Is China’s Xi Struggling for Authority? ‘Unprecedented’ Swap of Top CCP Officials Fuels Speculation

As two Politburo members trade jobs, China watchers see indications of greater political shakeup.

Chinese security guards look at military delegates during the speech of Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Communist Party's 19th Congress in Beijing on Oct. 18, 2017. Fred Dufour/AFP via Getty Images

News Analysis

A highly unusual personnel move in the upper ranks of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has observers pondering its significance and implications for the regime.

Chinese state media confirmed on April 2 that two members of the Politburo Standing Committee—the 24-member leadership group headed by CCP leader Xi Jinping—had traded posts. The news follows reports on the matter by Hong Kong press, which often carries rumors about the goings-on in the Chinese elite.

Shi Taifeng, 68, erstwhile head of the CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), is now director of the Party’s Organization Department. Former Organization Department chief Li Ganjie, 60, now runs the UFWD, which carries out the Communist Party’s influence efforts throughout Chinese society and overseas.

The Organization Department, which plays a crucial role in determining the regime’s personnel assignments, is often a stepping stone for its directors to enter the Politburo, considered the CCP’s highest leadership body.

“Because this incident is ‘completely unprecedented’ in the CCP’s history, it is undoubtedly a major matter and directly related to Xi Jinping’s personal standing,” China affairs analyst Wang Youqun wrote in a piece for the Chinese-language Epoch Times.

China watchers and political analysts have offered a variety of views on the Shi–Li switch. Some say that it could reflect Xi’s dissatisfaction with “united front” work on Taiwan—the democratically governed island that the CCP is hoping to bring under its control—while others see the move as a sign of coming purges, or even the erosion of the Chinese leader’s grasp on power.

Xi’s Allies on the Chopping Block

Though Xi’s rule, starting in 2013, has been accompanied by a pervasive anti-corruption campaign that largely targeted his factional rivals in the CCP establishment, recent years have seen the Party’s disciplinary organs turn on Xi’s own appointments.

Two high-profile figures brought down in this fashion are former Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who disappeared for months before authorities announced that he had been relegated to a sinecure position, and Li Shangfu, the Chinese defense minister who was placed under investigation and then expelled from his post last June for corruption.

(L-R) Newly-elected Chinese state councilor Qin Gang, state councilor and secretary-general of the State Council Wu Zhenglong, state councilor Li Shangfu swear an oath after they were elected during the fifth plenary session of China's rubber-stamp legislature, the National People's Congress, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 12, 2023. Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

Both men earned the dubious achievement of serving in their respective roles for the shortest period in the history of communist China.

“The downfalls one after the other of Qin and Li were heavy blows to Xi, who had personally selected and trusted each,” Wang Youqun, who holds a doctorate in law from China’s Renmin University and worked as a copywriter for a Politburo Standing Committee member from 1997 to 2002, wrote in his article.

Having run the CCP for more than a decade, Xi has presided over many deepening crises for the Party and China, such as a declining economy, worsening relations with the United States and other countries, and the ruinous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even as Xi retains his grip on the regime’s highest positions, his rivals in the CCP remain at large, wielding influence and undermining his leadership through various channels.

In recent weeks, another top-ranking Chinese military official has been the subject of much public attention.

He Weidong, the vice-chair of the CCP’s Central Military Commission (CMC), a Xi confidante whom the former had taken extraordinary measures to promote to the role in 2022, has also disappeared from public view. The CMC chairman is Xi himself.

Rumors abound that He is also under investigation or has otherwise fallen from grace. Such speculations were amplified after he was conspicuously absent for the military leadership’s annual tree-planting event in Beijing on April 2.

The disappearance of He follows the purge of Miao Hua, head of the CMC’s Political Work Department, last November. Miao, 69, was regarded as a close ally of Xi and enjoyed rapid promotion over the last decade before being placed under investigation for “serious disciplinary violations.”

Gen. He Weidong, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission (CMC), attends the opening ceremony of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing on March 4, 2025. Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images

He Weidong was widely seen as Xi’s “most trusted man in the military,” Wang wrote, noting that “no other official under Xi had seen such a meteoric rise” in the ranks.

“If He was Xi’s ‘No. 1 military confidant’ and Miao his ‘No. 2,’ the loss of both means Xi’s network of support in the military has collapsed,” he claimed.

Wang said he believes that in addition to the likely fall of He, the replacement of Li Ganjie with Shi Taifeng represents yet a further, “possibly fatal” blow to Xi’s arrangements.

Taiwan Setback or Internal Troubles?

Meanwhile, Taiwanese experts have linked the Shi–Li job swap to recent setbacks in Beijing’s “united front” efforts to sway Taiwan’s government.

The CCP, which sees Taiwan as part of communist China’s territory, has not ruled out military invasion to subdue the de facto country of 23 million, but prioritizes “peaceful unification” by infiltrating and subverting Taiwanese society.

Su Tzu-yun, director of the Division of Strategy and Resources at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told The Epoch Times that the Taiwanese public has only grown more wary of the CCP’s “united front” operations after various exposures of Beijing’s activities.

