SinoInsight 1
Sept. 1
1. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and National Supervisory Commission (NSC) announced that former head of the discipline inspection and supervision team of the Ministry of State Security Liu Yanping was expelled from the Party and removed from public office over “serious violation of discipline and law.” The anti-corruption authorities’ statement added that Liu’s case was transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution in accordance with the law.
The CCDI and NSC statement alleged that Liu had “completely transformed politically, joined Sun Lijun’s political gang, majorly engaged in exchanging political benefits, searched for political backers (投機攀附) and played power games (操弄權術).” Liu had also “wilfully trampled on law and discipline, abused the power of public security guards, turned it into tools to gain political capital and seek personal gain, and created very bad influence.”
2. The CCP anti-corruption authorities announced that Wang Bin, the former Party secretary and chairman of China Life Insurance Co., was expelled from the Party and dismissed from public office for bribery and corruption. Wang’s case had also been handed over to the procuratorate for review and prosecution.
The CCDI and NSC statement said that Wang had “refused to implement the major decisions and deployments of Party Central on preventing and defusing financial risks,” leading to the “creation and expansion of financial risks,” as well as “major financial corruption” on his part. The anti-corruption authorities further accused Wang of willingly and actively “renting” out his power for corrupt purposes, abusing public office to “grab huge private profits,” and abusing his position to help others secure loan financing, project cooperation, and other activities.
Sept. 2
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress concluded its 36th meeting in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The meeting passed a law targeting telecommunications and network fraud, revised the agricultural product quality and safety law, and announced the appointment and removal of several officials.
Personnel movement includes:
- Xiao Yaqing was removed from the post of minister of industry and information technology, and was replaced by Jin Zhuanglong.
- Huang Ming was removed as minister of emergency management, and was replaced by Wang Xiangxi.
- Zhang Chunsheng was removed as a member of the National Supervisory Commission.
- Ying Yong was appointed deputy procurator-general of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) and a member of the SPP’s procuratorial committee.
- Sun Liquan was removed as a prosecutor in the SPP.
OUR TAKE
1. The expulsion of Liu Yanping from the Party and removal from public office appears to be part of Xi Jinping’s longtime effort to “rectify” the political and legal affairs apparatus of Jiang faction forces.
Liu, 67, is a career public security official who served in prominent positions during the Jiang faction’s era of dominance and Xi’s first term. He spent his formative years in the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, eventually rising to the position of deputy director. Liu was later transferred to the security bureau of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) where he served as deputy director, political commissar, and then director. The MPS security bureau is part of the People’s Armed Police (PAP) and is responsible for providing security for senior officials at the sub-national level, various organs and work units in the CCP regime, as well as visiting foreign dignitaries.
In August 2011, Liu was promoted to an aide to the minister of public security (then Meng Jianzhu), became a member of the MPS Party Committee, and obtained the rank of major general in the PAP.
In early 2012, “security czar” Zhou Yongkang and Chongqing Party secretary Bo Xilai attempted to use PAP forces in a coup against the Hu Jintao leadership following the fallout of the “Wang Lijun incident,” according to information circulating at the time. Zhou and Bo’s attempt to mobilize the PAP for their scheme was likely a factor behind the Xi leadership’s move to decouple the MPS security bureau from the PAP during Party and state institutional reforms in March 2018 and later reorganize it into the MPS special service bureau (headed by Xi ally Wang Xiaohong) in January 2019.
Liu Yanping escaped being purged in Xi’s first term when the latter was still relatively weak and the Jiang faction was still swaying the political and legal affairs apparatus. In June 2013, Liu was promoted to public security vice minister. However, Liu would soon be moved away from his base of operations (調虎離山) in May 2015 when he was transferred to the Ministry of State Security to head its anti-corruption team (discipline committee before institutional reforms in March 2018, discipline inspection and supervision team after reforms). The Xi leadership would finally move in on Liu by announcing an official investigation in March 2022; we analyzed at the time that the probe into Liu is connected to the authorities’ investigation into the “political gangs” of Sun Lijun and Fu Zhenghua.
While the anti-corruption authorities’ claimed that Liu had “joined Sun Lijun’s political gang” in its statement about his expulsion, they also accused Liu of “searching for political backers.” These two propositions seemingly contradict each other because Liu became public security vice minister five years ahead of Sun, and it is unlikely that a more junior official could become the “political backer” of a senior official. Rather, Liu would have sought “political backing” from those above him such as Meng Jianzhu and Guo Shengkun, two Jiang faction members who were former public security ministers. And if this was indeed the case, then it follows that the head of “Sun Lijun’s political gang” is not Sun and the Xi leadership is currently using his name as a placeholder until a time (if there is one) where more senior political and legal affairs officials associated with the “political gang” are purged.
