Source: NYT (1/27/16)
In Book, Xi Jinping Taints Ousted Rivals With Talk of Plots
By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW
Chinese state television broadcasting a speech by President Xi Jinping in March. A speech Mr. Xi made earlier in 2015 appears to show his confidence in getting rid of his rivals, analysts say. Credit Andy Wong Associated Press
BEIJING — The strip lighting and plastic chairs of the Xinhua bookstore on Dongdaqiao Road don’t invite people to linger, and the government-owned store, in the basement of a mall, was deserted on Monday afternoon.
Yet something momentous was on the “new arrivals” shelf by the entrance: a book containing the first public and official declaration by President Xi Jinping of “political plot activities” by senior Communist Party officials “to wreck and split the party” — code words for a coup attempt, several Chinese analysts said. Its release was a signal, they said, that the challenge was over, that the party had agreed on what happened and that Mr. Xi wanted people to know that he had overcome his adversaries.
Rather, it’s a sober collection of 200 extracts from more than 40 internal speeches and essays by Mr. Xi from 2012, when he rose to power, to late last year, according to the publisher, the party’s Central Documents Press.
“Edited Excerpts of Discussions by Xi Jinping on Tightening Party Discipline and Rules” was released recently. Credit Didi Kirsten Tatlow
And it was selling quite well, a store clerk said. “Mostly people from groups and government organizations are buying it, not so much individuals,” she said. The book arrived on the shelves in mid-December, she said.
The pertinent extract is from a speech by Mr. Xi on Jan. 13, 2015, to the fifth full meeting of the current Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, China’s anticorruption agency.
The Chinese news media carried scattered reports of the speech last year, but publication in book form by an authoritative press makes it a statement of what China wants the world to know, said Liao Ran, a German-based employee of a nongovernmental anticorruption organization that he asked not be named because he was discussing this politically sensitive issue as an individual.
The speech shows that Mr. Xi believes he has vanquished his rivals, Mr. Liao said. “When you look back on these past years, he has dealt with all these challenges, so he’s superconfident,” he said.
In the speech, Mr. Xi said: “From cases investigated over the past few years that involved serious violations of party discipline and the law by senior cadres, especially those of Zhou Yongkang, Bo Xilai, Xu Caihou, Ling Jihua and Su Rong, it can be seen that the problem of damaging party political discipline and rules was very serious and merited serious attention.”
The men Mr. Xi named have been the subject of rumors in China of plots to unseat him: Mr. Zhou, the former security chief; Mr. Bo, former party secretary of Chongqing; Mr. Xu, an army general, and Mr. Ling, a right-hand man of the former president, Hu Jintao. Mr. Su, who was deputy head of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was their associate.
All five have been disgraced since 2012, either imprisoned for corruption and abuse of power or faced with similar charges. Mr. Xu died last year of cancer.
“The greater these people’s power, the more important their position, the less seriously they took party discipline and political rules, to the point of recklessness and audaciousness!” Mr. Xi said. “Some had inflated political ambitions and for their personal gain or the gain of their clique carried out political plot activities behind the party’s back, carried out politically shady business to wreck and split the party!”
An anticorruption sweep ordered by Mr. Xi has led to thousands of officials being dismissed or otherwise punished since 2012.
“Openly, they didn’t use the word ‘coup,’ ” said Ren Jianming, a professor at the School of Public Management at Beihang University. “But ‘plot activities’ and ‘wreck and split the party’ are coup activities, because it’s the ruling party.”
“It was all very secret at the time,” he said, “and this is the first time they have officially published about it, so it’s very important.”
The government has not disclosed any details of a plot.
So is the “superconfident” Mr. Xi now safe?
“One really can’t say ‘safe,’ ” Mr. Liao said. “There will be one challenge after the next. But this is a way of telling us he is extremely confident that he has the ability to overcome these challenges.”
Follow Didi Kirsten Tatlow on Twitter @dktatlow.