The purge of four high-level Communist Party officials at the end of June, and the investigation,one month later, of China’s former security czar has decimated the top ranks of former CCP leader Jiang Zemin’s faction.
An official Communist Party report on June 30 announced that Xu Caihou, Jiang Jiemin, Li Dongsheng, and Wang Yongchun were expelled from the Party and handed over to the judiciary.
Xu Caihou is a former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission; Jiang Jiemin is a former director of the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission; Li Dongsheng is a former director of the 610 Office; Wang Yongchun is a former general manager of PetroChina.
Then came the announcement on July 29 of the official investigation of Zhou Yongkang, the former secretary of the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee, the biggest tiger nabbed in Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign.
All five men were protégés of Jiang Zemin and essential members of Jiang Zemin’s political faction.
Xu Caihou Promoted With Jiang’s Assistance
71 year-old Xu was born in Wafangdian City of China’s northern Liaoning Province. In 1992, under former senior official Jiang Zemin’s help, Xu was promoted to be the deputy director of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) General Political Department from the post of a commissar in the 16th Army. Xu’s promotion happened right after Jiang successfully got rid of his opponents Yang Shangkun, former vice chair of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and his half-brother Yang Baibing, former Secretary General of the CMC by driving a wedge between the Yang brothers on the one hand and then-Party leader Deng Xiaoping on the other.
Xu was quickly promoted to be the deputy director of the General Political Department in 1993, and then went on to become a member of the Central Military Commission (CMC) in 1999. After Jiang launched the crackdown on Falun Gong in July 1999, Xu actively responded to Jiang’s order and headed the live organ harvesting for profit drive using Falun Gong practitioners by establishing several concentration camp-like detention centers in the Liaoning army region. Xu became Jiang’s trusted aide in the military for carrying out the persecution of Falun Gong.
In 2004, by the time when Jiang had to resign the chairmanship of the CMC, Xu was promoted again to become the vice chairman of the CMC. Xu immediately established an office for Jiang in the CMC building, which enabled Jiang to maintain his power in the military until 2012, just before Xi took power.
After Jiang’s resignation, then-Party head Hu Jintao didn’t have real power over the military because Xu and his allies always asked Jiang’s permission for all military matters instead of Hu’s.
For instance, during the severe earthquake in Wenchuan City of Sichuan Province on May 20, 2008, then Premier Wen Jiabao immediately requested the dispatch of military helicopters and army forces for rescue operations. However, because Jiang didn’t give permission to the military under the pretext of weather conditions, the army didn’t act until three days after the earthquake.
Wen sharply criticized the military, saying the delay was “unconscionable,” according to Wikileaks based on a confidential document released by U.S. Embassy in Beijing. The earthquake caused nearly 70,000 death, 375,000 injuries, and 18,000 people missing, according to official figures.
Xu Caihou’s Role in Falun Gong Persecution
In 2006 a veteran senior-level military officer in Wafangdian of Liaoning Province revealed to the Chinese-language Epoch Times that Liaoning government officials colluded with the military to take organs for profit from live Falun Gong practitioners.
The source said Xu served as Jiang’s tool for persecuting Falun Gong. Xu not only flattered Jiang all the time, but was also dedicated to following Jiang’s orders for suppressing Falun Gong, the source said. Xu even used the military system for the live organ harvesting, which also involved PLA lieutenant general and deputy logistics chief Gu Junshan, who was investigated and sacked in 2012.
The source indicated that Xu used Liaoning as a base to persecute Falun Gong. Colluding with Bo Xilai who was a Liaoning official at the time. Xu spent large amounts of revenue to construct prisons in Liaoning Province, and launched the live organ harvesting program from Falun Gong practitioners.
The source said the military always participated in transferring detained Falun Gong practitioners, and the organ transplants involving Falun Gong organs were done secretly in the military hospitals.
Xu Caihou used the PLA General Logistics Department to engage in live organ harvesting.
According to Minghui.org, which serves as a clearinghouse for reports from China from victims of the persecution of Falun Gong, the organ sources from mainland China are mostly controlled by the General Logistics Department of the PLA. And the hospitals for taking the organs are also military hospitals or hospitals with military connections.
The CCP military has a large healthcare and hospital system that includes the Army General Hospital, Military Medical University Affiliated Hospitals, military region hospitals and so on.
Chinese magazine Sanlian Life Weekly published in April 2006, saying “98 percent of the organ resources in China are controlled by non-Health Department system.” This supports the allegation of the military systems controlling the organ resources.
The General Logistics Department took advantage of the military system and the national resources to obtain blood samples of illegally detained Falun Gong practitioners throughout the country, putting the record of each blood test into a computer system, forming a national live organ bank. It also used military cars, airplanes, police troops, and military facilities to transfer those Falun Gong practitioners.