In addition to the pro-independence Lai Ching-te winning Taiwan’s presidential election in January 2024, a mass movement to recall China-leaning politicians from the Taiwanese legislature has been gaining ground.

“In this context, the change in the head of the United Front Work Department is a response to recent internal polls in Taiwan, which show that as much as 60 percent of the public opposes the CCP’s red influence,” Su said.

Shen Ming-shih, another member of the Taiwanese national defense institute, believes that the swap between Shi and Li is more related to Xi’s concerns about upcoming CCP personnel assignments than the regime’s approach toward Taiwan.

Despite having promoted Li to head the Organization Department after the CCP’s 20th National Congress in 2022, it is possible that Xi no longer trusts him, or that anti-Xi elements had Li removed in order to undermine Xi’s ability to influence personnel arrangements, Shen told The Epoch Times.

In the latter case, Shen said it is also possible that Xi would retire from office during the upcoming fourth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee or following the 21st Party Congress in 2027.

Shi Taifeng’s Background

Writing on social media platform X, independent Chinese commentator Xiang Yang said that the switch of Li with Shi could indicate Xi’s disappointment with the former’s leadership of the Organization Department, and that the change also carries deeper implications.

Being transferred to head the United Front means that Li will be passed up for further promotion, despite his relatively young age of 60, meaning that he could still serve many years in the senior CCP leadership.

According to unofficial CCP norms, officials who are 67 or younger at the time of a CCP national congress—typically held every five years—may remain in politics; those 68 or older are expected to retire.

This means that while Xi may have greater confidence in Shi’s ability as Organization Department chief, Shi’s age of 68 means that his service to the Xi leadership cannot progress beyond the 21st Party Congress, unless exceptional circumstances arise.

China's Vice Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Shi Taifeng (L) votes next to Foreign Minister Wang Yi during the closing session of China's rubber-stamp legislature, the National People's Congress, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 11, 2025. Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images

Shi Taifeng, a native of northern China’s Shanxi Province, spent 20 years in the CCP’s Central Party School before rising to lead the Organization Department of Jiangsu Province in 2010. In 2016, several years into Xi’s leadership, Shi became the governor of Jiangsu.

Observers have noted that Shi was a classmate of deceased former Premier Li Keqiang, and, while serving as vice president of the Central Party School, worked with both Xi Jinping and former Chinese leader Hu Jintao during both men’s time as president of the school.

Another former Central Party School president that Shi had worked with was Zeng Qinghong, who served as China’s vice president from 2003 to 2008. Though retired, Zeng remains a major figure in a CCP regime faction rivalling Xi’s leadership.

More Purges on the Horizon?

Cai Shenkun, a Chinese political analyst residing overseas, told The Epoch Times that Shi’s rise to head the United Front Work Department in 2022 and now the Organization Department could be due to his work in Inner Mongolia, where he was the regional CCP secretary from 2019 to 2022.

In February 2020, Shi launched a 20-year retroactive investigation in Inner Mongolia, targeting various serving and former officials in the region, a vast territory bordering the country of Mongolia.

Writing in an April 3 commentary for the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times, China affairs expert Li Yanming noted that Inner Mongolia was where powerful CCP senior official Hu Chunhua had been Party chief from 2009 to 2012.

“Among the large number of Inner Mongolia officials investigated and punished, many of them were old subordinates who had been promoted and placed in positions of importance by Hu Chunhua,” Li wrote.

At the time of Shi’s retroactive investigations in 2020, Hu was widely believed to be a possible candidate to replace Xi as CCP head at the 20th Party Congress in 2022.

Instead, Xi broke CCP norms and took a third five-year term as Party leader that year.

With Shi now in charge of the Communist Party’s personnel arrangements, and his track record of personal loyalty to Xi, more purges could be forthcoming as Xi struggles to gain a greater handle on factional opposition to his leadership.

According to a March 20 report on Xi’s personal and family fortunes published March 20 by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the recent investigation and downfall of Xi’s own allies in the military demonstrates “the seriousness of the CCP’s concerns regarding loyalty and effectiveness—particularly within the [People’s Liberation Army]—and the scope of the regime’s approach to corruption.”

Cai, the independent commentator, said that the CCP is currently conducting a large-scale campaign to instill “four types of political discipline” among Chinese military officers and prevent the formation of corrupt cliques by achieving a “high degree of centralization”—that is, absolute deference to Xi’s authority.

According to Cai, the incessant and overbearing demands for military personnel to conduct “self-examinations” and “self-rectification” have caused “extreme anxiety” and insomnia among many high-ranking officers, who fear being the next target of Beijing’s purges.

According to Yuan Hongbing, a Chinese jurist and dissident living in Australia who frequently publicizes information provided to him from individuals within the CCP officialdom, Miao Hua, the suspended head of the CMC’s Political Work Department and a Xi ally purged last November, went into a frenzied state following his investigation.

Citing his contacts, Yuan said that while in custody, Miao spent many days without sleep writing lengthy tracts detailing the alleged crimes of more than 80 senior Chinese military officers, whom he accused of conspiring against Xi.