No matter what Americans think of their politics, the United States still operates in the open. When the most powerful politician and the richest businessman fell out, the public got the full spectacle: barbed posts on social media and sniping in speeches.
China is the opposite. The country still doesn’t know why former President Hu Jintao was abruptly escorted out of the 2022 Communist Party congress, or what really happened when former Premier Li Keqiang died at 68 in 2023. And decades later, the full story of Lin Biao, Mao Zedong’s chosen successor, who fled China and died in a plane crash in 1971, is still unknown.
The secrecy has spawned a niche industry of “bedside eavesdroppers” — Chinese online commentators who parse rumors and fleeting clues for signs of political shifts. Their YouTube videos dissect the gait, complexion or media appearances of China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and can draw millions of views from outside the country’s internet firewall.
The bedside eavesdroppers have had a busy summer. Mr. Xi has purged a number of military and political leaders this year, all of whom he had appointed. The eavesdroppers have contrived a timeline of Mr. Xi’s exit, a combative meeting between Mr. Xi’s bloc and that of the party elders and even the military’s secret plan to topple his rule. The chatter was joined by American voices: a former U.S. national security adviser, a former diplomat and Washington think tanks that suggested there was a fracture in his power structure. Political risk consultancies and investment funds rushed to brief clients: Why is Mr. Xi doing this? Does it signal strength or weakness?
Chinese politics remains a black box, and few credible observers are willing to be seen as indulging in rumor. Yet the questions themselves are legitimate. And they have deep historical echoes.
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The post Why Does Xi Keep Purging Loyalists? Look to Stalin and Mao for the Answer. appeared first on New York Times.
