The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) high-tech authoritarian surveillance state is a bit of an anomaly in the modern world. The regime is characterized by a complex power structure, with very few people knowing the clandestine deals behind the scenes. Subsequently, many of its decisions and policies appear strange and unconventional to the free world, but within the CCP, it maintains its own logic and standards.
Australian resident Yuan Hongbing, a former law professor at Peking University, has a unique perspective on the CCP and its leader Xi Jinping. In addition to his long-time observation of Chinese politics, he had a period of close personal contact with Xi in the 1980s.
Yuan observed how Maoist ideologies planted in Xi’s youth led him to become the world’s most powerful dictator.
In a recent appearance on The Epoch Times’ Pinnacle View program, Yuan discussed his private interactions with Xi, ranging from topics around the Korean War, the Cultural Revolution, and Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. He also analyzed the rise and fall of different factions within the CCP.
Finally, Yuan further believes that a war in the Taiwan Strait is inevitable because of Xi’s idealist goal of CCP dominance.
Xi Was a ‘Drinking Friend’
Xi and Yuan were both born in the 1950s and were close friends in Beijing from 1987 to 1989 when they often drank together. Now the former is a dangerous dictator of an authoritarian regime, while the latter is exiled from persecution by that regime.Looking back on his interactions with Xi, the professor believes that Xi was deeply influenced by Maoism during his youth, but only a few who were close to him were able to notice his extremist ideology.
Yuan said he met Xi when CCP hardliners purged Xi’s father. It was after 1987 when Hu Yaobang, the former general secretary of the CCP, was forced to resign as Deng Xiaoping, Bo Yibo, and other hardliners within the regime disliked him.
Hu was relatively open-minded to new ideas, including those from the free society, which is often vilified by the CCP as the “sinful capitalist world.”
Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, was also targeted for supporting Hu.
Yuan implied that although he disapproves of Xi Jinping, he has a positive evaluation of Xi Zhongxun.
“Let’s be objective here. Mr. Xi Zhongxun was a man of conscience,” he said. “After Hu was forced out, there were only two members of the CCP Central Committee who refused to condemn Hu: Wang Zhaoguo and Xi Zhongxun. Xi Zhongxun was subject to a series of political and psychological persecution. At the most critical point, it is said that he had already developed schizophrenia and was no longer able to work normally.”
Xi Jinping, then in his 30s, was working as a deputy mayor in Xiamen City of Fujian Province, far from the capital Beijing. According to Yuan, Xi visited Beijing frequently while his father was targeted and disciplined, seeking to build political connections with the CCP elites, as he was worried about his own political career.
After Hu was outed in 1987, Yuan, who was the same age as Xi, was working with a group of young faculty members at Peking University to attempt to influence senior CCP leaders in the hope of continuing with Hu’s political reforms.
True Nature Revealed: A Different Person After Drinking
At that time, Yuan and Xi often drank the famous Chinese liquor “Maotai” together, and Yuan recalled that Xi used to drink more than himself.Under the influence of alcohol, Xi often appeared as a different person. Yuan described Xi as a seemingly reserved and rather cautious person on the outside, but after drinking, he showed a strong will and ambition and often talked on and on.
Yuan gave an example saying that Xi would often brag after drinking that he was able to walk several miles carrying over 200 pounds of weight continuously on one side of his shoulder. When Yuan dismissed Xi’s claims as “silly” and that he should have regularly switched the load to the other side of the shoulder, it truly angered Xi.
Yuan recalled: “He was very angry, and that was the kind of person he was. Once he drinks, he becomes a completely different person. His views would be extremely subjective, and his behavior became quite aggressive.”
Reflecting on Xi’s character, Yuan believes that Xi was heavily influenced by his family’s fate. Since 1959, when Xi was less than 10 years old, his father was implicated in a political purge by Mao Zedong, and the entire family was under stress, which may have contributed to Xi’s habit of concealing his actual views and opinions in front of others.
He believes that Xi usually hid his true thoughts and that the emotional outbursts after drinking were the real Xi.
Fundamentalist Maoist Views
Yuan recalled two incidents during his interaction with Xi, from which he gained insight into Xi’s deeply-rooted Maoist thinking.The first incident was Xi’s drunken talk about the bizarre idea of “letting 4 billion Chinese rule the world.” From the talk, Yuan realized that Xi’s thinking could be characterized as fundamentalist Maoism.
On that day, Yuan was discussing with Xi a general consensus among Chinese intellectuals that China’s overpopulation would slow down the country’s economic development and that they were worried that economic growth would not keep up with the rising population. However, a drunk Xi flatly rejected Yuan’s remark.
Yuan recalled the conversation between the two, saying: “Xi Jinping told me at the time that I was wrong, and he pointed at me because he had drunk a lot. I asked what was wrong. He said the population in China was not too much but actually too little. I asked why do you have such a strange idea? He said that we need 4 billion Chinese people to run the world. This truly left an impression on me. He said that to achieve the global goal of communism, we need people to manage the world. So China’s population is not too many, but it’s actually too little instead.”
Another incident that truly impressed Yuan was a dispute between Xi and Bai Enpei, a CCP provincial official (who was later given a suspended death sentence) when the two men got into a drunken argument and even resorted to a physical brawl over whether Mao should be held responsible for the massive casualties during a battle in the Korean War.
Yuan recalled that Bai believed that the CCP had failed to prepare warm clothing for the 150,000 soldiers sent to Korea, and as a result, more than two-thirds of the soldiers froze to death, for which Mao should be held responsible. Bai’s comments angered Xi.
Yuan recalled, “The usually calm and cautious Xi Jinping suddenly became angry and yelled at Bai Enpei, accusing him of insulting the heroism of the Chinese military during the Korean War.”
Yuan went on to say, “Xi Jinping believes that even though we lost so many men, we defeated the United States and drove them out of North Korea, which was a huge strategic victory, and that sacrifice was inevitable and necessary. So he believed that the military leadership showed heroism at the time.”
The two—who were both drunk—started to quarrel, and eventually, it escalated to a physical brawl. Yuan tried to break it up to no avail, as both men were so much into the fighting, and Xi was as tall as 5'11” (180 cm).
In 2015, three years after Xi took office, Bai, who had already stepped down as Yunnan provincial party boss, was given a suspended death sentence for corruption, making him the first senior CCP official to receive such a heavy sentence under Xi.
Yuan suspected that it might be related to Xi’s strong dislike of Bai after their quarrel over the Korean War years ago.
In 2021, as a tribute to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CCP, the big-budget Chinese patriotic war movie “The Battle at Lake Changjin” was released nationwide after half a decade in production. Such propaganda gestures by the CCP may reflect Xi’s personal views on the party’s history and his ultranationalist ambitions.