Military supervising staff were given the power to arrest, detain, and execute anyone leaking the information of organ harvesting including doctors, police, armed police, and science researchers, and so on. At the same time, the PLA General Staff Headquarters has used its intelligence system to block the information from leaking out of China.
Many local hospitals at different levels have joined the project of live organ harvesting, motivated by huge profits, and formed a live organ trade network with local public security, procuratorate, hospitals, prisons, and labor camps, dominated by the central Party’s 610 Office and the military hospitals. After 2000, the number of organ transplants in China has been over 85 percent of the number in the world, according to data from the CMC.
According to the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), armed forces and armed police hospitals in many provinces in mainland China are involved in the live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners, including military hospitals under the CMC, military general hospitals, armed police hospitals and so on.
Only several individual organ harvesting cases were in 1999, and it went to a peak period from 2003 to 2006 that hundreds of hospitals in 23 provinces were participating in the crime.
Li Dongsheng, Jiang’s Propaganda Chief
Li Dongsheng is the former deputy police chief of Public Security and the head of the central government’s 610 Office, a secretive, extra-legal Party organ established to carry out the persecution of Falun Gong.
Li Dongsheng was born in December 1955 and graduated from the Department of Journalism at Fudan University. He entered CCTV, a CCP mouthpiece, in 1978 and became the director of the CCTV news center in 1993. He started the show “Focus Interview” in 1994 and was in charge of the news commentary programs of CCTV when he was the deputy director.
In 1999 Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun Gong. At the time, high-ranking government officials of all levels, from the standing commission of the Central Politburo to provincial cities, were against Jiang’s decision. Jiang was in an embarrassing situation and desperately needed Li’s special talent in creating propaganda that could deceive people into participating in the persecution.
Li hence dedicated his CCTV show, the Focus Interview, to Jiang’s agenda. The phony Focus Interview that manufactured information to frame Falun Gong has taken the leading role in framing Falun Gong all through the persecution. In the 6.5 years from July 21, 1999 to the end of 2005, Li produced a total of 102 episodes defaming Falun Gong and aired them through Focus Interview. In the five months from July 21, 1999 to the end of 1999, Focus Interview broadcast 70 such episodes.
Focus Interview fabricated numerous angles and cases to defame and frame Falun Gong, including suicide (2001 Tiananmen Square self-immolation), killing family members (Fu Yijin in Beijing), killing specific individuals (beating a policeman in Inner Mongolia), mass murder (Chen Zhaofu killing beggars in Zhejiang).
The staged Tiananmen self-immolation incident in 2001 successfully provoked the Chinese people’s hatred against Falun Gong and also deceived the rest of the world.
On Jan. 23, 2001 several people were said to have set themselves on fire on Tiananmen Square. Without any procedure of verifying the news, CCTV came out with a report almost instantaneously on Focus Interview and accused Falun Gong for what happened.
This self-immolation was later debunked as having been staged by Luo Gan, the then-secretary of the CCP Political and Legislative Affairs Committee, and reported by Li, who was the deputy director of CCTV at the time. The two framed Falun Gong. The International Education Development, an NGO based in Los Angeles, called the Tiananmen self-immolation “State terrorism in the form of government terror against its own people.”
The news of the self-immolation was quickly broadcast to the world through CCTV, which was overseen by Li Dongsheng.
This massive scale of deceit and brainwashing the public has made Li an important accomplice to Jiang Zemin in the crackdown on Falun Gong.
Because of Li Dongsheng’s full cooperation in framing and defaming Falun Gong, in July 2000 Jiang promoted Li to deputy chief of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television. In May 2005 Li Dongsheng was promoted to deputy minister of the Central Propaganda Department. Li was also made the deputy director of the central government’s 610 Office.
After becoming the deputy minister of the Propaganda Department, Li continued to be in charge of the anti-Falun Gong propaganda and the brainwashing of practitioners nationwide. On Aug. 26, 2002 at a national meeting for directors of all levels of propaganda departments, Li reported on the current situation of promoting anti-Falun Gong propaganda.
Zhou Yongkang, who had been hand-picked by Jiang Zemin in 2002 to head up the PLAC and to continue the persecution of Falun Gong after Jiang’s retirement, made Li Dongsheng the deputy minister of Public Security in 2009. The same year, Li was promoted to director of the central 610 Office.
Jiang Jiemin, Zhou Yongkang’s Personal Banker
Jiang Jiemin is the former chair of State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council. He is also the former Chairman of PetroChina and ex-General Manager of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
Jiang Jiemin was born in 1955. In December 1972 he was employed as an operator by Shengli Oil Field in Shandong Province. In the next 32 years up to 2004, he made it to deputy director of Administrative Bureau of Shengli Petroleum. During which time, he had four years of experience as a government official. Hence, for more than 27 years he was in the petroleum business.
