang, Anhui, Guizhou, Xinjiang, Hebei, and Sichuan. “Super spreaders” were discovered in Liaoning Province, while a new variant of the virus emerged in Guangdong. Also, “indigenous coronavirus variants of unknown origins” have been found in Shanghai and Yunnan’s Panlong District.
A recent case involving a senior CCP official suddenly taking ill has also drawn speculation as to whether it had to do with the coronavirus. On Jan. 26, Inner Mongolia chairwoman Bu Xiaolin was delivering a government work report during the province’s 13th People’s Congress when she stopped mid-sentence and fainted. Officials who were on stage with her immediately stood up and she was carried off by about half a dozen people. The incident was caught on Inner Mongolia’s local state broadcaster, and Chinese internet chatter later revealed many suspected that Bu Xiaolin had come down with COVID-19.
OUR TAKE
1. In our China 2021 Outlook, we warned that China could see “humanitarian crises stemming from food shortages and epidemics” this year. The lockdown of Tonghua City has produced a mini-humanitarian crisis, and we expect more of such incidents to surface in other parts of China given the CCP’s characteristic heavy-handedness in resolving crises.
At the time of writing, the Inner Mongolia government has yet to confirm if Bu Xiaolin has indeed contracted COVID, or is suffering from some other illness. This is to be expected as the CCP is very opaque on matters concerning the health status of its senior leaders. The spread of the coronavirus in the Party’s elite ranks is not to be casually dismissed. Per our annual outlook, “High-ranking CCP officials could be incapacitated by or succumb to the novel coronavirus or other contagious diseases. This will upset the balance of the CCP factional struggle.”
2. We wrote that the coronavirus situation “could worsen in China” but the CCP will “seek to cover up the truth and blame other countries for the epidemic situation on the mainland.” When the CCP “finally admits that the crisis is serious, the epidemic will likely be beyond its control.”
Recently newspapers have been talking up China’s “economy recovery” and how the CCP “beat the virus.” However, businesses, investors, and governments must go beyond the headlines and recognize the duplicitous nature of the Chinese communist regime to sidestep risks and find new opportunities.
SinoInsight 2
Over a dozen officials from 14 provinces and autonomous regions in the PRC’s political and legal affairs apparatus and anti-corruption apparatus were either reshuffled or purged since the start of the year.
Anti-corruption apparatus
Jan. 22 – Jan. 24
During the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the CCDI added two new deputy secretaries and Standing Committee members—Yu Hongqiu (61), deputy Party Secretary and board director of the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, and Fu Kui (59), director of the Hunan Supervisory Commission.
Jan. 26
Shi Kehui (60), Party Secretary of the Guangdong Commission for Discipline Inspection and director of Guangdong Supervisory Commission, was appointed leader of the Disciplinary Inspection and Supervisory Group of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office Discipline Inspection Commission, as well as a member of the HKMAO Party Group.
Political and legal affairs apparatus
Jan. 18
Xia Keqin (age 55), vice president of the Jiangxi High Court, was transferred to Tibet to serve as deputy chief and acting chief prosecutor of the Tibet Procuratorate.
Jan. 19
Chen Mingguo (55), president of the Qinghai High Court, was transferred to the Xinjiang Autonomous Region to replace Wang Mingshan (57) as director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau. Wang was promoted to Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Political and Legal Affairs Commission and member of the Xinjiang provincial Party Committee.
Jan. 19
Mao Zhonghua (56), deputy Party Secretary and vice president of the Jiangsu High Court, was transferred to Guangxi to serve as Party Secretary of the Guangxi Procuratorate and member of the member of the Guangxi Political and Legal Affairs Commission.
Jan. 22
Huang Mingyao (56), vice president of the Chongqing High Court, transferred to Hebei to serve as Party Secretary of the Hebei High Court and member of the Hebei Political and Legal Affairs Commission. Huang is also slated to replace the retired Wei Yanming as president of the Hebei High Court.
Jan. 25
Li Yongli (56), vice president and acting president of the Chongqing High Court, was appointed president of the Chongqing High Court.
Zheng Qing (55), executive deputy procurator of the Hubei Procuratorate (bureau level position), was transferred to Liaoning to serve as vice president and acting president of the Liaoning High Court.
Mao Zhonghua (56), vice president of the Jiangsu High Court, was transferred to Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to serve as procurator-general of the Guangxi Procuratorate.
