The outside world has different interpretations.
Observers who believe that Xi Jinping is losing power have noticed that a very important sentence is missing from the Xinhua News Agency’s release, which is “a deep understanding of the decisive significance of the ‘two establishments’.” “Two establishments” refer to establishing Xi’s core position and Xi’s ideological guiding position. This has been repeated at every Politburo meeting before. But starting in April, the phrase suddenly disappeared. Therefore, some people who are good at observing the movements of CCP officialdom through clues believe that this shows that Xi Jinping’s power has been frustrated.
Xinhua News Agency’s 17th press release mentioned at the end that this meeting “also studied other matters”, which generally refers to personnel transfer, which is estimated to be related to the power distribution of the 20th Congress. There may be relevant news coming out in the future, when the outside world can further judge the direction of the CCP’s power struggle.
But the more widely accepted view is that Xi Jinping has the upper hand when he has military power, and the other matter studied at the meeting is more likely to be the Xiao Jianhua case. Apollo News made this view.
The Wall Street Journal quoted sources as saying on the 10th of this month that Xiao Jianhua will be tried in Shanghai as soon as this month. If the news is true, then for the Politburo to discuss the matter, it does need to move the meeting date forward.
Xiao Jianhua is considered a white glove of Jiang Zeng’s faction, and the CCP’s trial of the case has political significance.
For example, the commentator Wang Jian once said in his YouTube show that Xi Jinping tried Xiao Jianhua before the 20th National Congress. Obviously, Xiao Jianhua is a lever for Xi Jinping to control the Jiang faction.
Wang Youqun, a writer for Wei Jianxing, a former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China, wrote in The Epoch Times on the 18th that internal sources revealed that Xiao Jianhua’s case was called “the number one case in Zhongnanhai” because Xiao Jianhua was by far China’s largest “financial giant”. “The CCP dignitaries involved behind him include Jia Qinglin, Liu Yunshan, Zhang Gaoli, Zhang Dejiang, and Li Lanqing’s family in addition to the Jiang Zeng family. Therefore, his case has been handled for five and a half years.
Wang Youqun believes that after Xiao Jianhua became a prisoner, he would not choose to fight against the Xi Jinping authorities, but would “cooperate” with the investigation. It is estimated that he has already told all the power and money transactions he knows about. Xi has obtained relevant evidence. The current trial is in response to the frequent scolding wars launched overseas by the anti-Xi forces.
Wang Youqun concluded that in the more than five years since Xiao Jianhua was arrested, there have been no official reports about his criminal detention, arrest, or investigation according to law. From this, we can see that this is a political case, and the CCP has been following the law. “Unspoken rules” operate according to political needs, so the trial of the case can be light or heavy, depending on the situation of the political forces behind Xi Jinping and Xiao Jianhua.
Regardless of whether this Politburo meeting is discussing personnel transfers or the arrangement of the Xiao Jianhua case, this is a meeting that has great influence on the top leaders of the CCP, because the time is approaching the Beidaihe meeting, and the CCP is fighting more and more fiercely.