Viral Anti-Xi Article Reveals CCP Infighting That May Derail Xi’s Bid For 3rd Term, Analysts Say

By Nicole Hao of the Epoch Times

An article criticizing Chinese leader Xi Jinping was allowed to go viral in mainland China, which analysts say reflects the intense struggle among different factions in the Chinese Communist Party and its impact on Xi’s ruling.

China experts have said that Xi might not secure a third term, which will be revealed at the CCP’s Party Congress this fall, although Xi amended the Party’s constitution successfully in 2018 to remove term limitations.

“The 40,000-word long article listed mistakes that Xi Jinping has made in politics, economy, and diplomacy. It’s a summary of Xi’s ruling over the past nine years,” Li Hengqing, a China expert at the Washington Institute for Information and Strategy, told the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times on Feb. 8.

“After 2018, we all said that there’s no force to stop Xi from taking a third term. Now, we can see that the situation isn’t simple, and it’s unclear whether he can obtain it,” Li added.

He emphasized: “The article circulated broadly inside and outside of China. Even several friends from mainland China forwarded it to me … It shows that the CCP factions against Xi are fighting to stop Xi from continuing in office.”

Xi became Chinese leader in November 2012, and won his second term in October 2017. The previous version of the CCP constitution ruled that each leader could only take two terms, which would have seen Xi retire in 2022. The amendment of the constitution paved the road to allow Xi to rule the country beyond the two terms—if he can secure support from the rest of the Party leadership.

Anonymous Commentary

On Jan. 19, an author under the pen name “Ark and China” published the article “Evaluate Xi Jinping Objectively” on overseas Chinese blogs. Since the Chinese New Year on Feb. 1, the commentary of Xi’s leadership became viral among readers inside China.

Taiwan’s state-run Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Feb. 9 that people in China had spread the article widely although the Chinese regime censored the piece.

The commentary reviewed Xi’s performance over the past decade in the anti-corruption campaign, the party’s ongoing eradication of independent religion and beliefs, human rights abuses, its tight surveillance and control of the people, enhancement of propaganda, further revision of children’s textbooks and history books, the strengthening of state-run enterprises and suppression of the private sector, conflicts with the Western world, and winning over developing countries by squandering the national treasury.

Its author opined that they don’t believe Xi has the capability to rule the country, and has angered both CCP officials who supported him and opposed him when he took office. Meanwhile, the Chinese people’s benefits and interests are being encroached upon, but their voices can’t be heard due to the regime’s censorship.

“At present, it’s difficult for him to continue his ruling. The year 2022 will be his biggest turning point,” the author wrote. “Even if he miraculously secures another term, he will face more difficulties and complete failure before 2027.”

The author then went on to list three factors that could cause the collapse of Xi’s ruling alongside a predicted worsening of the political situation. It said the achievements claimed by Xi are fabricated, the political foundation of Xi’s ruling has been destroyed, and “the entire CCP bureaucracy” is opposed to Xi and his handful of supporters.

Fierce Infighting

“Don’t treat the CCP as a political party! It’s actually a political gang. Like the former head of the Soviet Union Vladimir Lenin said, the communist party grows by fighting internally and cleaning (killing) its members,” Cai Xia, a former professor of political ideology at the CCP’s Central Party School, wrote in an opinion piece on Feb. 6 that was published on U.S.-based Chinese media Yibao.

Cai said: “Due to the cruelty and bloody infighting within the party, all senior officials understand the hidden rule, which is to choose a faction and fight for it without thinking about what’s right or wrong.”

Li told The Epoch Times that the forces in the Chinese regime which are against Xi are gathering together now. “They are using all their resources and solutions to block Xi from taking the next term,” he said.

“The [viral] article is echoing the opinion of Chinese politicians. It stands on the point of maintaining the CCPs’s ruling in China but removing Xi Jinping,” Chen Weijian, New Zealand-based Chinese dissident and editor of online magazine Beijing Spring, told the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times on Feb. 8.

“At the Sixth Plenary Session of the rubber-stamp legislature’s 19th conference, the CCP factions presented their severe disagreements [on regime policies]. [The long article] is the latest bomb that the anti-Xi’s faction has detonated amid the factional fighting,” Gao Wenqian, former official biographer of the CCP’s first premier Zhou Enlai, told VOA on Feb. 8.

Gao said that the CCP’s rigid dictatorship is growing increasingly fragile, and may break at any time.

Cai listed the crises the regime in Beijing is facing across China now, which include more white- and blue-collar unemployment, the financial crisis facing China’s largest real estate predators, the regime collecting more tax and fees from people who can’t earn a living and unprofitable enterprises, strict COVID-19 policies that further damage the economy and threaten peoples’ lives, and young Chinese who refuse to have children even after marriage.

“This is a strong article that can drive public opinion against Xi,” Cai wrote.