From 2004 to May 2007, Jiang went from the deputy manager, deputy president, deputy secretary of the CCP, general manager, and finally to the president of the largest state enterprise, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). He was the president of CNPC until he quit in 2013.
Zhou Yongkang was the Party secretary of Shengli Oil Field in the 1980s and was regarded as a “godfather” figure by those who thrived in the Shengli Oil Field. After Jiang Jiemin hooked up with Zhou Yongkang, Jiang not only made a fortune from CNPC but also provided enormous amounts of capital for Zhou’s personal use.
Jiang Jiemin is said to be worth tens of billions of yuan (10 billion yuan equals US$1.63 billion) and that he illegally contracted petrochemical-related projects to his people when he was at CNPC. His annual income was said to be in the billions of yuan.
Jiang is known to have illegally contracted several petrochemical projects to the Shanghai-based Wison Engineering Service, which was owned by Zhou Yongkang’s son, Zhou Bin. These projects were worth over ten billion yuan each.
According to an insider’s information, the largest corruption case ever to take place in the history of CNPC was its investment in Sichuan Petrochemical Company. 30 billion out of the 38 billion yuan investment went into someone’s pocket as Sichuan Petrochemical contracted most of its projects to Wison. When the project turned out to be a big failure, no one dared to investigate it because those who were involved in the corruption were heavyweight political figures at the time.
As Wison was purchasing instruments for the Sichuan Petrochemical project, a scandal involving Japanese porn stars was exposed in May 2012. The scandal shook the Chinese society at the time and what people didn’t know was the people behind the scandal were Zhou Bin and Jiang Jiemin.
Fu Chengyu and Wang Tianpu, former president and vice president of China Petrochemical Development Corporation (CPDC), and Jiang were all Zhou Yongkang’s trusted aides. Through them Zhou monopolized the petroleum business in China and provided people in China with overpriced inferior petroleum. CNPC and CPDC were Zhou Yongkang and Zhou Bin’s cash cows.
According to a China Times’ report on Sept. 1, 2013, when Jiang Jiemin became the president of CNPC in 2007, the company’s stock returned to A share listing on Nov. 5. Its share price was 48.5 yuan that day and went nowhere but down from there.
By Aug. 30, 2013, it was at 7.83 per share. CNPC had a total of 183 billion shares, and losing one yuan per share means losing 183 billion yuan of market value. From November 2007 to August 2013, CNPC had lost 40 yuan per share, meaning 7.35 trillion yuan had evaporated, which was one-third the total market value of Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges.
Reports at the time pointed out that Jiang Jiemin was involved in many corruption cases. Regarding the CNPC cases, the Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection found that large sums of money went to Zhou Yongkang, and that it was used in the persecution of Falun Gong.
Wang Yongchun, Jiang Jiemin’s Heir
Wang Yongchun is a former deputy general manager of CNPC. Wang was once regarded as the heir of Jiang Jiemin within CNPC.
While Jiang Jiemin started off at Shengli Oil Field, Wang started off at Jilin Oil Field. The two didn’t have much in common until they met while developing Hailaer Oil Field.
When petroleum production at Daqing Oil Field began to plunge every year, developing a new oil field became CNPC’s main focus. In 2005 when Jiang Jiemin inspected Hailaer Oil Field, which is part of Daqing Oil Field, without doing much research, he proposed a “grand goal of 58553,” meaning: in 5 years, find an 800 million ton oil reservoir, use 500 million tons to create a 5 million ton production capacity, with an annual output of over 3 million tons.
In 2008, Wang Yongchun became the deputy general manager of Daqing Oil Field. To further Jiang Jiemin’s grand goal, Wang mobilized almost ten thousand employees of Daqing Oil Field and started “the war on Hailaer.” Wang spent 1.5 billion yuan and dug hundreds of oil wells, most of them empty. The corruption in this “war” was also shocking.
However, Jiang Jiemin was impressed by Wang’s performance and repeatedly promoted him. In April 2011, Wang Yongchun was the deputy General Manager of CNPC and Daqing Oil Field. He was hence a heavyweight figure in Daqing Oil Field as well as CNPC. An insider in Beijing said that after Zhou Yongkang retired from being a member of the Politburo Standing Committee at the 18th National Congress, the first place he visited was Daqing Oil Field where he met with Wang.
In the past ten years or so, CNPC was the Zhou’s family cash cow, and Wang Yongchun played a very important role in that.
Jiang Zemin, the Next Big Tiger?
With so many top-level officials from Jiang Zemin’s faction sacked, some commentators wonder about Jiang’s own future.
According to a July 28 report by NTD Television, Han Zheng, the Party secretary of Shanghai, which is Jiang Zemin’s base, expressed his allegiance to Xi Jinping in a recent article. Han used to be a strong supporter of Jiang’s. In addition, after Xu Caihou was arrested, Xi Jinping’s former staff member Ying Yong was installed as deputy secretary of Shanghai.
