At the 18th Party Congress, the Chinese regime convenes for its first leadership change in 10 years, in the largest assembly of what is perhaps the largest secret society on the planet. Tune in here to read The Epoch Times’ live updates, delivering the real behind-the-scenes story via our expert analysts and well-placed sources.
A Look at the New Party Leaders: Xi Jinping * Li Keqiang * Zhang Dejiang * Yu Zhengsheng * Liu Yunshan * Wang Qishan * Zhang Gaoli
Articles: First Steps of Chinese Leader Not Hopeful For Reform * Chinese Communist Party Congress Produces Futile Deal * Chinese Communist Congress Also Has Its Losers * New Chinese Party Leadership Makes Reform Hopes Bleak * Chinese Want Democratic Reform First, Official Poll Shows * Why the Chinese Communist Party Defies Democracy * New Leadership in Beijing Spells End of Reform * New Rulers of Chinese Communist Party Announced * Closing Ceremony of Chinese Communist Party Congress Closed * Mother Jailed to Ensure ‘Stable’ Transition in China * Petitioners Detained During Party Congress * Open Alliance of Power and Money Meets in Beijing * Hu Jintao’s Development Objectives Questioned * Gordon Chang Predicts Chinese Communist Party’s Collapse * Chinese Human Rights Defender Cao Shunli Arrested * Google Search Unblocked Again in China, Less Than 24 Hours Later * Google Search Blocked in China; Likely Over Party Congress * What Chinese Communist Democracy Really Looks Like * Chinese Netizens Mock Communist Party Report * Party Congress Opens in Beijing, Business Already Done * Before Party Congress, Crackdown on Falun Gong in Full Force * ‘Profound Lesson’ Ahead of Chinese Leadership Change * Ahead of Party Congress, Five Self-Immolations in Tibet * Chinese Tear Mao’s Image to Support Arrested Youth * Willingly or Not, New York Times Used in Beijing *
Please visit our Chinese Regime in Crisis special topic for more articles.
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Nov. 22 — First Steps of Chinese Leader Not Hopeful For Reform
In the weeks leading up to the 18th Party Congress, Xi Jinping, China’s new Communist Party leader, said that political reform should move forward at a faster pace.
Now that Xi has secured the position as China’s new leader, some are of the opinion that he is not as forward thinking as expected.
He Qinglian, a prominent Chinese author and economist, wrote on her blog about Xi’s silence on the issue of political reform as soon as he became the new leader.
“Based on various sources of public information, I believe the greatest difference between Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao lies in their style, and not their direction,” He Qinglian wrote.
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Nov. 22 — Chinese Communist Congress Also Has Its Losers
Behind every somber character that made it onto the Politburo Standing Committee in the Chinese Communist Party’s recent leadership shakeup, there lies a story of intrigue and horse-trading. The Party’s political warfare also creates its share of losers, of course, and each failure too has a telling story behind it. Political compromise between competing factions crushed, or in some cases merely crippled, the ambitions of a number of up-and-coming communist officials.
Casualties were recorded on all sides: The faction associated with former regime leader Jiang Zemin found one of its trusted foot soldiers miss out on a key promotion; the faction associated with the princelings, or sons of revolutionary leaders, failed to attain two powerful military posts; and two of the more reform-oriented officials, associated with the camp of Hu Jintao, the outgoing Party leader, were excluded from the Standing Committee in favor of Jiang’s men.
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Nov. 21 — New Chinese Party Leadership Makes Reform Hopes Bleak
NEWS ANALYSIS
The swearing in of the Chinese Communist Party’s new leadership, including the appointment of five new personnel to the Politburo Standing Committee—several of whom are loyalists to a former hard-line Party leader—has shattered hope for reform in the country, according to many analysts of China’s political system.
Analysts note that a number of reform-minded Party cadres were shut out, while conservatives were ushered in, and they thus worry that new Party leader Xi Jinping and his Premier Li Keqiang won’t be able to call the shots as decisively as needed to push through reforms. These observers fear that any attempts at reform, should they exist, will likely be hampered by the need to defer to these other Politburo Standing Committee members and the vested interests they represent.
Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, was also made to show deference to Jiang Zemin, the former regime leader, and head of a powerful faction. Jiang was able to play a strong role in the personnel arrangements for the Standing Committee at the recently concluded congress.
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Nov. 21 — Through Retirement Hu Jintao Seeks Victory
With a daring move outgoing head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Hu Jintao has sought to succeed in what had eluded him for 10 years: freezing former Party head Jiang Zemin out of power. Analysts say Hu’s move won’t make reform more likely or save the Party from failing.
