The Chinese regime’s Ministry of State Security recently revealed that a retired Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadre from a school in Yunnan Province had sought to recruit a “dare-to-die corps” years ago to overthrow the communist regime, leading to speculation that the regime is gearing up for another “anti-corruption” campaign.
The CCP’s ministry published an article on its official account on Chinese social media WeChat on Aug. 15, in which it described a national security case that occurred in 2016. It stated that a retired cadre surnamed Su contacted “key members of overseas hostile organizations” to plan to purchase weapons from abroad and to recruit individuals to conspire to carry out a violent operation called “China’s Benghazi Project” to “subvert the state power.”
But while the plot was still in the planning stage, all of those who were involved were arrested.
Experts believe that the timing of the release is related to the current crisis of the CCP and its leader, Xi Jinping, and that authorities are preparing a new round of purges to clear out the regime’s political enemies or eliminate any opposition to its rule.
Yuan Hongbing, a legal scholar based in Australia, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 18 that the CCP’s revelation of the case has a specific background: Recently, 10 top officials of the CCP’s Rocket Force were taken down, and Foreign Minister Qin Gang was suddenly removed in July without any reason given after his mysterious disappearance. Mr. Qin also has connections with the now-removed top leadership of the Rocket Force.
These recent incidents have had a great psychological effect on Mr. Xi, Mr. Yuan said.
“The vast majority of CCP officials are now ‘double-faced people’ in Xi Jinping’s words,” he said. “Xi feels a serious sense of insecurity because of this, so he wants to carry out a large-scale screening and education within the Party through the case of armed riots by people within the system.”
Mr. Xi now has a mentality of fear and crisis, Chen Kuide, executive chairman of the Princeton China Initiative, said on Aug. 18.
“He feels that this year may be a very dangerous year, so he wants to heighten and strengthen the security defense line of the CCP, ” he said.
Adding ‘National Security’ to ‘Anti-Corruption’
The CCP has recently ramped up its national security propaganda. On Aug. 1, the Ministry of State Security publicly declared that “anti-espionage requires the mobilization of the whole society” and called on everyone to report spies. On Aug. 11, the ministry claimed to have uncovered a CIA spy case. The suspect, surnamed Zeng, was a staff member of a certain military industrial group.Because Mr. Zeng agreed with Western values, he “was shaken in his political stance” and was turned by the CIA to provide a large amount of Chinese core intelligence to the agency and received funds for espionage from the CIA, the ministry said.
Mr. Yuan said that the CCP has boosted national security and anti-espionage propaganda in order to prepare for another major purge within the Party.
“Because it doesn’t work anymore to use the ‘anti-corruption’ reasons alone to carry out large-scale purges, the new round of political purges is to add the need for ‘national security.’ It can easily cover from within the Party to outside the Party,” he said.
Mr. Yuan said that Mr. Xi is now relying on the super spy system jointly run by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission to control Party officials and maintain his dictatorship. But once a major event occurs, it will grow out of control.
“All the conditions for China’s political upheaval have been met, and what is waiting now is a historic opportunity,” he said.
Mr. Chen also believes that considering the tension within the CCP, major incidents will occur in China in the near future.
