There are increasing signs that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) reign is facing a serious challenge from within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), threatening to tip China into a period of political instability that could have ramifications for the security of the region, including Taiwan.
The first indication of trouble occurred on Jan. 22, when Xi gave an address at a meeting of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the CCP’s highest internal investigation unit. Xi made reference to “corruption within China’s political and legal systems,” and ordered the commission to strictly investigate “two-faced people who pay lip service in public, but are insincere toward the party.”
Xi also spoke of the “intersection between political and economic problems that threaten the political security of the party and the nation.” Xi’s speech raised eyebrows among China watchers. It is extremely rare for Chinese leaders to directly refer to political tensions inside the party.
The next day, Xinhua news agency published a follow-up article on Xi’s speech, which was even more explicit: “Some rotten elements have formed interest groups and are vainly trying to usurp Party and state authority, holding non-organized activities that damage the Party’s focus and unity,” it said. The Xinhua article also stated that a number of high-ranking party officials had been arrested for “political discipline offenses.”
The reference to “rotten elements” most likely refers to the political faction of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民), also known as the Shanghai clique. Jiang is known to have been immensely corrupt while in power, and to have maintained a firm grip over the party and government after leaving office, placing allies in key positions to secure his interests.
Lacking his own power base to fall back on after assuming power in 2012, Xi began to break up Jiang’s influence by initiating an anti-corruption campaign to hunt out “tigers and flies” — powerful leaders and lowly bureaucrats who owed patronage to Jiang. The campaign has also extended to China’s business and financial sector. This has seen the defenestration of China’s highest profile entrepreneur, Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma (馬雲), who made his wealth during the Jiang era and maintained close ties to the former president’s family.
Following Xi’s cover-up of the COVID-19 outbreak at the end of 2019, criticism of his leadership has reached a crescendo. Party princelings and academics have penned excoriating essays, and even dyed-in-the-wool party loyalist Cai Xia (蔡霞), a prominent former professor at the CCP’s Central Party School, has criticized Xi for turning the party into a “political zombie.”
With the CCP marking its 100th anniversary on Thursday next week, it is an extremely sensitive time for the party. In a sign of Xi’s nervousness, even members of Maoist organizations have been arrested as part of “stability maintenance” operations ahead of the centenary celebrations.
The Internet is awash with rumors that China’s head of counterespionage, Chinese Vice Minister of State Security Dong Jingwei (董經緯), defected to the US with his daughter in February.
Having tossed aside numerous party norms and challenged the powerful Jiang faction head-on, Xi has thrown the CCP into a period of unprecedented instability not seen since the Cultural Revolution. This spells trouble for Taiwan.
Xi has made so many powerful enemies, and burnt so many bridges to shore up power, he now has no option but to keep going to the bitter end; he cannot step down without putting himself and his family in grave danger. If a coup appears to be in motion, there is a risk that Xi could resort to military adventurism, perhaps against Taiwan, as a last roll of the dice. A successful annexation of Taiwan would certainly make Xi untouchable within the party.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
After more than a year of review, the National Security Bureau on Monday said it has completed a sweeping declassification of political archives from the Martial Law period, transferring the full collection to the National Archives Administration under the National Development Council. The move marks another significant step in Taiwan’s long journey toward transitional justice. The newly opened files span the architecture of authoritarian control: internal security and loyalty investigations, intelligence and counterintelligence operations, exit and entry controls, overseas surveillance of Taiwan independence activists, and case materials related to sedition and rebellion charges. For academics of Taiwan’s White Terror era —
After 37 US lawmakers wrote to express concern over legislators’ stalling of critical budgets, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) pledged to make the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget a top priority for legislative review. On Tuesday, it was finally listed on the legislator’s plenary agenda for Friday next week. The special defense budget was proposed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration in November last year to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities against external threats from China. However, the legislature, dominated by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), repeatedly blocked its review. The
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
RSS