Jan. 27
Zhu Yapin (55), procurator-general of the Tibet Autonomous Region, was appointed procurator-general of the Beijing Municipal Procuratorate.
Jing Dali (63), former procurator-general of the Beijing Municipal Procuratorate, retired.
Purged
Jan. 15
Chen Xiaoya (58), a member and secretary-general of the Sanya Municipal Party Committee, and the Party Secretary of the Sanya Political and Legal Affairs Commission, was investigated.
Huang Xuejun (64), the former deputy head of the Hubei Party Committee’s Fourth Inspection Group who retired in June 2017, was investigated.
Jan. 17
Chen Wenmin (65), the former deputy Party Secretary of the Guangdong Political and Legal Affairs Commission and the former director of the Guangdong Stability Maintenance Office for nearly eight years until his retirement in June 2017, was investigated.
Jan. 25
Li Wenxi (71), the former deputy director and director of the Liaoning Public Security Bureau for 11 years, was investigated.
Concurrently, Party and state propaganda outlets have been publishing op-eds and releasing documentaries focused on exposing official corruption and the need to maintain Party discipline.
OUR TAKE
1. The recent personnel changes and purges are in line with the direction laid out in Xi Jinping’s recent speech to the Fifth Plenum of the 19th CCDI on “strictly governing the Party in a comprehensive manner.”
As we wrote in previous newsletters, Xi is reshuffling and cleaning out the political and legal affairs apparatus, long a Jiang Zemin faction stronghold, to consolidate his control over the regime ahead of the 20th Party Congress in 2022, where he is expected to push for a norm-breaking third term in office. Long time SinoInsider readers may recall our post-19th Party Congress assessment that Xi will step up anti-corruption efforts, “particularly in the financial sector and the domestic security apparatus.” Recent personnel movement in the anti-corruption apparatus is also geared towards securing Xi’s power consolidation objective.
2. From the personnel changes listed above, Xi has promoted a group of judges, procurators, and public security officials in their mid-50s to senior political and legal affairs positions in the provinces. These officials were mostly middle or junior ranking officials during the Jiang faction’s era of dominance (1997 to 2012), and have no direct political relations with Jiang faction officials currently holding top posts in the political and legal affairs apparatus (such as Guo Shengkun and Zhou Qiang). In other words, the personnel changes are designed to strengthen Xi’s position and weaken the Jiang faction in the CCP factional struggle.
Meanwhile, the purged political and legal affairs officials are either close to retirement age or have retired, and their tenures in senior positions coincide with the period where the Jiang faction held sway over the political and legal affairs apparatus and prioritized “stability maintenance.”
Li Wenxi, the former Liaoning Public Security Bureau director, had a career that marks him as a Jiang faction associate or member. Before becoming a deputy chairman of the Liaoning Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in March 2011, Li spent most of his career in the Liaoning public security apparatus. Li’s enjoyed a meteoric rise up the ranks—from director of a prefecture-level city’s public security bureau to director of the provincial public security bureau in less than two and a half years (2000 to 2002)—after Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, a common career trait of political and legal affairs officials who played a very active role in the persecution campaign to build political capital during the Jiang faction’s era of dominance.
Chen Wenmin’s career in the Guangdong political and legal affairs apparatus also marks him as a Jiang faction associate, if not a bona fide member. Chen’s rise to high office in Guangdong coincided with key Jiang faction member Zhou Yongkang’s tenure as security czar and Zhou’s vigorous implementation of “stability maintenance” policies. Like Li Wenxi, Chen Wenmin enjoyed rapid promotion, rising from a prefecture-level city’s political and legal affairs official to deputy secretary-general of the Guangdong Political and Legal Affairs Commission and director of the Guangdong Stability Maintenance Office in about two years. In May 2013, he was promoted to deputy Party Secretary of the provincial Political and Legal Affairs Commission, a position he held until his retirement.
Prior to the Xi Jinping era, the investigation of Chen Wenmin and Li Wenxi would have been considered unusual, because the CCP rarely pursued retired officials over corruption matters. However, Xi’s anti-corruption campaign has snared many retired officials since its inception; many of those who were purged are linked with the Jiang faction.