According to regime mouthpiece Xinhua News Agency, on Nov. 16 during an extended meeting of the Central Military Commission (CMC) Hu Jintao officially handed over to new Party head Xi Jinping the chairmanship of the CMC—the command of the People’s Republic of China’s armed forces.
If Hu Jintao had followed the precedent set by Jiang Zemin, Hu would have held onto the chairmanship for two more years, ensuring his personal power inside the Chinese regime.
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Nov. 20 — Chinese Want Democratic Reform First, Official Poll Shows
By Tang Ming/Epoch Times Staff
While the Chinese Communist Party focuses it future on economic reform, what the people really yearn for is political reform and greater freedoms, an online poll shows.
Just before the Communist Party’s 18th National Congress, a public opinion survey titled “Online Survey Focusing on 18th Congress,” conducted by state-run People’s Daily, questioned the priorities of its readers. The respondents’ top priority was a democratic political system (56,414 votes); eliminating corruption was second place (36,641 votes), improving livelihoods was third (32,410 votes), and economic development was fourth (12,470 votes).
Xi Jinping, the new General Secretary of the CCP, and other top leaders have said that they will concentrate on improving the nation’s economic condition. They mentioned little of substance about prospects for genuine democratic political reform.
Among the poll’s most frequent comments left by netizens were matters of livelihood: making a basic living and getting by. They were concerned about increasing their salaries and pensions, getting the household registration system canceled, and seeing greater government investment in primary education.
Read original Chinese article.
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Nov. 19 — Chinese Communist Party Congress Produces Futile Deal
The factions that dominate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continue to hold one another in a death grip, and a wary balance of power has taken shape behind the high red walls of the Party leadership compound, Zhongnanhai.
On Nov. 15, the first plenum of the CCP’s 18th Party Congress released the names of the new Politburo Standing Committee.
Xi Jinping, as expected, became the next Communist Party general secretary and, to the surprise of some, chairman of the Central Military Commission—the head of China’s armed forces, succeeding Hu Jintao in both posts. Li Keqiang became premier, succeeding Wen Jiabao.
The seven Standing Committee members are Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, and Zhang Gaoli.
The new membership of the Standing Committee is far from the wishes of the public, but the wishes of the public were not a consideration. As the result of this high-stakes game, military power rests in the hands of close subordinates of Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping, while the power of the Party and the government has taken on a distinct Jiang-faction coloration. The purported reformist forces have shrunk.
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16:20 p.m. EST Thursday — New Leadership in Beijing Spells End of Reform
Zhang Gaoli, executive vice-premier newly minted member of the Standing Committee, was born in 1946 to an impoverished family living in Jinjiang County, Fujian Province. His father passed away while Zhang was younger than 10 years old and his widowed mother struggled to bring up five children. Zhang Gaoli attended Qiaosheng Middle School in Jingjiang City. In 1965, he was admitted to the Department of Economics at Xiamen University, where he majored in planning statistics. His schooling was suspended during the Cultural Revolution, though he later completed his degree.
In 1970, Zhang Gaoli was assigned to Guangdong Maoming Petroleum Company as a worker. Two important men took a liking to him: Zeng Qinghong, then Deputy Director of Foreign Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Petroleum, and Zhou Yongkang, Manager General of China Petroleum & Natural Gas Co., Ltd. Both are known stalwarts of Jiang Zemin.
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15:29 p.m. EST Thursday — A Look at the New Party Leaders: Wang Qishan
Wang Qishan was born in July 1948 in Tianzhen County, Shanxi Province. His father was a professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Graduated from Beijing 35 High School in 1969, he was an “educated youth” sent to the countryside in Yanan City, Shaanxi Province. During this period he met the daughter of the top Party leader Yao Yilin, named Yao Mingshan, whom he later married. In 1973, Wang, as a so-called worker-farmer-soldier student during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), entered Northwest University to study history. After graduating in 1976, he worked at the Shaanxi Museum for three years, then changed his major from history of the Republic of China to modern macroeconomics.
In 1982, Yao Yilin entered the Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee as an alternate member for the Political Bureau, and Wang Qishan was then placed in the Rural Policy Research Office of the CCP Central Committee Secretariat. This was the transition point that turned Wang Qishan to politics.
