Watch: Xi’s predecessor marched out of CCP meeting

Is this the start of a new Xi Jinping purge? Earlier today, the former Chinese president Hu Jintao was manhandled and led out of the closing ceremony of the Communist party congress – watched on by delegates and the media. The 79-year-old is Xi Jinping’s immediate predecessor and was seated to his immediate left. A pair of stewards can be seen removing the seemingly distressed elder statesman as he tried to speak to Xi. Such shows of apparent disunity are rare within the CCP’s China, especially at heavily stage-managed events such as this.

Earlier in the congress, two of Hu’s proteges, Li Keqiang and Wang Yang, failed to be re-elected to the party’s central committee. The move has been seen by China watchers as an attempt by Xi to cement his position as premier and to proclaim to the world that he will accept no other faction: Hu’s gang has tended to focus on rural development more than urban and was seen as not quite getting along with xi’s populist programme.

The CCP ‘should more con­sciously up­hold Com­rade Xi Jin­ping’s stature as the core of the party cen­ter and the core of the en­tire party,’ said the res­o­lu­tion to re­vise the party char­ter, ap­proved unan­i­mously at Bei­jing’s Great Hall of the Peo­ple. Xi has used the congress, which happens only twice a decade, to secure an unprecedented third five-year term, solidifying his place as the most powerful ruler since Mao. Mr S wonders what’s next: is Hu going to be purged, Trotsky-style, from the Chinese Internet? And if so, on what charge?

In a recent Spectator leading article, we argued that China is sliding into a dictatorship where anyone not in the Xi fan club is purged – and retirement is no protection. The last week in Beijing seems to have borne this out. Watch the video below: