On March 25, Oriental Daily reported, “Beijing has started a new cleanup campaign aimed at the financial oligarchs who have super powers in order to prevent a political economic coup and safeguard the upcoming 19th Communist Party’s National Congress (later this year).”
The article quoted the Minister of Supervision Yang Xiaodu’s warning that “[C]apitalists seek political power after grabbing economic power. This is very dangerous.” (See Chinascope’s briefing: Minister of Supervision: It Is Very Dangerous for Entrepreneurs to Seek Political Power).
The article stated that some of those businessmen have secured so much power that they, in effect, have become the “underground Organization Department Director, “underground Municipal Party Secretary,” or even the “underground Provincial Party Secretary.”
“For example, two years ago, in only two months, the Shanghai Composite Index dropped half of its value, the market lost a few dozen trillion yuan (several trillion U.S. dollars), and millions of mid-class families lost their assets significantly or completely. Some media claimed that this was an economic coup that the officials with the vested interests and the financial oligarchs carried out. The goal was to create a large scale stock crisis, wipe out investors’ wealth, and create trouble for companies, in order to build up and direct public grievances at Xi Jinping.
“Xi has touched the interests of those officials. They are therefore using all kinds of means to counter Xi’s actions. Many princelings and financial oligarchs have joined forces in this countering action.
“As the investigation proceeds, the truth of the stock market crisis has started to surface. The core task for the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection is to provide political safeguards for the 19th Party’s Congress. It will take on the irregular political-business alliance. In the time to com, Xi’s regime is very likely to make public some shocking large cases.”
Source: Oriental Daily, March 25, 2017/3/28
http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/china_world/20170325/mobile/odn-20170325-0325_00182_001.html