Weekly Watch On China(20210830–20210904)
If you are a Chinese, or foreigners who could read Mandarin, and have joined some WeChat groups or Social Network full of Mainland Chinese like Weibo, you would not feel bored these days.
Almost everyday, some hot topic came around, which was fun or thrilling enough for you to talk with the colleagues. And almost every topic was somewhat political — which should not be surprising, as China is itself a hotspot for politics.
- A Fallen Angel: Former CCP secretary of Hangzhou
What happened: The sudden arrest of Zhou Jiangyong on Aug 21st, CCP Secretary of Hangzhou, or Chief Officer of Hangzhou, shocked lots of people. After all, he was working hard the day before his arrest. And he is a kinda highly ranked officer, Ranked 4th （正省部级）in the power hierarchy of Chinese officers.
There were lots of Gongzhonghao(something like WeChat version of substack) articles talking about his falling, most of them referring to the informing by Hu Minchun, a female lawyer, also the wife to Chu Mengxing, who was the former CCP Secretary of Haishu District, Ningbo. By the way, Chu ranked 7th（正处级） in the hierachy. Basically, the articles were saying that Hu reported to the CCP Commission for Discipline Inspection that Zhou and his family tried to put 50M RMB just before Ant Finance’s IPO, which meant they would gain lots of capital gains if Ant Finance IPO succeeding. It’s a very typical way to arbitrage, as there are huge room for the primary and secondary stock price difference. Hu was the lawyer who handle all the legal documents about this investment. What’s more in the article, Hu also had affairs with Zhou. And even more interestingly, the article implicated that Hu’s husband, Chu knew the sexual relationship between his wife and his senior officer.
Anyway, most of the Gongzhonghao deleted the articles of Hu and Zhou.
Who is Zhou: As said before, Zhou is a highly ranked officer. What’s more interesting was that he had very deep relationship with Jack Ma, or he spoke highly of Jack Ma before Jack’s fall. In 2019, Zhou made Jack “Honored Hangzhouer”, and Zhou coached his underline officers with Jack’s famous saying that”You will not even hear a good bye when you are abandoned by the times”(That’s a literally translation of “当时代抛弃你的时候，连一句再见都不会说”). I used to thought that Zhou is somewhat a member belongs to Xi’s circle, as Xi was the CCP Secretary of Zhejiang, the province Hangzhou in, before 2012. However, after checking the records of Zhou and Xi, it turned out that Zhou might be too low rank to meet Xi.
Why it matters: Zhou is the first 4th Ranking officer in Zhejiang after 2017’s 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. The involvement with Jack Ma is definitely the best catalyst for rumors about arresting Jack.
2.Another Fallen Angel: The So-Called Female Buffet in China
What Happened: Around August 27th, Zhao Wei, the famous Chinese actress, also a Singaporean citizen and successful stock speculator, disappeared from public’s sight. How so? Her name was de-listed from her ground breaking masterpiece My Fair Princess I (还珠格格1). Ironically, another actress in this drama, Fan Bingbing still could have her name it, even after being fined with 800 Million RMB for tax evasion. No arrest announcement though — so far.
Who Is Zhao: Zhao was a truly super star with great film and drama work for an entire generation. She not only succeeded in being an actress, but also being a director or producer, and more interestingly, a speculator in stock market with her husband. After her name de-listed, rumors came out that her husband, Huang Youlong, was the chauffeur to former CCP Secretary of Shenzhen, Xu Zongheng, who was arrested on June 11 2009. The story was Huang took Xu’s asset oversea as his own, got married to Zhao and then portrait himself as a Billionaire in Singapore. On November 9th 2017, Zhao was punished by China SEC for manipulating A-Share 600576.SH, to be forbidden to play in the market for 5 years and some fines. After de-listing, also many Gongzhonghao published articles criticizing Zhao for her being a model with Japanese Military Flag many years ago, as well as one famous star Zhang Zhehan from her brokerage company worshiping in Yasukuni Shrine. Both deemed as very offensive due to Japan’s invasion of China in 1930s and 1940s.
Why It Matters: Zhao is also a friend of Jack Ma, or thought to be a friend of Jack.
Bottom Line: It seems many things were directed to Jack Ma. Will you get some trouble Jack Ma?
3.Prepared to Fight: So Said Xi Jinping
What Happened: Xi Jinping, who was also the Headmaster of Communist Party Central Party School, gave a speech at the opening ceremony of The One-Year Program for Middle age and Youth Officers(“中共中央黨校一年制中青年幹部培訓班”, most of the students Ranking 5th（正厅级） in the hierarchy). Many words like “Fight”（斗争）could be found in the transcript, which used to be very popular during the Cultural Revolution. In fact, many of Chinese people worried about the possibility of another round of Cultural Revolution.
Why It Mattered: Xi always acted like he was another Chairman Mao. Though Mao made many mistakes during his ruling, resulted in lots of people starved to death or committing suicides due to the political pressure, most Chinese common people still think highly of Mao. Now Xi is trying to talk like Mao, to lead every party member to “fight” a war. Question is, what is the war to fight? The Americans? Or the capitalists in China? If the latter, the problem will be very deep — most of the capitalists themselves, are friends or beneficiaries to senior party members. They just colluded.
Another Round? Though many people were super concerned about another round of Cultural Revolution, I still think it impossible. Cultural Revolution, like many other things happened in Mao’s time, was a way for Mao to keep the party in his control. The Cultural Revolution was the last thing Mao wanted to do to gain power, as it was very costing. It was indeed a chaos. And it could continue without rebelling against Mao himself only because Mao’s man, or little brother, Lin Biao was trying to control as a military figure. Lin himself was too powerful to live actually, so he fled and died in 1972. I don’t think Xi would take such risk to do so.
4.Common Prosperity
What Happened: Xi laid much importance to the “common prosperity”, and so many big techs in China set up the “common prosperity” fund as a reaction to Xi’s words. To show some loyalty to the powerful man in my opinion.
Why It Mattered: Common Prosperity was indeed very important in any economic entities. The inequality in U.S. and many developed countries has always been the headache to visionary leaders. But, inequality in China was not just the super rich vs. the poor, but also the government sector v.s the private sector. The latter might play an even more important role. So the slogan and some actions by the techs might alleviate the pain, but still cannot solve the problem. Or, is anybody really trying to solve any problem?