3. The careers of the newly appointed senior anti-corruption personnel mark them as part of the Xi camp.
a) Yu Hongqiu, one of the new CCDI deputy secretaries, began her career in the All-China Federation of Trade Unions in Beijing before being “parachuted” to the provinces to gain experience in October 2010. Yu started out as deputy Party Secretary of the Guizhou Municipal Party Committee, and became a member of the Guizhou Provincial Party Committee and provincial propaganda chief by April 2012. At the time, Xi ally Li Zhanshu was Guizhou Party Secretary. After Xi took office at the 18th Party Congress, Yu Hongqiu served in a number of senior departmental and provincial positions, including posts in the anti-corruption and political and legal affairs apparatuses, before assuming his current office.
Yu’s factional alignment is not obvious. Her career trajectory before 2012 suggests that the then Jiang faction-dominated CCP was grooming her for high office. However, Yu was also colleagues with Li Zhanshu in Guizhou, and her rise up the ranks during Xi’s tenure indicates that Xi trusts her enough to “join” the Xi camp.
b) Fu Kui, the other new CCDI deputy secretary, spent the bulk of career in the anti-corruption apparatus. In January 2014, he was promoted from deputy secretary-general of the CCDI and deputy director of the national bureau of corruption prevention in the CCDI to director of the CCDI corruption prevention office. In July 2015, Fu was “parachuted” into Hunan to serve as head of the provincial discipline inspection commission, and later jointly served as head of the new Hunan Supervisory Commission in January 2018.
Like Yu Hongqiu, Fu’s factional alignment is not obvious from his career. However, the anti-corruption apparatus was marginalized during the Jiang era, where corruption (“以貪治國”) and “making a fortune while keeping a low profile” (“悶聲發大財”) were the norms; officials above the deputy ministerial position were very rarely investigated and punished. Thus, Fu Kui’s career background makes him “safe” enough for Xi Jinping to elevate to higher positions as the latter strives to grow his own factional support base to consolidate power.
c) Shi Kehui, the new leader of the HKMAO Disciplinary Inspection and Supervisory Group, spent the early part of his career in the Zhejiang provincial government when Xi Jinping was Zhejiang Party Secretary. After Xi left Zhejiang, Shi climbed steadily up the official ranks in the province.
Shi’s career trajectory post-18th Party Congress marks him as part of the Xi camp. In May 2013, he was promoted to deputy secretary-general of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee (bureau level). In 2014, he was posted to the CCDI in Beijing (a promotion), and later served as deputy secretary-general and director of the CCDI General Office. In 2016, Shi advanced in rank to the deputy ministerial level, and in 2017, he was “parachuted” to Guangdong Province to serve as Party Secretary of the provincial discipline inspection commission. After the 19th Party Congress in 2017, Shi was named director of the Guangdong Supervisory Commission.
We believe that Shi Kehui was posted to HKMAO because Xi felt a need to strengthen his control over the Hong Kong and Macao affairs apparatus, which has also long been under the sway of the Jiang faction. Shi’s HKMAO posting also sets him up for an eventual transfer back to the CCDI in Beijing to serve in a higher position.
4. Those in the Xi camp currently dominate senior ranks of the CCDI.
There are currently eight CCDI deputy secretaries, including Yu Hongqiu and Fu Kui. By the time of the 20th Party Congress, five of the eight deputy secretaries (not including Yu and Fu) would have reached retirement age, including Yang Xiaodu, a current Politburo member and director of the National Supervisory Commission. However, Yang, a Xi ally, can technically serve for another term if needed because it is the norm for deputy national level officials to step down if they are 70 years old before beginning a new term.
Another Xi camp official who is not scheduled to step down at the 20th Party Congress is Xiao Pei (age 60). Xiao worked in the propaganda apparatus of the Beijing municipal government in his early years, and later served under Xi’s top ally Wang Qishan in the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee (Xiao was the Olympics Committee’s publicity head). Xiao’s connection with Wang is likely a reason why he was later appointed head of the CCDI’s propaganda department in March 2014, and later advanced in rank to the deputy ministerial level the following month. Three years later, Xiao Pei was promoted to the ministerial rank and made an inspection commissioner of a Central Inspection Group. By October 2017, Xiao had risen to his current position of CCDI deputy secretary.
Xi is undoubtedly bolstering the CCDI’s senior ranks in preparation to purge factional elements in the Party before the 20th Party Congress in 2022.
