Xi denies House of Cards power struggle, threatens to eliminate ‘conspirators’
By Lobsang Tenchoe
DHARAMSALA May 04: Chinese President Xi Jinping has issued a warning to the “cabals and cliques” within the Communist Party of China (CPC) and promised a stern action to uproot the problem.
Xi denied the existence of ‘House of cards’ like power struggle prevailing at the top brass of the party and placed the blame on the conspirators within the party for allegedly attempting to undermine the Communist party.
“There are careerists and conspirators existing in our party and undermining the party’s governance,” Xi said in a speech published in Tuesday’s edition of the People’s Daily.
“We should not bury our heads in the sand and spare these members but must make a resolute response to eliminate the problem and deter further violations,” he added, giving a stern warning to the conspirators.
Xi, also the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, addressed a plenary session of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection earlier in January and mapped out the anti-graft work in 2016. Xi’s administration considers its anti-corruption drive a key mission to discipline its hundreds of thousands of officials. including top party and military figures. The war on corruption has generated discontent among officials, caused political paralysis and fuelled suspicions that Xi is using the campaign as a pretext to purge his political enemies.
In spite of its contribution of producing number of top rank leaders of the Communist Party-led government of the People’s Republic of China, the Communist Youth League which was organized on the party pattern came under fire in official media over graft scandals and inefficiency. An investigation by Xi’s anti corruption body saw its budget slashed by more than 50 percent for this year.
Apparently, the Communist Youth League happens to be the power base of former president Hu Jintao and current Prime Minister Li Keqiang.
All these developments coupled with Xi’s decision to take on the title of the Commander -in Chief of China’s joint battle command centre last month points out towards a potential indicator of trouble at the top.
The war on corruption has not only generated displeasure among officials, it has also caused political paralysis and fuelled suspicions that Xi is using the campaign as a pretext to purge his political enemies.
Although reports of Xi dismissing those charges and vowing to “step up” the anti-corruption drive has emerged on Xinhua, China’s official news and propaganda agency, Andrew Wedeman, a political scientist who is writing a book called ‘Swatting Flies and Hunting Tigers: Xi Jinping’s War on Corruption’, said, “continuing to pursue the campaign carries severe risks for China’s leader and if you really push this thing too far then an awful lot of people would be in trouble.”
