Today, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua announced that Wang Lijun, the former Chongqing police chief, has been found guilty by a court in Chengdu of four criminal charges, including defection, abuse of power, taking bribes, and bending the law for personal gain. The court sentenced Mr.
Introduction Late last year, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) re-invoked a phrase that first appeared five years earlier: the “Two Establishes” (两个确立, liang ge queli) to establish General Secretary Xi Jinping as the “core of the whole party” and to enshrine “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” as the CCP’s guiding philosophy. (Guangming Daily, …
Earlier this week, Chinese Internet services blocked searches for the phrase mìshū bāng (秘书帮). Roughly translated as “secretaries gang,” the term relates to the speculation surrounding government probes into public officials linked to former security czar and Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang, who is reportedly under investigation for corruption.
In days of yore, when a new dynasty was established in China and a new emperor was enthroned, it was known as dashi, “The Big Enterprise,” and it usually involved mass social upheaval and civil war. The latter-day version of changing leaders now takes place at Party Congresses which, except during times of turmoil like the Cultural Revolution, are supposed to occur every
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 100-year history is not just one of revolution and rejuvenation, but also ruthlessness.
From Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution to Deng Xiaoping’s Tiananmen Square crackdown and Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption crusade, leaders of the CCP have not hesitated to take whatever steps they deem necessary to secure and remain in power.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the cases of purged party insiders.
From Peng Dehuai, the general who was tortured for opposing Mao’s disastrous economic policies, to Zhao Ziyang, the premier erased from history for seeking compromise with protesters when Deng favoured guns and tanks, and Zhou Yongkang, the ex-security chief who reportedly threatened Xi’s ascent only to get jailed for corruption – political purges are a time-honoured CCP tradition.