Recent Investigations and Purges of High-Ranking Chinese Communist Party Officials: Zhao Leji’s Downfall?

2023-12-14 15:55:56

[New Tang Dynasty News, Beijing time, December 14, 2023]Recently, Li Pengxin, the former deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the Communist Party of China and the former secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee of Qinghai Province, was dismissed. Li is accused of being a close associate of Zhao Leji, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Prior to this, Zhao Leji’s old subordinates and cronies were constantly being investigated.

The Chinese Communist Party officially announced on December 11 that Li Pengxin was under investigation “on suspicion of serious violations of discipline and law.”

Public information shows that 63-year-old Li Pengxin worked in Qinghai for a long time in his early years. He served successively as Secretary of the Qinghai Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League and Secretary of the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Committee of Qinghai Province. In 2005, he became a member of the Standing Committee of the Qinghai Provincial Committee and later served as the Political and Legal Affairs Committee of the Provincial Committee. Secretary of the committee.

In 2011, Li Pengxin was transferred across provinces to be a member of the Standing Committee of the Inner Mongolia Party Committee and Minister of the Organization Department. In 2016, he was transferred across provinces again to be deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. He will step down in July 2021.

Li Pengxin is also the second deputy provincial official to be investigated in Xinjiang this year. On February 5 this year, Jiao Xiaoping, former member of the Party Committee Standing Committee and deputy commander of the Xinjiang Corps, was investigated.

Cai Shenkun, a senior Chinese media person living in the United States, posted on the overseas X platform on December 13 that Li Pengxin was a confidant promoted by Zhao Leji in Qinghai. Li made his fortune when Zhao Leji was the secretary of the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee. In 2005, the 45-year-old Li Pengxin became a member of the Standing Committee of the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee. In the past 20 years, although he moved to Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and other places, he remained at the deputy ministerial level until December. Checked on the 8th.

Some netizens commented on the post, “Zhao Leji’s disciples and former officials are being investigated one after another. It seems that Zhao Leji will soon be in trouble.” “Zhao’s faction must be attacked.” “The essence is political struggle, gangsters eat gangsters, dogs bite dogs.”

Others say that the leader of the Communist Party of China likes to use the insidious method of grabbing pigtails to eliminate the threats posed by political bigwigs to him and make them obedient. As soon as the pigtails are grabbed, as long as they don’t obey, the knife will fall at any time!

Since this year, many of Zhao Leji’s direct subordinates have been investigated when he was secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Among them are Yin Xueru, deputy secretary of the Ningxia Commission for Discipline Inspection and deputy director of the Supervision Commission, Luo Yulin, a former deputy minister-level official of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council of the Communist Party of China, Cui Yunan, a first-level researcher in the 13th Review and Investigation Office of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervision Commission, and the Transportation Bureau of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervision Commission. Yao Xike, former second-level inspector of the Ministry’s Discipline Inspection and Supervision Group, Liu Ran, deputy director of the Second Supervision and Inspection Office of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and National Supervision Commission and first-level inspector, and Hao Zongqiang, deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and National Supervision Commission and first-level inspector.

Zhao Leji has served in Qinghai for 30 years. He was appointed governor of Qinghai Province in January 2000 and secretary of the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee from August 2003 to March 2007. Zhao’s old headquarters in Qinghai were also investigated one after another.

Among them are Kong Lingdong, former deputy secretary of the Xining Municipal Party Committee and mayor of Qinghai; Xu Guocheng, party secretary and chairman of China Rongtong Agricultural Development Group Co., Ltd. and former deputy mayor of Xining; former director of the Qinghai Provincial Economic and Information Commission and former deputy mayor of Xining Yao Lin, Counselor of the Qinghai Provincial Government Wang Ping (former deputy mayor of Xining City), Han Xianghui, Party Secretary and Director of the Qinghai Provincial Department of Emergency Management (former executive deputy mayor of Xining City).

Cai Shenkun previously published an article stating that it is a norm in the Chinese Communist Party’s political arena that the tea becomes cold as soon as a person leaves, and that the tea becomes cold before a person leaves means being marginalized or losing power and being abandoned. Zhao Leji, the current member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China, is in the latter situation, which also means that he has not been fully recognized by the leader of the Communist Party of China.

Cai Shenkun said that this year, Zhao Leji had just taken over the fictitious position of chairman of the National People’s Congress of the Communist Party of China. People he had once trusted, including people around him, were mercilessly purged by Li Xi, the new secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission.

Earlier reports stated that Zhao Leji had been warned by the leader of the Communist Party of China for his involvement in the illegal construction case in the Qinling Mountains. Because these illegal villas were built by Zhao Leji when he was in charge of Shaanxi from 2007 to 2012.

Wang Youqun, a former official of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and current affairs commentator, once wrote in The Epoch Times that Zhao Leji is an important member of the Jiang faction of the CCP headed by Jiang Zemin and Zeng Qinghong. Many of these “insiders” were promoted and re-employed when Zhao Leji was secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. If Li Xi continues to dig deeper, he is likely to find Zhao Leji, which may be an ominous sign for Zhao.

(Editor: Tang Zheng)

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