That Xi Jinping has not yet targeted the senior officials behind Liu Yanping, Sun Lijun, and Fu Zhenghua suggests that his leadership still has some ways to go in “rectifying” the political and legal affairs apparatus despite carrying out anti-corruption work for a decade. Xi could have also stayed his hand in purging bigger fish in the apparatus as part of political compromises with factional rivals to secure his 20th Party Congress objectives.
2. Details in the CCDI and NSC’s statement about the expulsion of Wang Bin from the Party and dismissal from public office hint at the consequences of “ruling the country through greed” (以貪治國) during the Jiang faction’s era of dominance and the financial sector’s resistance towards the Xi leadership. We previously gave an overview of Xi Jinping’s struggles to clean up the financial sector as he consolidated power and the pushback he received in analyzing Beijing’s push for a “unified national market.”
Wang, 64, spent his whole career in the financial sector. He started out in the banking industry, serving various positions in the People’s Bank of China and the Agricultural Development Bank of China before becoming vice president of the Bank of Communications (May 2005 to March 2012). Before Xi took office and until the early part of his second term, Wang was chairman and Party secretary of China Taiping Insurance Group (March 2012 to September 2018). After Xi launched the “rectification” of the financial sector in late 2017, Wang would be moved away from his base of operations at Taiping Insurance with his appointment as chairman and Party secretary of China Life Insurance (Sept. 2018 to Jan. 2022) before being “retreated” to the “second line” by serving as a member of the social and legal committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
Mainland financial media Caixin noted in a Feb. 27 report that complaints against Wang Bin had been continually filed after he left Taiping Insurance in Sept. 2018. Caixin added that “many clues” showed that Wang’s “problems” took place when he was vice president of the Bank of Communications and heading Taiping Insurance. In particular, there was an “unusual investment black hole” at Taiping Financial Holdings, Taiping Insurance’s investment platform in Hong Kong, when Wang was at Taiping Insurance. The Caixin report further noted that Wang Bin had “many intersections” with criminal capital operators and financial networks like Sun Liang’s “Shandong Expressway network” (山東高速系), Jing Baifu’s “Carnival network” (嘉年華系), and Zhang Wei’s “China Create network” (中科創系). Wang also reportedly had a close relationship with Lai Xiaomin, the former chairman and Party Secretary of China Huarong Asset Management who was executed in January 2021 for serious bribery and other crimes.
Wang Bin is definitely not the only financial sector official who “refused to implement the major decisions and deployments of Party Central on preventing and defusing financial risks” and engaged in “major financial corruption.” The Xi leadership likely faces an uphill battle in clearing out the lingering influence of the Jiang faction and other Party elites over the financial sector, as well as overcoming the “orders not leaving Zhongnanhai” (政令不出中南海) problem. Xi Jinping has already made several moves to wrestle control over the regime’s “money bags” (錢袋子) from his rivals (stopping Ant Group’s IPO in 2020, cracking down on Didi and other tech companies in 2021, and going after Macau cross-border gambling groups in late 2021), increase his control over the financial sector, weaken private capital’s ability to influence the regime, and derisk the economy. However, Xi’s moves to rein in capital and the financial sector are also negatively impacting the regime when they curb private sector enthusiasm, trigger serious capital outflows, and trigger some financial risks while expanding others.
3. The official appointment of Ying Yong as SPP deputy procurator-general suggests that Xi Jinping could be applying the “Wang Qishan precedent” that we mentioned in the Sept. 1 newsletter and allow another non-Central Committee member to serve as a national leader. To guarantee the appointment of Ying as procurator-general at the 2023 Two Sessions, Xi must ensure that the new National People’s Congress chairman is a reliable ally who will stop any last-minute election “mischief” from ruining Xi’s preferred personnel reshuffle.
If Xi is in a good or strong position politically at the 20th Party Congress, he would prefer to have current CCP General Office director Ding Xuexiang replace Li Zhanshu as NPC chairman and become the third-rank member of the Politburo Standing Committee. If Xi lacks the strength to break more political norms, then Li Keqiang could move to the NPC instead when Li Zhanshu retires.
