News analysis
For the past four years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been steadily maneuvering into an advantageous position to deal with his predecessor Jiang Zemin and end the culture of corruption that Jiang fostered in China.
In the wake of Xi’s ascendancy as paramount leader and the passing of strict regulations governing the lives of elite Party cadres at a recently concluded political conclave, the 6th Plenum, the checkmating of Jiang seems to loom ever nearer.
Xi has recently made his ultimate goal more transparent by hinting at the presence of fractious cadres in the Party’s upper echelons. Meanwhile, the anti-corruption agency headed by his ally Wang Qishan is starting to probe the regime’s security apparatus and key judicial organs, possibly in preparation to bring in Jiang Zemin by the law—a view expressed recently by a retired Chinese official with links to moderate voices in the Party elite.
Stating Intent
Xi Jinping’s effort to remove Jiang Zemin and his powerful political faction is not so much a typical Communist Party power struggle than an undertaking of personal, and even national, survival.
Jiang’s nearly two decades at the apex of the Chinese regime—ten years as Party leader, and about ten years as a godfather-like figure—is marked by brutal suppression and rampant corruption.
Jiang came to power in 1989, after showing that he was a hardliner during the pro-democracy protests in Beijing and Shanghai, which concluded in a bloody massacre. Once in office, he allowed a system of nepotism and crony capitalism to flourish, greatly enriching himself and his allies at the expense of the country. Jiang would later seek to stay highly influential past his official retirement to avoid being held accountable for personally leading the persecution of Falun Gong, a peaceful meditation practice, in 1999.
To encourage reluctant officials to arrest, torture, and “eradicate” Falun Gong practitioners, Jiang promised the willing promotion and riches. Many Chinese officials, already accustomed to taking bribes and buying office during Jiang’s reign, became active perpetrators.
Jiang’s allies in the state-run enterprises and state media, like former security czar Zhou Yongkang and Li Dongsheng, moved into the government to play leading roles in the persecution. Both headed up a Gestapo-like, extralegal agency charged with persecuting Falun Gong, and Zhou Yongkang led a security apparatus that gained a budget of over $120 billion, larger than that of the military.
Under Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, however, many of Jiang’s allies have gradually been rounded up and found guilty of abusing their office, taking sometimes hundreds millions of yuan in bribes; unofficial estimates in overseas Chinese language media puts the figures in the billions of yuan collectively, though even this may be a gross underestimate.
In speeches last year, Xi hinted that the political crimes of Jiang’s top associates like the former Politburo member Bo Xilai, Zhou Yongkang, and ex-military vice chairs Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, were more severe than their immense personal greed. Jiang’s men, Xi intimated, were guilty of trying to “wreck and split“ the Party—code for an attempted coup.
