Zhong Yuan: What’s Fishy about the CCP Leader’s Shortened Trip to Chongqing

On April 22-23, Xi Jinping made a brief inspection in Chongqing and then chaired a symposium on the western development. The Chinese Communist Party media did not timely follow up the report, and only four provincial (municipal) party secretaries spoke at the symposium, lacking in representativeness, and the slogans were not resonating. Compared with Xi Jinping’s previous inspection trips, this visit to Chongqing was shortened. What’s the mystery behind it?

The distance between Beijing and Chongqing is over 1700 kilometers. To ensure safety, Xi Jinping’s special train should not travel at the normal speed of high-speed rail. It would take longer to reach Chongqing from Beijing. On the afternoon of April 22, Xi Jinping inspected the Democratic Village Community of Xiejia Bay in Jiulongpo District of Chongqing. Xi Jinping did not have inspection activities scheduled in the morning of April 22, indicating possible travel fatigue, needing more rest, or perhaps needing to understand the latest briefings from Beijing in the morning.

Party leaders of the Chinese Communist Party often have many concerns, and going out for inspections is somewhat for leisure. In addition, Xi Jinping also needs to leave Beijing regularly to avoid staying at Zhongnanhai for a long time, continuing to try to decipher the prophecy of “a warrior enters the emperor’s palace through the back door” in the “Tui Bei Tu”. With most of the CCP officials lying low, the party leader has to travel around, forcing officials from various regions to be energized.

On the morning of April 23, Xi Jinping conducted another half-day inspection. Xinhua reported that from April 22 to 23, Xi Jinping visited the Chongqing International Logistics Hub Park, Xiejia Bay Street Democratic Village Community in Jiulongpo District, and Chongqing Digital City Operation and Governance Center.

Xi Jinping visited three places in Chongqing over two and a half days. Unlike the usual visits to red memorials, gardens, and parks, this time there were no such arrangements. In the afternoon of April 23, Xi Jinping hastily chaired the symposium on western development. This tight inspection was much shorter than before.

From March 18 to 21, Xi Jinping had previously visited Hunan. On March 18, he first went to the Red Institute – Hunan First Normal College; then to BASF Shanshan Battery Material Co., Ltd.; on March 19, to the Old River Street in Changde, Gangzhongping Village, Xiejiapu Town, Dingcheng District, Changde City; on the morning of March 20, he met with senior leaders above the rank of colonel of the Changsha garrison; in the afternoon, he chaired a symposium on the central region; on the morning of March 21, he heard the work report of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Government. This is a typical arrangement for Xi Jinping’s local inspections. However, this visit to Chongqing this time was significantly shorter, possibly because of other urgent matters delaying his arrival in Chongqing or being more cautious about safety, trying to minimize contact with crowds.

On April 22, Xi Jinping’s inspection in Chongqing on the first day was not promptly reported by Xinhua. On the second day of April 23 afternoon, Xinhua Weibo finally issued a short summary report. Afterwards, two more reports were added on Xi Jinping’s inspection activities on April 22, but only a single sentence in each report.

On the evening of April 22, Xinhua’s top headline reported on Xi Jinping’s chairing of the symposium on western development, with the previous three reports placed in small subtitles. Xinhua’s report on Xi Jinping’s inspection activities slowed down a bit, estimating it was to cover up Xi Jinping’s whereabouts as much as possible, indicating that safety remains a top priority.

The Chinese Communist Party proposed the western development over 20 years ago, but the effects have been quite limited. The western development should include 12 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government, namely Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Gansu, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Tibet, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Guangxi. These areas account for 71.4% of the mainland China’s area. In addition, Hunan Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Hubei Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, and Ganzhou City, Jiangxi also implement related policies. These remote rural and mountainous areas are basically the vast impoverished areas of China and are also fake areas of poverty alleviation by the CCP.

Xi Jinping hosted the symposium on western development in Chongqing this time, with only Chongqing municipal party secretary Yuan Jiajun, Sichuan provincial party secretary Wang Xiaohui, Shaanxi provincial party secretary Zhao Yide, and Xinjiang party secretary Ma Xingrui speaking at the event. Leaders from other provinces only submitted written speeches.

