Xi Jinping Accompanied by Top Military Official During His Visit to Xinjiang

Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping (C) visits the community of Guyuanxiang in the Tianshan District in Urumqi in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, July 13, 2022. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP)

Chinese leader Xi Jinping recently went to Xinjiang for an inspection, eight years after his last visit to this far-west China region. In addition to civilian officials, the entourage included the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. This unusual occurrence could be a sign that Xi wants to warn and intimidate his political opponents.

China Central TV (CCTV) covered Xi’s Xinjiang inspection, which began on July 12 and ended on July 15, in a 34-minute propaganda piece in its prime-time news broadcast.

At the end of 2021, Xi replaced Xinjiang’s communist party chief with one of his cronies, Ma Xingrui, after the faction of his opponent, Jiang Zemin, had controlled the autonomous region for nearly three decades.

Ma’s predecessor Chen Quanguo now serves as deputy head of the Central Rural Work Leading Group. The drastic demotion indicated that Chen was marginalized amid the Xi-Jiang infighting.

Jiang Faction Builds Up Military Force after Xinjiang Riot

Ji Da, an expert on China issues, had previously told The Epoch Times that Xinjiang used to be an independent kingdom of Jiang Zemin’s camp, and they often deliberately used local ethnic conflicts to stir up trouble and profit from the chaos.

For example, the “July 5th Incident” that broke out in Xinjiang in 2009 was a major turning point for the Jiang faction.

On July 5, 2009, a crowd of more than 1,000 protesters appeared in front of the government of Urumqi, Xinjiang, to protest a case of unfair treatment of Uyghurs in Guangdong Province. But within hours, the peaceful protest quickly turned into a bloody incident. Local authorities claimed that 156 people were killed, 1,080 injured and hundreds of cars destroyed in the riots that day. The public still disbelieve this statement, as it is unusual that more than 1,200 people could be killed or injured in such a short period of time.

After the “July 5th Incident,” the Central Political and Legislative Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which was firmly controlled by the Jiang faction at the time, was granted much greater power to mobilize the armed police force, and more funds for the purpose of “maintaining social stability.”

The CCP’s armed police force is a huge organization with a total of 1.5 million officers in 2020, while the CCP’s regular army has a total force of 2 million.

The armed police are equipped with advanced light weapons and light armored vehicles. Their main task is to protect domestic security. Before Xi Jinping came to power, almost all important positions such as the commander and political commissar of the Armed Police Force were from the Jiang faction.

Attempted Coup

A series of events later proved that gaining greater power to mobilize the armed police force was only part of the Jiang clique’s political conspiracy. The Jiang faction staged an attempted coup just before Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.

The coup was planned by Zeng Qinghong, the No. 2 figure in the Jiang faction. Zhou Yongkang, then head of the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee, and others, were responsible for the specific implementation. They intended to support a senior official from Jiang’s bloc to replace Xi, but the plan ended in failure.

The failed coup plan triggered the CCP’s largest purge since the end of the Cultural Revolution. After Xi came to power, about 400 officials at the provincial and ministerial level and above were sacked, including the former head of the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee, and the vice chairman of the Military Commission, as a result of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. Several senior officials were sentenced to life or fixed-term imprisonment.

Xi also reversed the power of the police system to mobilize the armed police force on a large scale, and the armed police is now fully controlled by the CCP’s highest military unit, the Central Military Commission.

However, Xi’s retaliatory purge of the Jiang faction did not touch the core leaders of the group, and officials who had participated in the coup were not completely eliminated, thereby posing great danger to Xi’s rule.

Xi Sending a Message to Jiang Faction

During Xi’s trip to Xinjiang, Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the CCP’s Central Military Commission, accompanied him in all his public appearances. Xi is possibly trying to show his enemies that he has a firm grip on military power and is capable of deterring his political opponents.

Zhang is a political ally of Xi, and has expressed his support for Xi multiple times when the CCP infighting became fierce.

Every five years, the CCP convenes its National Party Congress to select top leaders and review major policies. It is an occasion of important power changes. The regime will hold its 20th National Congress this fall. As usual, factional infighting will reach its climax on the eve of the event.