tirsdag 10. november 2020

Interview with Bao Tong, former Chinese Communist Party official: ‘The Core Will Now Dictate Everything’

The official Chinese Communist Party (CCP) media are singing the praises of last week’s fifth plenum of the Central Committee of the 19th Party Congress. I, too, think that it was a historic plenum, on a par with the Zunyi conference and the third plenum of the 11th Party Congress. Except of course that the latter two conferences overturned the existing order, while this one paves the way for an era in which [CCP general secretary Xi Jinping at] the core will dictate everything.

Just a month earlier, something unusual had already happened. On Sept. 30, the Politburo announced it was [revising] the Regulations on the Work of the Central Committee, with immediate effect. What did that mean? It meant that there would be no room for error during the fifth plenum of the Central Committee, which would have to follow this new rule.