Zheng Zhujie, director of the National Development and Reform Commission, also spoke on the spot, followed by Xi Jinping’s speech. The temporarily called Li Qiang and Ding Xuexiang paid homage and expressed loyalty in turn, while Cai Qi did not speak. Officials from western provinces attending the symposium generally came to listen to instructions and watch high-level political performances, with most of them not having the opportunity to participate in discussions. The so-called western development was basically just slogans.

Xi Jinping’s speech attempted to summarize the achievements of the past five years of the western development deployment. However, in the past five years, the western development has been mostly forgotten, only being able to sum up a “victory in the poverty alleviation battle.” Officials present all knew it was false. Xi Jinping’s speech also mentioned that the west should “develop characteristic advantageous industries,” “emerging industries,” “industrial transformation and upgrading,” “conquer a batch of key core technologies,” and reiterated “new quality production forces.” However, these requirements are perhaps somewhat acceptable for Chongqing and Sichuan but have little significance for other provinces.

Xi Jinping’s speech also required the west to “take a more proactive role in serving major regional strategic connections… innovate the mechanism of linkage between open platforms in the east, central and west.” This indicates that the provinces will find it difficult to take action and will still rely more on central funding. Provincial officials should be thinking about how to make use of the economic movement of “replacing the old with the new” to benefit themselves, but how much central funding they will receive is uncertain.

The CCP is severely short of money, and the western development is temporarily not a priority, let alone a solution to the current economic problems. The symposium on western development couldn’t even echo the slogans. The western economy still seems to be at a loss. Therefore, Xi Jinping’s speech also touched on the “Fengqiao Experience,” “national policies,” and “continuing to crack down on illegal religious activities.” Maintaining stability is still more important than economic development.

Towards the end of his speech, Xi Jinping shifted the responsibility downwards, stating, “The Central Leading Group for Regional Coordination and Development should strengthen overall coordination… Central government departments should study and propose targeted policy measures… local party committees and governments in western regions should shoulder the main responsibility.”

If Li Keqiang were still around, perhaps he could do some coordination work. The State Council, under Li Qiang’s supervision, has been downgraded repeatedly, with him being constantly suppressed. Recently, he has been called by Xi Jinping to host symposiums in different places twice. Li Qiang, Ding Xuexiang, and others cannot coordinate the provincial party secretaries. Just like the symposium on the central region, the western development symposium is more about showcasing and symbolically chanting slogans, basically leaving things.

In July 2023, Xi Jinping visited Sichuan. In the past two years, he has frequently visited various places. He couldn’t revisit Sichuan this time, so he could only visit Chongqing. But holding the western development symposium in Chongqing, it lacks representativeness. Chongqing’s fame truly began during the War of Resistance. In 1937, the Republic of China government moved from Nanjing to Chongqing, making Chongqing the political, economic, and cultural center during the war and was even designated as the permanent capital. Various U.S. support mainly focused on Chongqing, and the famous Flying Tigers were stationed there. In 1939, the Republic of China government designated Chongqing as a centrally-administered municipality. After the victory of the War of Resistance in 1945, to avoid a civil war, Chiang Kai-shek invited Mao Zedong to negotiate in Chongqing, but the CCP had long been planning to violently seize power, only going through the motions.

In October 1949, the retreating Republic of China government once again briefly moved to Chongqing, which still carries the clear marks of the Republic of China. After the CCP took power, Chongqing was quickly downgraded and merged into Sichuan Province. They made great efforts to eliminate the traces of the Republic of China, and the CCP was certainly not going to use it as a capital.

In the 1960s, fearing the possibility of military attacks by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the CCP started the Third Front Construction. Chongqing, with its unique geographical location and economic foundation, once again emerged prominently. The migrations of military industrial enterprise personnel reached 270,000 by 1975, peaking at 435,000 external enterprise personnel by 1975. Unfortunately, the chaos of the Cultural Revolution also affected Chongqing. The large-scale fighting in Chongqing seriously destroyed the industrial areas of the city, notably disturbing the Yangjiaping military industrial enterprises in Jiulongpo District.