SinoInsight 2
The Chinese Academy of History’s (affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) official social media account called attention to its 10,000-character long article titled, “New Explorations on the ‘Closed-door’ Policy Problem in the Ming and Qing Dynasties” (明清時期閉關鎖國問題新探) published in the June issue of its journal “History Research” (歷史研究). The article attempted to reinterpret the isolationist policies of the Ming and Qing as “self-restriction” (自主限關) to safeguard national interests and stem the tide of Western colonialism.The article said that the central governments of the Ming and Qing dynasties were faced with “unprecedented great changes in the international environment” and the “turbulent wave of Western colonialism coming from the east.” To deal with the “gradual advance of the Western colonial powers,” Chinese rulers of the Ming and Qing “adopted a series of military, economic, cultural, and other policies, mainly due to national security considerations.” Given that national interests were at stake, the isolationist policies of the Ming and Qing governments “should be seen as a means or way of fighting the enemy,” and should be “given strong positive political meaning.”
The article acknowledged that the “self-restriction” policy led to China’s “passive defense” and a “disregard of advanced Western technology,” which laid the groundwork for modern China finding itself in a “passive and beaten situation.” However, the policy also did not stop the development of China’s foreign trade and the exchange of Chinese and Western cultures during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the article argued. Therefore, the significance of the history of both dynasties to China and the world should not be rejected just because they pursued “closed-door” policies.
The article’s revisionist narrative aroused heated discussions in China. Most Chinese academics disagree with the article, while other observers accused the article of “reversing history,” “borrowing from the past to comment on the present” (借古喻今), defending Xi Jinping’s “dual circulation” policy, and even advancing U.S.-China decoupling. The article was also republished by the Chinese edition of the U.S.-China Perception Monitor, an online publication operated by China Focus of the Carter Center.
Sept. 1
Qiushi, the CCP Central Committee ideological journal, published an excerpt of a speech by Xi Jinping at the second all-hands session of the Fifth Plenum of the 19th Central Committee on Oct. 29, 2020 as an article titled, “The Implementation of the New Development Concept in the New Development Stage Will Inevitably Require the Construction of New Development Pattern” (新發展階段貫徹新發展理念必然要求構建新發展格局).
In his speech, Xi pointed out that the CCP regime is still in a period of “important strategic opportunities” at present and in the future. He said, “dangers and opportunities coexist; there is danger in opportunity and opportunity in danger.” Xi added that “opportunities are becoming more strategic and malleable,” while “challenges are becoming more complex and global in nature.” He also urged the Party to “respond well” to unprecedented challenges to get unprecedented opportunities.
Xi said that there is no “one-size-fits-all” modernization model nor a “one-size-fits-all” modernization standard in the world. Meanwhile, the modernization promoted by the CCP has “the common characteristics of modernization in all countries, and also Chinese characteristics based on national conditions.” Therefore, the Party’s so-called “construction of a new development pattern” is neither forced nor expedient, but a first move to seize the initiative in development. The “new development pattern” is also “open domestic and international dual circulation, not a closed domestic single circulation,” and is a “large domestic circulation based on the unified national market as the main body, not the localities engaging in small self-circulation.
OUR TAKE
1. The Chinese Academy of History’s revisionist take on the isolationist policies of the Ming and Qing dynasties is likely meant to both defend and promote Xi Jinping’s own “semi-isolationist” (半閉關鎖國) agenda.
The Xi leadership’s earliest and more recent attempts at “semi-isolationism” were aimed at dealing with internal problems. In early 2017, Beijing began restricting officials and civil servants from leaving the country and confiscating their passports as the Xi leadership sought to prevent corrupt officials from fleeing the country and taking their wealth with them. Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019, Beijing imposed lockdowns and strictly restricted the “non-essential exit” of Chinese citizens as part of epidemic prevention and control measures. This May, the immigration authorities announced more stringent policies for Chinese citizens entering and exiting the country. Chinese netizens have also complained about people being barred from leaving the country for reasons apart from business, work, study abroad, and immigration, as well as the authorities destroying the passports and American green cards of those who made critical remarks against the CCP. From the domestic standpoint, the Xi leadership’s “semi-isolationism” appears to be an effort in curbing the outflow of capital and people from China to prevent the regime’s various crises from worsening.
