The Chinese Communist Party has yet to clarify with any certainty at press time the bizarre spectacle that occurred at its every-five-year Congress on Saturday, when authorities physically dragged former President Hu Jintao out of the event while the elderly man pleaded for dictator Xi Jinping’s intervention.
Hu served as president prior to the beginning of Xi Jinping’s tenure in 2013 and failed to amass any significant power, reportedly limited by the heavy hand of his own predecessor, Jiang Zemin, the president in charge during the Tiananmen Square massacre. Hu resigned voluntarily from the presidency – something few expect Xi to emulate – and watched many of his former allies and cronies be arrested and disappeared for alleged “corruption” under Xi.
Cameras captured the 79-year-old Hu on Saturday as two men walked over and grabbed him under his arms, pulling him out of his chair and dragging him away. Hu was seated next to Xi at the time and looked over, appearing fearful and speaking to the dictator, who did not address him in any way. An official seated to Hu’s other side, Li Zhanshu, took away his documents and initially appeared to attempt to stand up and help Hu, but Wang Huning, behind him, grabbed him by the elbow and discouraged intervention:
【胡锦涛动作显示不自愿地被带离场】
【拒绝"被搀扶"、试图再坐下、拍打李克强手臂、习近平反应冷淡】
法新社画面显示，工作人员首先拿起了胡锦涛的眼镜，当尝试搀扶他时，胡锦涛右手缩回去，然后胡锦涛伸手拿习近平枱上的文件，工作人员即时制止。之后习近平头部转向相反方向，没有再理会胡锦涛。 pic.twitter.com/Y32PJyksP1— 自由亚洲电台 (@RFA_Chinese) October 22, 2022
Hu has not been seen in public since.
Shocked international observers speculated that Xi orchestrated the humiliating exit as a signal to potential dissenters within the Party of his total stranglehold on power or a signal to the world that Xi had no challengers at home. Some wondered if Hu, whom the human rights magazine Bitter Winter described as “notoriously senile,” had begun acting erratically and alarmed organizers or simply did need medical care.
The Chinese public has not received any clarification as to what happened, and signs indicate that most have no way of knowing that Hu was expelled at all. The Communist Party government has not publicly addressed the incident in any form at home, according to Reuters: “There has been no mention of the incident in domestic media” as of Monday. On Saturday, the Xinhua News Agency, a government company, published an English-language explanation of what happened on Twitter, a medium most Chinese citizens cannot legally access. The comment raised more questions than it answered.
“Hu Jintao insisted on attending … despite the fact that he has been taking time to recuperate recently,” Xinhua claimed, without offering any clarification as to what Hu Jintao was allegedly recuperating from. It later added that “now, he is much better,” without elaborating:
When he was not feeling well during the session, his staff, for his health, accompanied him to a room next to the meeting venue for a rest. Now, he is much better.
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) October 22, 2022
Reuters reported that the Chinese Foreign Ministry received a question about Hu during its regular briefing on Monday but only referred reporters back to the Xinhua tweet. The official transcript of the briefing omits any mention of Hu.
Hu has not been completely erased from government coverage of the Communist Party Congress. Reuters observed that government news broadcasts clearly showed him in attendance, without alluding to his ignominious exit. Xinhua’s official write-up of the affair on Saturday – declaring the Congress an unqualified success – included a photo of Hu standing next to Xi before his removal, clearly appearing tired and frail. Xinhua named Hu alongside the others sitting in the front row with Xi.
On Weibo, China’s state-controlled substitute for Twitter and other Western social media, reports indicate that censors have erased any inkling of reference to the Hu incident.
“On China’s Twitter-like Weibo, a few social media users alluded to the incident by commenting on old posts featuring Hu. By Saturday night, the comments sections of almost all Weibo posts with Hu’s name were no longer visible,” Reuters recounted. The Agence France-Presse (AFP) noted similarly on Saturday.
“Search results for ‘Hu Jintao’ on China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo appeared to be heavily censored Saturday afternoon, with the most recent result dated Friday and posts limited to those of official accounts,” AFP observed.
What’s on Weibo, a website that tracks social media sentiment in China, also documented heavy censorship. Searches of not just Weibo, but other Chinese social networks such as WeChat and Douyin (Tiktok), for “Hu Jintao” did not offer any results. The outlets also appeared to censor discussion of now-former Premier Li Keqiang, who lost his position to an early “retirement” with no explanation. “But it is important to note that virtually all Chinese social media posts about the 20th Party Congress are published by official media government accounts,” What’s on Weibo added, noting that open discussion of the event is “always strictly regulated.”
The Global Times, the country’s most prominent English-language propaganda outlet, has not mentioned Hu at all since this weekend. In an analysis of the entire Congress on Monday, the newspaper declared that, through the Party, China will “create a new form of human civilization with Chinese modernization.”
“In the face of changes in the world, times, and history, China’s determination to take the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics will not change,” the Global Times proclaimed, “its determination to learn from others and practice win-win cooperation with other countries will not change, and its determination to walk hand in hand with the world will not change.”
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