Beijing Daily published an article suggesting that an article published in 2015 on the website of the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) used a historical figure to refer to someone who is a corrupt high-ranking official today.
The two-year old article was “Problems with the Lifestyle of the Qing Dynasty’s ‘Naked Official’ Prince Qing.” It was published on the CCDI website on February 25, 2015. While the article criticized a corrupt official from the Qing Dynasty, it created a lot of discussion and many people surmised that it referred to some current or retired official in the present day. Caixin even mentioned the name of Zeng Qinghong, a former high-rank official and the right man of ex-Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin.
The newer article that Beijing Daily published discussed the 2015 article’s author Xi Hua (习骅). Xi is a high-ranking CCDI official, serving as the Deputy Chief of the Discipline Inspection Team at the State Auditing Administration. Xi is a famous writer at the CCDI and has published over 30 anti-corruption related articles on the CCDI website.
“Among those articles, the one that other media republished the most was, ‘Problems with the Lifestyle of the Qing Dynasty’s “Naked Official” Prince Qing.’”
“This is how Xi Hua sees his writing, ’On the surface I was telling a story, but actually I was commenting on current affairs.’ As more and more people read Xi’s articles, they are continually trying to find out which official (in today’s world) Xi was referring to in his writing. Regarding this situation, Xi said, ‘It shows that people are thinking. This was my original goal when I wrote (those stories).”
Beijing Daily’s article was published under its WeChat account Changan Street Zhishi (长安街知事). Changan Street Zhishi has focused on reporting current political affairs and has written many political observation articles.
Sources
1. Sina, July 22, 2017
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/nd/2017-07-22/doc-ifyihmmm8070290.shtml
2. Chinascope
http://chinascope.org/archives/3475
3. CCDI Website, February 25, 2015
http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/yw/201502/t20150215_51495.html