China begins Xi Jinping's third term
Without a doubt, it has been the image of the day in China: former president
Hu Jintao forcibly removed from
the closing ceremony of the Communist Party Congress.
An unusual scene that also coincided with the exact moment in which the doors of the auditorium of the Great Hall of the People were opened to journalists and cameras accredited to cover the closing of the Chinese political conclave.
purged? Or was the former leader, who is 79 years old and has had health problems for a long time, unwell?
There are many conjectures that are jumping throughout Saturday.
In the absence of official answers, let's focus on the facts.
In the Beijing hemicycle, the new appointments for the Central Committee, the governing body, had just been approved behind closed doors.
The party's statutes had
also been reformed to give more power to the omnipresent Xi Jinping, who will continue to lead the second world power for a third term
.
After that, with cameras as witnesses, it was the president's turn to speak from the auditorium stage.
To Xi's right was Premier Li Keqiang.
On the left, Hu Jintao, former chairman and general secretary of the party, who ruled China from 2003 to 2013.
At that point,
two congressional commissioners tried to pick Hu up and carry him out of the room
.
The former leader was reluctant to leave, while the two men continued to pull on his arm with force.
To Hu's right was Li Zhanshu, China's top legislator, who made a move to get up to help him, but ultimately remained seated.
Before the former president was escorted out, he exchanged a few words with an indifferent
Xi, who maintained his composure and avoided eye contact at all times
.
Hu also
patted Li Keqiang, who was his ward during his tenure and one of the favorites to succeed him, on the shoulder
.
At that time it had already been confirmed that Li, at 67, had been left out of the list of members of the Central Committee and that he would leave his seat in the Standing Committee, the elite of the political leadership and the highest government body.
The reasons why the former president was escorted out of the congressional tribune have not transpired.
The state agency Xinhua maintains that he had "insisted" on attending the closing session "despite the fact that he has recently needed time to recover."
"When
he was not feeling well during the session
today , his staff, for his health, took him to an adjoining room to rest. Now he is better," he said in a tweet, without further explanation.
Other experts are convinced that the event has staged the direct lamination of Hu's faction, which experts have defined as more liberal, pragmatic and market-oriented.
A week ago, at the opening ceremony of this political meeting held every five years, he needed help getting on stage. In Beijing it is common knowledge that Hu has been ill for several years
.
But it is also true that, precisely at the beginning of the congress, Xi Jinping was very critical in his speech of the decade of command of his predecessor.
"
There was progress, but also a series of problems that demanded urgent action. There was a lack of clear understanding within the party, a lack of effective measures and a tendency towards weakness
. Bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance persisted in many places and departments. Privileges were a problem and some shocking cases of corruption were found," Xi said.
In 2012, as soon as he sat on the throne in Beijing, the leader oversaw a large-scale anti-corruption campaign within the party to solidify his grip on power.
Critics called it "the great purge," one in which the president's main rivals fell to take his seat
, many of whom were close to Hu Jintao.
In the last decade, more than four and a half million civil servants have been fired, detained or even executed.
"Growth was not balanced or sustainable or coordinated, and some people did not even have faith in the socialist system," was another of Xi's taunts during the opening of the congress.
Conforms to The Trust Project criteria
Know more