The pressure is on Party chief Hu Jintao to oust security czar Zhou Yongkang and wrest power from the faction headed by former Chinese regime head Jiang Zemin, according to a China commentator.
Zhang Tianliang, a China expert, is predicting a busy May as Hu and premier Wen Jiabao deal with Zhou Yongkang, in order for Hu to leave the country in peace for the G20 summit in Mexico on June 17-18.
“He can’t deal with Zhou Yongkang and immediately leave the country, so he needs some time for the situation to stabilize,” Zhang said. “If Hu waits until after he returns, there is a meeting in July to discuss plans for the Communist Party’s 18th National Congress in October, so he won’t have much time then.”
The power struggle has been playing out as deliberate propaganda in state-run media as well as information fed to the Internet and speculation on blogs.
Scandals involving Zhou Yongkang started to appear on mainland China’s largest search engine Baidu. On April 19, a search of his son’s name, Zhou Bin, resulted in headlines like: “Zhou Yongkang’s son being suspected of accepting 20 million yuan (US$3.2 million) bribe to a harbor death sentence criminal.”
On April 24, a Baidu search elicited a news article titled, “Zhou Yongkang killed former wife to marry CCTV host 28 years younger.”
While Zhou was Party secretary of Sichuan Province, he was suspected of setting up a traffic accident to kill his wife so he could marry CCTV host Jia Xiaoye.
Bo and Zhou belong to the faction loyal to Jiang Zemin, which is locked in a battle with the faction headed by Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao.
Leading members in the Jiang faction include Bo Xilai, Zhou Yongkang, and Luo Gan.
Bo is the recently ousted Party chief of Chongqing and once Politburo Standing Committee member hopeful. Zhou is the current head of the powerful Political and Legislative Affairs Committee (PLAC), which controls nearly all aspects of law enforcement in China. Lou was Zhou’s predecessor as head of the PLAC.
The members of Jiang’s faction are tied together by their guilt for crimes committed against Falun Gong practitioners during the persecution Jiang Zemin began in July, 1999. According to analysts, the power struggle with Hu and Wen has been driven by the fear of the members of the Jiang faction that they will be held accountable for their crimes.
After Chongqing’s deputy mayor and former police chief Wang Lijun fled to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6, he blew open a conspiracy by Jiang’s faction to oust Xi Jinping after he became Party leader.
Hu and Wen have focused on clearing the military, which Zhou controls, of disloyalty. The PLA Daily published a series of editorials in April urging the entire military to “listen to Hu Jintao’s command.”
On April 23, state-run media Xinhua reported on a speech by Hu Jintao during the 17th Plenary Session of Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, where Hu pledged to “remove the tumors on the skin of the Party and deal with party members who do not qualify.”
On the same day, People’s Daily published an article titled, “Strive to push forward reforms and openness,” echoing the arguments of Wen Jiabao about reform and preventing a second cultural revolution—something Bo Xilai was accused of pushing his municipality in Chongqing toward.
An editorial by Zhou Yongkang calling for unity and stability in the leadership was a way to buy time, Zhang Tianliang said. “The military is yelling all day to listen to chairman Hu... Looking at the overall situation, the military is targeting Zhou Yongkang.”
Read the original Chinese article.
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