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13:02 p.m. EST Thursday — A Look at the New Party Leaders: Zhang Dejiang
Zhang Dejiang was born in Tai'an County, Liaoning Province, in 1946. He is a princeling because his father Zhang Zhiyi was a former artillery major general of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Zhang was a red guard in the Cultural Revolution, and then went to the countryside in Jilin to work with peasants as an “educated youth.” Zhang entered Yanbian University and studied in the Korean Language Department until he graduated 1972. In 1978, he began studying economics at Kim-Il-Sung University in North Korea, and served as the vice president of the Yanban University Party Committee after returning home.
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12:06 p.m. EST Thursday — A Look at the New Party Leaders: Yu Zhengsheng
Yu Zhengsheng, born in April 1945 in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, was able to join the 18th Party Congress Politburo Standing Committee at the near retirement age of 68. He has a prominent communist family background and extensive political connections. Yu is expected to be the Party Secretary and Chair of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a Party-led advisory body.
Yu Zhengsheng’s father, Yu Qiwei (also known as Huang Jing), first introduced Mao Zedong’s wife, Jiang Qing, whose original name was Li Yunhe, to the Party. Yu Qiwei and Jiang Qing had previously lived together.
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11:45 p.m. EST Wednesday — Chinese Regime Unveils New Leadership, With Few Surprises
A day after the Chinese Communist Party concluded its 18th Party Congress, the 376 members of the Central Committee that were nominally “elected” during that event entered once more the Great Hall of the People and “elected” the new Politburo.
The outcome of these events had been planned and decided upon inside the Party in advance, of course. The voting was just for show. But ritual plays a crucial role for China’s communist regime, and right after the “vote” the new committee members were trotted out to meet and greet waiting foreign and state media. The guests were kept waiting nearly an hour, a record delay in the tightly scripted world of Chinese communist political ritual.
All eyes were on the Standing Committee of the Politburo, a group of of seven men (down from nine) that is the nerve center of the Party. The composition of the Standing Committee had been a matter of speculation and conjecture for months.
Two positions in that body had already been decided: Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the CCP, and Li Keqiang, the next premier.
The five new members of the elite group, announced for the first time on Nov. 15 in Beijing, were: Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, and Zhang Gaoli.
Read our article Here
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9:00 p.m. EST Wednesday — Three Things to Watch for In Announcement of New Leadership
There are three keys things to watch as the new supreme leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and its military is unveiled, beginning in an about an hour (11 a.m. Beijing time, if all goes to plan). All hinge broadly on the political struggle between Hu Jintao and former regime leader Jiang Zemin, and the outcomes of the three possibilities will be telling as to who gained the upper hand in the backroom dealing.
The first is whether Hu Jintao will step down as Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC). This idea has been bandied about extensively recently. If Hu does take that plunge, it will be seen as a strong blow to Jiang Zemin and the tradition of Party elders inserting themselves into the operations of the incumbent leadership.
If even Hu removes himself from the picture this time, Jiang will be certifiably unable to exert much overt influence, and Hu will have effectively repudiated what has been a prerogative of every Party leader, ever. The second is whether Li Keqiang will be made a vice-chairman of the CMC. This would augment his powers as premier and economic chief, and would indicate that Hu scored a point against Jiang by putting his main man in a crucial post.
A final point is whether Li Yuanchao and Wang Yang will end up on the Politburo Standing Committee. Again, both are broadly aligned with Hu Jintao, and their placement on the most powerful political organ in China will indicate how much Hu will retain at least proxy influence over the next decade or so.
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7:15 p.m. EST Wednesday — How to Rig Press Conferences at the Congress
Did you read the ABC PM radio interview
China uses mysterious Australian to rig Congress coverage?
PM radio’s Mark Colvin said,
“More than 2,200 delegates took part in a series of rubber-stamp votes that were always guaranteed to pass. In fact, there’s been much about this Congress that could fairly be described as really just a piece of theatre, including the role of a mysterious ‘journalist’ from Australia who’s been thrust into the limelight.”
Stephen McDonnell interviewed the “journalist” Andrea Yu,
STEPHEN MCDONNELL: Because they know they’re going to get an easy question from you, though, don’t they?
ANDREA YU: I think that’s part of it, yes.
STEPHEN MCDONNELL: So in the long run, do you think that this will be more the way things will happen, that the Chinese government will be having sort of set up companies like yours all over the world to present itself in the way it wants to?
