As if tear gas and triad attacks weren’t enough, rumours are rife that Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, wanted Hong Kong’s Occupy Central protests to turn into Tiananmen Square massacre 2.0 in an attempt to force President Xi Jinping out of office. Jeez, nice priorities.
The November issue of Hong Kong’s Frontline magazine cited an unnamed insider source from Beijing who claims Zhang secretly wished to cause enough bloodshed in Hong Kong on Sept. 28 to capture worldwide media attention and throw Xi off his throne. The theory supports previous reports published by the Epoch Times.
According to the same source in Beijing, attempts to unseat Xi date back to before he was even initiated into office, reports the Epoch TImes in a more recent article.
Zhang belongs to a faction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) loyal to Jiang Zemin (the CCP’s retired general secretary), which has been accused of trying to spark unrest to make Xi’s job more difficult.
Thankfully for us Hongkongers, Xi had enough sense to call against violence, saying in a leaked report to the Hong Kong government:
“[The Hong Kong police force] is absolutely not allowed to open fire. Wasn’t the lesson of June 4 deep enough? Whoever permits shooting steps down! Even tear gas wasn’t necessary. Let it be, if it was already done. If people are not scared away, just leave. The condition has deteriorated to this point, and it’s your job to figure out how to solve the problem. Overall, never allow bloodshed. Try to win public support. Hong Kong affairs must be negotiated with the Hong Kong people.”
Lin Baohua, a senior political commentator for Taiwan People News and historian of the CCP, concurred with Xi Jinping in an op-ed published on Oct. 25: “If Beijing didn’t stop [the violence], with CY Leung’s wolf nature, he would have long committed the slaughter.”
Well whaddayaknow? It seems Xi might have the protesters’ back after all!
Photo: Andrew Eland via Flickr
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article said Lin Baohua was a CCP member rather than a historian of the CCP. This was incorrect.
Reader Interactions