The Sino-U.S. trade war in 2018 and the heating up of tensions between the PRC and other countries as the CCP pursued “wolf warrior” diplomacy gave the Xi leadership external reasons to turn to “semi-isolationism.” To make the regime more self-sufficient in the face of foreign tariffs and when it imposes self-harming sanctions on other countries (e.g. boycotting Australian coal and other imports in 2020), Beijing introduced the “dual circulation” policy, is expanding the scale of its rural supply cooperatives, and is striving to create a “unified national market.” Concurrently, the Xi leadership is looking to “deepen reform and opening up” by further liberalizing China’s markets and attracting foreign capital to invest in areas of the regime that grow the “real” economy; this is in line with the Chinese Academy of History article’s argument that the “self-restrictive” policies of the Ming and Qing did not impede the development of China’s foreign trade and the exchange of Chinese and Western cultures.
The Xi leadership is undoubtedly aware of both foreign and domestic objections to its “semi-isolationist” policies, and at least partially intends the Chinese Academy of History’s article as a response to this criticism. The article reframed isolationism as a positive thing that is essential for safeguarding national interests amid “unprecedented great changes in the international environment,” a nod to Beijing’s warnings about “great changes in the world unseen in a century” and modern day “self-restrictions” like the “zero-COVID” policy and “dual circulation.” Meanwhile, the article’s description of the “turbulent wave of Western colonialism coming from the east” that threatened the Ming and Qing obliquely corresponds to the point in Qu Qingshan’s 12,000-character article on Xi’s “Two Establishes” about the “main contradiction” in the “great changes unseen in the world in a century” being that between the “reverse variables” represented by the West and the “positive variables” represented by the PRC.
The Chinese Academy of History’s article is not the first time that the Xi leadership has revised history to promote its political objectives. In 2021, the Xi leadership published the so-called “Four Histories” (Party History, History of New China, History of Reform and Opening-up, and History of Socialist Development) and rolled out a “historical resolution” that played up Xi’s “achievements” while downplaying those of his predecessors. In particular, Xi’s “historical resolution” sought to minimize the importance of Deng Xiaoping’s “reform and opening up” while advancing his “deepening reform and opening up” and “new leap in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context.”
Deng once criticized the Ming and Qing dynasties’ isolationism for China’s failure to keep pace with the West and backwardness in arguing for why the CCP should stick to his “reform and opening up” policy. Now the Xi leadership appears to be defending and redefining what the Ming and Qing governments did to make the case for the PRC’s increasing “semi-isolationism.” The “self-restriction” promoted in the Chinese Academy of History’s article is likely meant to justify Xi’s “semi-isolationist” policies and signal the direction of future policy.
2. Xi Jinping has been laying the groundwork to use history as a means of legitimizing his political agenda for some time.
The Chinese Academy of History was established on Jan. 3, 2019 as a vice ministerial-level institution responsible for “coordinating and guiding national historical research work and formulating research plans.” State media reports say that the institution was created “on the foundation” of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’s history department, which means that the Chinese Academy of History is essentially the history department being expanded and made more prestigious. Xi sent a congratulatory letter to the Chinese Academy of History on the day of its establishment and Central Propaganda Department head Huang Kunming personally showed up to unveil a plaque.
Gao Xiang, the first and current director of the Chinese Academy of History, had an average career until the second half of Xi’s first term in office. Gao formerly served as deputy secretary of the Party Committee of organs directly under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Aug. 2002 to July 2006), chief editor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ magazine (中國社會科學; July 2006 to July 2013), deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (July 2012 to July 2013), and secretary-general (sub ministerial rank) and Party group member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (July 2013 to March 2016).
Gao Xiang was later dispatched to the provinces, a sign that he was being groomed by the Xi leadership for higher office. Gao spent a year and a half in Fujian Province as head of the provincial propaganda department and chairman of the provincial federation of social sciences (March 2016 to Dec. 2017). After that, Gao was transferred back to the central government where he served as deputy director of the office of the Central Leading Group for Cybersecurity and Informatization and a deputy director of the Cyberspace Administration of China (Dec. 2017 to Dec. 2018). Gao was also appointed vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in December 2018, president of the Chinese Academy of History in January 2019, and promoted to deputy secretary of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Party group (ministerial rank) in April 2021.
3. The Sept. 1 Qiushi article that was excerpted from Xi’s Oct. 2020 speech on “constructing a new development pattern” appears to be partly a reaction to the huge public outcry over the Chinese Academy of History’s “New Explorations” piece defending Ming and Qing isolationism.
The Qiushi article explains that Xi’s “new development pattern” is “open domestic and international dual circulation, not a closed domestic single circulation” of an isolationist country. The article’s mention of how “challenges are becoming more complex and global in nature” serves as a reminder that the PRC faces “great changes in the world unseen in a century” from abroad and why “self-restriction” is a prudent option.