ANDREA YU: It’s a very hard question and I don’t know how long I'll be doing this for because of that. Yes, that it is a very challenging question. I think certainly spreading Chinese government soft power around the world via avenues like this is very important to the government and …
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3:00 p.m. EST Wednesday — Hu Jintao to Totally Step Down
For some time now it has been a matter of debate and speculation as to whether Hu Jintao would retain his seat on the Central Military Commission after handing over the reigns of power in the Party to Xi Jinping. Now the answer is out, according to reports: Hu is “all out” as part of a political bargain to also disentangle Jiang Zemin from the operations of the Party.
The Hong Kong-based Ming Pao reported on Nov. 14 that Zhang Qinsheng, a deputy Chief of Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, confirmed that Hu would not be hanging around on the CMC. (Zhang may have been getting back at Hu because the former was not allowed to enter the CMC, but the same news has come from other sources.)
The Japanese paper Asahi Shimbun has reported a similar conclusion, according to a Nov. 14 article. “According to a number of Chinese Communist Party personnel, at an internal high-level Party meeting on Nov. 11, it was decided that Hu Jintao would ‘completely quit.’”
At the same meeting, it was also decided that Jiang Zemin would have his office removed from Zhongnanhai, the Party’s leadership compound. The idea behind Hu’s move, according to Asahi Shimbun, was that by withdrawing entirely from Chinese politics, he would also be forcing Jiang to do the same.
But two former officials had tried that: Qiao Shi and Li Ruihuan. Jiang, as we all know, kept at it, even after that withdrew in an attempt to have Jiang do the same. Zhang Tianliang, a Washington-DC based political commentator, said in an interview: “If Hu Jintao really does entirely quit, in an effort to prevent Jiang from meddling, then he'll be like Qiao Shi and Li Ruihuan back then: falling into Jiang’s trap.”
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2:30 p.m. EST Wednesday — Assorted Remarks
Dissident Hu Jia isn’t pleased with the 18th Party Congress, to the extent that he hopes the regime won’t be around for a 19th.
In a recent open letter, he writes: “The Chinese Communist Party is not a ruling Party. … It is hardly a political party in the modern sense, but a huge group of vested interests overseeing a powerful nationwide mafia class. It plunders and possesses the wealth created by the people. It is greedy, and it is violent.”
He goes on, that: “The core Chinese domestic and international issues are all because the Communist Party rejects universal values and violates civil rights, for the interests of itself. I hope that the 18th Party Congress is the last session of the Congress, and there'll be no 19th Party Congress.”
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11:45 p.m. EST Tuesday — Mother Jailed to Ensure ‘Stable’ Transition in China
Cui Aimin had just dropped her daughter off at school when Chinese security forces arrested her, ransacked her home, confiscated the family computer, and threw her into a detention center in her hometown of Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province.
The upheaval was carried out in the name of “maintaining stability” in China before the 18th Party Congress, an event that has taken place this week as a new generation of Communist Party rulers is unveiled.
Read our article Here
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10:30 p.m. EST Tuesday — Beijing Petitioner Calls the CCP ‘A rogue government’
Beijing petitioner Wu Tianli called the CCP “a rogue government.”
“There are more than 20 people and at least two cars in front of my house,” Wu said. “I cannot go out, even to see a doctor. We are facing an unprecedented rogue government that brutally represses the people in the name of the 18th Party Congress.”
During the 18th Party Congress, the State Bureau for Letters and Calls, where petitioners have the legal right to appeal state wrongdoing, has been heavily guarded. Police cars from various provinces and cities as well as plainclothes officers are everywhere monitoring the surroundings and bus stops. Each province has its officers stationed in Beijing to watch and take into custody petitioners who may happen along. The State Bureau for Letters and Calls is currently characterized by zero petitioners, a rare scene.
Read our article Here
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9:40 p.m. EST Tuesday — Wednesday in Beijing
The official news center for the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress announced that over 300 CCP Central Committee members and alternate members will be selected on Nov. 14. These new CCP Central Committee members and alternate members will then elect the new Political Bureau Standing Committee, which would be announced around 11:00 a.m. on Thursday Nov. 15.
Now it is Wednesday Nov. 14 10:40 a.m. Beijing time.
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9:00 p.m. EST Tuesday — Party Congress Like the Captain of the ‘Titanic’
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8:30 p.m. EST Tuesday — Marketization of Power
He Qinglian writes
“Through messages circulating on Weibo, China’s twitter-like platform, the Chinese people came to realize a cruel reality about the elections in the two countries: the United States is more like the socialism that China claims to be, while China features crony capitalism.
