Chinese Leader ‘Grasps Knife Handle,’ Turning It on Foes

In the wake of the purge of top security official Zhou Yongkang, Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping appears to be making an explicit case against the former security czar.

Zhou Yongkang, then Chinese Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of security, delivers a speech at a meeting in Beijing, China, May 18, 2012. STR/AFP/Getty Images

In the wake of the purge of top security official Zhou Yongkang, Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping appears to be making an explicit case against the former security czar—and hinting that other, higher, officials are in the offing for elimination.

These messages, conveyed directly or interpreted afterwards by analysts, were presented in recent speeches by Xi to cadres in the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC), the agency that controls the entire domestic security apparatus of the Chinese state. It represents the first public reckoning with the legacy of Zhou Yongkang’s control over the security apparatus, which was widely recognized to have become a second center of power in the regime.

Many political-law cadres sighed: "It's been so long since I heard the phrase 'knife handle.'"

— People's Daily