Recently there have been many discussions on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) infight. One hot discussion was the fight between Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CCP, and the faction of Jiang Zemin, former CCP head; and another one is the fight between Xi and Li Keqiang, China’s Premier. Chinascope is not able to verify the validity of these reports.
The Epoch Times reported that on May 17 and 18, People’s Daily, one of the CCP’s main mouthpiece, listed Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, and Li Zhanshu, one after the other, on its front page but didn’t cover Xi Jinping. That was unusual, since Xi usually receives the most coverage on the media. In the CCP’s internal factions, Li Keqiang and Wang Yang, ranked number 2 and 4 of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee members, are in the Communist Youth League faction; Li Zhanshu, ranked number 3 of the Politburo Standing Committee member, is Xi’s ally.
Hu Xijin, the former chief editor of the CCP’s mouthpiece Global Times, made an comment on his Weibo account. He highlighted in a red box an article on promoting China’s economy (which is Li Keqiang’s position) on the front page of the May 17 People’s Daily, and commented, “This is a very important signal. Follow this signal, put aside your doubts and uncertainties, and embrace new opportunities. Then you will be proved to be real business heroes and a hero of these times.” Next to Hu’s red box, were two other articles reporting Li Keqiang’s and Wang Yang’s activities. So Hu’s comments could be interpreted as having double meaning.
There are other reports on the power balancing as well. On May 11, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled, “Li Keqiang steps out of Xi Jinping’s shadow.”
On May 14, both Xinhua News Agency and the People’s Daily published the full text of Li Keqiang’s 9,000-word speech given on April 25. It is not very common to report something 20 days ago, especially publishing the full text.
On the other hand, the front pages of People’s Daily on May 15 and 16 reported Xi Jinping, without the appearance of any other senior CCP leaders.
No article about Xi Jinping appeared on the front page of the Xinhua website on May 18. Nor did the PLA Daily have one on May 18 either.
Source: Epoch Times, May 18, 2022.
https://www.epochtimes.com/b5/22/5/17/n13739454.htm