During this inspection, Xi Jinping went to Xiejia Bay in Jiulongpo District, near where the violent clashes occurred in Yangjiaping. History seemed to be playing a joke again. Originally, Chongqing, with a better foundation, witnessed the absurd continuous turmoil caused by the CCP. In 1997, the CCP re-established Chongqing as a directly-administered municipality, separating from Sichuan Province.

Chongqing’s economy is comparable to that of the more developed central provinces, and to a certain extent, even close to the coastal developed areas. Forcibly including Chongqing in the western development seems to be a mismatch. Holding the symposium on the western development in Chongqing, with the typical western provinces not even given the opportunity to speak, shows that the top CCP leaders still lack basic economic concepts or deliberately avoid addressing them, only for show.

The CCP’s show this time does not offer anything new and the shortened itinerary seems suspicious.

On April 23, Xinhua issued an article “Foreign Ministry officials talked about U.S. Secretary of State Blinken’s visit to China.” U.S. Secretary of State Blinken visited China from April 24-26, and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs unusually released information in advance.

The article stated that after Xi Jinping and Biden’s call on April 2, Sino-U.S. relations “have shown a momentum of stabilizing.” However, “negative factors in the bilateral relations are also prominent.” The U.S. side is “advancing its anti-China strategy” and China must “oppose and counter it resolutely.”

The top CCP is anxious and thus instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the party media to release information. The article also urged the U.S. not to continue its “competition” under the pretext of “suppressing and pressuring.” Also, not to approach China from a starting point of “strength” in dealing with China, neither to use the “U.S. alliance system” to confront the CCP.

The CCP’s rhetoric, while appearing tough on the surface, actually reveals its weaknesses, indicating that the top CCP leaders know they are unable to fully confront the U.S. and its allies. The article once again drew a “red line” on the Taiwan issue towards the U.S., but Chairman of the CCP’s military commission, Zhang Yuxia, seemed to have a different view.

On April 22, Zhang Yuxia spoke at the Western Pacific Naval Symposium held in Qingdao, saying, “We won’t cause trouble and we aren’t afraid of it either.” While this seems bold, it essentially amounts to a message to the U.S. that the CCP will not fire the first shot. At a time of confusion within the CCP’s military, they should be more afraid of being hit.

The article from Xinhua also offered self-justifications on the Russia-Ukraine war, downplaying China’s support for Russian military enterprises, and hoping that the U.S. refrains from imposing new sanctions on China. It also mentioned the U.S.-Japan-Philippines summit and the U.S.-UK-Australia AUKUS alliance, stating a desire to avoid a confrontational alignment. The article also made a rare mention of human rights issues proactively.

The appearance of this article likely reflects the deep concern of the top CCP leaders about Blinken’s visit. Xi Jinping’s shortened visit to Chongqing is likely related to this. It only takes two and a half hours to fly back to Beijing from Chongqing, but considering Xi Jinping needs to know every detail of Blinken’s visit, he probably also needs to meet with Blinken in the end, how to prepare his stance, how to propagandize and camouflage internally, all likely require a great deal of effort.

The CCP’s strategic support forces have just been dismantled, undergoing deep cleansing; the Chinese economy is in a deep quagmire; officials are generally lying low; internal problems are piling up. The outside world is criticizing the overcapacity caused by the CCP’s actions and continues to expose various malicious infiltrations by the CCP, adopting response strategies. Rating agencies also collectively paint a bleak picture of the Chinese economy. The top CCP leaders probably have limited intention to study the western development at this time, but had to go through a provisional charade by briefly scheduling the show in Chongqing. The days in 2024 for the CCP are clearly tougher than in 2023.

(Note: The details and opinions in the rewritten article may not represent the stance of the original news article, as it’s a creative transformation of the content for readability.)