In the United States, rich peoples’ wealth is mainly attributed to personal capabilities. Bill Gates is a successful player in the computer industry. Internationally renowned investor George Soros is a Hungarian immigrant. Michael Bloomberg, the New York City mayor who accepts a symbolic salary of one dollar per year, had already built a media empire before he assumed the office of mayor. Their stories demonstrate the advantages of the U.S. social system.
In China, however, wealth is closely tied to power behind the scenes, and political power has been a magic wand that creates wealthy tycoons.”
Read our article Here
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8:00 p.m. EST Tuesday — Reluctant Leader About to Take China’s Stage
Xi was a compromise candidate agreeable to both the faction of former Party head Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, the current head of the Party. The two sides have been locked in a power struggle throughout Hu’s 10-year tenure, with the struggle escalating greatly since former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun attempted to defect at a U.S. Consulate in February.
Wang revealed a plot by his boss, Bo Xilai, who was the standard bearer for Jiang’s faction, and others to oust Xi Jinping from power after the Party Congress. The Party has since been dominated by attempts by Jiang’s faction to disrupt the transfer of power to Xi, by Hu Jintao to weaken Jiang’s faction, and by the question of Bo Xilai’s fate.
In September, Xi disappeared for nearly two weeks. This, according to a well-placed source, was due to a deep reluctance to take the reins. His withdrawal caused consternation among Party leaders, as there was no one else acceptable to both sides.
A deal was made: Xi would continue as regime leader; the Nov. 8 date was set for convening the Party conference; Bo Xilai’s political career was agreed to be over; and the Party would begin to “systematically eliminate the residual influences of the Great Cultural Revolution and gradually discard Mao Zedong Thought, Marxism-Leninism, and so on,” according to the source.
Read our article Here
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5:00 a.m. EST Tuesday — China’s Second-Richest Man Rants at 18th Party Congress
Liang Wengen, president of Sany Group and member of the Communist Party inner circle, declared his devotion to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in odd comments during the 18th National Party Congress in Beijing.
Netizens mocked the billionaire. His company announced it would sue U.S. President Barack Obama after he blocked Sany from owning a wind farm near a Navy base in Oregon. It was the first executive order of its kind in 22 years, Forbes reported.
On the holiday of Bachelor’s Day celebrated on Nov. 11, Liang said Party membership attracts the ladies: “In China, if a young man is a Communist Party member, it’s easier for him to find a girlfriend. Most wives of Party members are more beautiful than the ones of non-Party members. Chinese girls love Party members a lot too,” reported Caixin, a financial magazine.
“At this very moment, you may understand why Obama limited Sany’s investment in the USA, ” a Chinese netizen wrote.
Liang rather feverishly said, “If I was going to be born 1000 times, it would be in China. If I was going to die 1000 times, it would be in China,” according to Sina.
He said that all his life and wealth belongs to the Party, according to China Daily.
Jing Manlou, a Chinese writer, interpreted that as a kind of admission of guilt:
“If someone ‘loves China’ and is devoted to the Party with all he has, he must have done something disgraceful underground.”
Jing wrote that he regards the offer of dying for the party or giving it all his possessions as pure theatrics, still indicating a guilty secret.
“When Liang said he would like to devote everything to the Party and die 1000 times for the Party, he verified what I am saying [about his guilt]. He is neither stupid nor insane,” Jing wrote. “Actually he is very clear that the Party is not going to take his money or his life since what he has is simply nothing compared to what the Party has.”
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5:00 a.m. EST Tuesday — A Look at China’s Likely New Premier
Hu Jintao is said to have favored Li Keqiang to succeed him as paramount leader, but accepted Xi Jinping as a compromise with the faction headed by former Party head Jiang Zemin, who objected to Li.
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Li is described by Taiwanese and Hong Kong’s media as a very low-key person, modest, and reserved.
Li was famous for doing his homework before going out on location inspections, according to the article, and he often asked local officials to show him the real data when they bragged about their performances.
A diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks in 2011 said that when Li was the head of Liaoning Province in 2007, in a private talk with U.S. Ambassador Clark T. Randt, he described China’s GDP as “man-made,” “unreliable,” and “for reference only.”
Read our article Here
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1:00 a.m. EST Tuesday — Dubai’s Public Opinion Aired on CCTV
On Nov. 10, Ju Xiaoli, a migrant worker representative, participated in the 18th Communist Party Congress in Beijing. After hearing the report by Hu Jintao, he was so deeply moved that he wrote a poem “New Found Hope” and emotionally read it during small group discussions. After reading only two sentences, he couldn’t control his tears according to a Caijing Online report.
A Beijing netizen wrote, “Does everyone still remember the North Korean female TV host who cried on camera after the death of Kim Jong-il? We are now one step closer to the North Korean people.”
Chinese netizens now have a new popular phrase for mocking: “Did you cry today?”
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7:00 p.m. EST Monday — A park beside the Great Hall of the People
An article in The Financial Times talks about China’s ever greater expectations:
“The paranoia of the Communist party extends to ping-pong balls, balloons, carrier pigeons, fruit knives and computer batteries, all of which are banned as potential tools of sedition during the party’s week-long 18th national congress ...”
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11:30 a.m. EST Monday — Security Goes Overboard in Beijing
According to an Radio France International (RFI) dispatch, security in Beijing has continued to be overbearing. “Every bus that travels past Tiananmen Square has at least one police officer in it, and an assistant. There are also security personnel at the front and back of each bus.” That’s up to four cops per vehicle. “All the windows are closed,” the note says. Welcome to Beijing.
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5:30 a.m. EST Monday — Chinese Human Rights Defender Cao Shunli Arrested
Beijing activist Cao Shunli was seized by police at the State Council Information Office on the second day of the 18th National People’s Congress of the Communist Party of China for requesting public disclosure of China’s “National Human Rights Action Plan.”
Read our article Here
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8:30 p.m. EST Sunday — There have been questions about the Tibetan delegation at the 18th National Party Congress.
Xu Jingbo, the president of Japan-based Asia News Agency, said the 25-year-old woman “feeds police dogs” at police station in a Tibetan area and suggested that the police force she works for is involved in the repression of Tibetans. The fact that she feeds police dogs implies that she might not really be a true representative of the Tibetan people in China.
A Tibetan, who was not named due to security concerns, in China told The Epoch Times that they knew nothing of the delegate, before their connection was abruptly cut off during an interview.
Kelsang, a representative for several Tibetans who were exiled and did not give his full name, questioned the legitimacy of the representatives at the Party Congress.
“How did these representatives come to be? How were they selected? Such actions have to be unrelated to the Tibetan people. The Chinese Communist Party selected these representatives in line with their own desires and with no consideration for the Tibetan people’s wishes,” said Kelsang.
In recent months, the number of Tibetan self-immolations has dramatically increased. Over the weekend, another Tibetan set themselves on fire, bringing the number to 70, reported Radio Free Asia.
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8:00 p.m. EST Sunday — Ex-Premier Li Peng’s Family Caught Moving Assets Overseas
Apparently fearing that the political winds were shifting with the 18th Party Congress, members of former premier Li Peng’s family tried to shift money abroad recently, according to Pan Chinese online, a dissident website outside China.
The children of Li Peng, dubbed the “Butcher of Beijing” for his involvement in the massacre of students in 1989, were trying to escape China to another country, the report said.
They first wanted to move their money out, to Singapore and Australia, the report said. But they were found out by authorities.
The insider told the website that they are seeking to leave China because The New York Times reported on Premier Wen Jiabao’s family’s alleged amassed wealth, making them feel worried for their own safety. They felt further unease over the current political situation in the 18th National Party Congress that will usher in a leadership change in the top echelons of the Communist Party.
Li Peng’s two sons, Li Xiaopeng and Li Xiaoyong, and daughter Li Xiallin, were trying to move their wealth, the report said.
They were discovered by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (AUSTRAC), an Australian government agency that monitors money laundering and other financial misdeeds, the article said. AUSTRAC then told Chinese authorities.
The agency has a policy of not commenting on individual cases, or confirming or denying whether an individual is under investigation.
In recent years, the Chinese regime has made it paramount to crack down on so-called “naked officials,” who have assets in other countries, and family members living and working overseas.
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4:30 p.m. EST Sunday — Details Emerge About Jiang at Opening Ceremony
A source told New Epoch Weekly, a sister publication of The Epoch Times with deep contacts in China, that Jiang Zemin is suffering Alzheimer’s disease, and regularly needs medical attention.
Thus, according to New Epoch Weekly’s source, the reason Hu Jintao only spoke for over an hour (rather than, for example, the two and a half he spoke at the 17th Congress), at the open ceremony of the Congress on Nov. 8， delivering an excerpt of his political report, is because Jiang needed rest and medical care.
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6:00 a.m. EST Sunday — Maintaining Stability in Beijing
