Hong Kong Oriental Network published a commentary on three major campaigns that Xi Jinping has conducted in the past five years since he took the top leadership role in China. All these battles were against established interest groups and were met with many objections; yet Xi has been able to carry on the fight.

The first one was whether the (head of the) Party directs the “gun” or the “gun” directs the Party. During Hu Jintao’s era, Hu did not have control over the military or the police and the legal system. Guo Boxiong, Xu Caihou (two Vice Chairmen of the Central Military Commission) and Zhou Yongkang (head of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee) had the real power and ignored Hu. Xi fought several fierce battles to take them down and reclaim control.

The second one was whether the (head of the) Party directs the “money” or the “money” directs the Party. Though huge wealth has been generated in China, it has largely been concentrated in the hands of the families of high-ranking officials. For example, businessmen Che Feng (the son-in-law of Dai Xianglong, former Central Bank Governor and Tianjin Major), Xiao Jianhua (said to be linked to former top official Zeng Qinghong’s son Zeng Wei), Wu Xiaohui (ex-husband of Deng Xiaoping’s grand granddaughter and said to have connections with Zeng Qinghong), and Huang Rulun (said to have a good connection with a former top official Jia Qinglin) have, through their political connections, not only accumulated huge wealth, but also a lot of political power.

The third battle is whether to let the people have money or to let officials have money. Before Xi, it was the officials, not the people, who accumulate a lot of wealth. Xi has been trying to limit the officials’ power and has asked them to report their wealth.

Source: Oriental Network, June 26, 2017
http://hk.on.cc/hk/bkn/cnt/commentary/20170626/bkn-20170626000914761-0626_00832_001.html

Xi Jinping’s visit to Hong Kong featured unprecedented security measures, including extremely tightened security controls, the Liaoning aircraft carrier’s visit to Hong Kong, and a last-minute decision on which hotel to use. Apple Daily commented that this is due to the Communist Party’s fierce in-fighting.

“The threat to Xi’s safety is, for sure, not from Hong Kong demonstrators, the non-existent Hong Kong separatists, or the overseas extreme religious or separatist forces. Rather, it is from the Communist Party’s power struggle.”

Reason one, for over a month, Liao Xiaobo had been diagnosed with late term liver cancer. The government had successfully hidden the information for so long but then let it leak two days before Xi’s visit to Hong Kong. It was similar to a setup for Hu Jintao when he visited Hong Kong in 2012.

Reason two was that the Xi had plans A and B for two hotels to stay at. It was not until the last minute that they decided to change hotels, creating great chaos for the media and the Hong Kong police. “This arrangement showed a distrust of the internal population rather than the outside people.” “This made people want to link to Li Keqiang’s visit to Beijing University in April where the officials sent divers to search the lake at the university and used a special car to deliver food to Li when he dined at the cafeteria.”

“This arrangement let the outside world realize that the Communist Party’s power struggle has come to the point of life or death for its leaders.”

Source: Apple Daily, July 1, 2017.
http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/news/art/20170701/20074884

The Chinese State’s media, People’s Daily published an article stressing the importance, now that China is getting stronger, of breaking the Western monopoly on the definition of democracy and establishing a Chinese communist democratic discourse system instead.

The article said, “For a long time, Western developed countries have monopolized the right to define democratic concepts, set democratic standards, interpret democratic theory and judge democratic disputes. Western theorists constantly use their discourse hegemony to package Western democracy, decorating it with a “universal” coating and portraying it as a global political standard so as to mislead the people of the world in their understanding and practice of democracy. Under the new situation, China is steadfastly walking its socialist political development path with Chinese characteristics. Therefore, China needs to deconstruct the Western democratic discourse hegemony, profoundly understand the absurdity of the definition of Western “democracy,” strive to build a socialist system of democratic discourse with Chinese characteristics, and reverse the passive situation of being ‘cursed’ by the West.”

“In recent years, with the development and expansion of China, the West continually creates a variety of public opinions that question, misinterpret, and slander China. In public opinion, the issue of democracy is often being used to create an attack target. In the face of the Western democratic discourse hegemony, we must dare to utter our voice, confidently expose the absurdity of Western democratic discourse, and then build a socialist democratic discourse system with Chinese characteristics. We should make it clear to people that Western democracy is only a local experience and knowledge that is built in the context of the specific historical and cultural background of the West. It is not a universal truth, nor is it a universal way to solve the problem of governing the country. The Western democratic model does not value as a ‘model’; it only has a reference value.”

Source: People’s Daily, June 30, 2017
http://theory.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0630/c40531-29373312.html