Xi and the end of Zhou Yongkang By Francesco Sisci

[bemildred]

BEIJING - With the expulsion from the Communist Party last week of Zhou Yongkang, the former security czar and member of the Standing Committee (China's supreme political body), paramount leader Xi Jinping has officially brought an end to an era. Zhou's removal, meaning he will soon be openly tried in court, in fact has only one precedent: the capture of the notorious Gang of Four in 1976 and their trial in 1980.

The Communist Party has three governing bodies, from bottom to top: the Central Committee, the Politburo, and the Standing Committee.

Since then, top victims of inner-party struggle - starting with Zhao Ziyang, the former general secretary and Standing Committee member who lost his job for supporting the student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989 - have been demoted and censored, but never publicly tried. In the mid-1990s, the Beijing party chief, Chen Xitong, a Politburo member, was sentenced by a court, but his higher-ranking ally in the Standing Committee was not even named. About a decade later, his Shanghai colleague Chen Liangyu, also Politburo member, followed the same course, but his mentor Huang Ju, in the Standing Committee, was spared the public ignominy of a trial and left to die of cancer.

For a while, it seemed that the same pattern would be followed with Bo Xilai, the former Chongqing party chief and Politburo member. He was publicly displayed in court last year, but the fate of Zhou, his key mentor and again a Standing Committee member, still hung in the balance. Initially, it looked as if Xi would be content with just spreading the news of Zhou's misfortune and the disgrace heaped on his allies in the military: former PLA (People's Liberation Army) Commission vice chairmen Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-081214.html

[KoKo]

1. Interesting...always good for "Inquiring Minds" to read Multiple Sources for News

...I think so, anyway.

[bemildred]

2. Sisci is usually worth a read.

I dunno if I buy his view of Xi, I think power corrupts, but it's still good to know the rationales of all the parties, sometimes you can use it, and sometimes it helps you understand.

In this piece, he points out (indirectly) that PRC is now ~65 years, and has had a tumultuous but successful run, they have come a long way, and they seem to be able to manage orderly political transitions (so far).

This particular piece I thought his theorizing about Chinese political thought was interesting.