Xi Jinping in Germany last month. Photo: Getty Images

Publisher‘s Note: Please pray for this fellow PEACE WARRIOR for healing, protection, peace, discernment and wisdom. He is a friend of Humanity and ours.

September 13, 2012 (TSR) – Xi Jinping is expected to be unveiled as the leader of the Communist party in the coming weeks, but his disappearance from the public eye has sparked increasing speculation.

“Although people have said he suffered a back injury, he actually had a heart attack, a myocardial infarction,” said Li Weidong, a political commentator in Beijing and the former editor of China Reform.

The magazine is influential among Chinese policymakers and under the aegis of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Xi Jinping in Germany last month. Photo: Getty Images

Other unnamed sources have also suggested that Mr Xi, 59, suffered a heart attack, while Willy Lam, the former editor of the South China Morning Post, believes China’s president-in-waiting had a stroke and is currently unable to show his face in public.

Mr Xi has not been spotted since September 1 and cancelled a series of meetings with foreign leaders, including one with Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of State, on September 4.

The Communist party has remained tight-lipped about his situation. For the third day in a row, the foreign ministry batted away repeated questions at its daily press conference. A spokesman merely said: “I have no information.”

For the second day in a row, almost all of China’s other top leaders were featured on the country’s evening news bulletins, but Mr Xi was absent.

Mr Li said that Mr Xi’s illness was not severe enough to disrupt the 18th Party Congress, at which China will unveil its first set of new leaders in ten years. The date of the Congress has not been announced, but most observers believe it will occur in mid-October.

“I heard the agenda for the Congress will not be changed, which means that Mr Xi will have recovered beforehand,” he said. Other sources have also indicated that, so far, plans for the Congress have not been affected.

However, since the 1990s, the Communist party has typically given at least a month’s notice before a Congress. If there is no announcement this week, that could indicate that this year’s event has been postponed.

One of the five main hotels in Beijing booked out by delegates also reportedly suggested yesterday that there may be a delay, but the other four said they had been block-booked from the end of September to the beginning of November and that no date had yet been set.

In the vacuum of information, other rumours spread yesterday that Mr Xi was, in fact, perfectly healthy but hard at work. A magazine in Hong Kong, iSun Affairs, said a relative of Mr Xi’s had sent a text message indicating that “all is well”.

And Fan Jinggang, the manager of the “Leftist” Utopia forum, which espouses the ideas of Chairman Mao, said a “reliable source” had told him that “Mr Xi is in good health”. Mr Fan blamed the fevered rumours in Beijing on a foreign media bent on stirring up controversy ahead of the Communist party’s leadership transition.

At the 301 Military Hospital in Beijing, the facility that often treats top leaders, there was no sign of any extra security. Staff said they had not noticed any unusual activity and that they did not know if Mr Xi was in the compound.

Linda Jacobson, a China expert at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, wrote in a comment piece yesterday that if Mr Xi was genuinely ill, she would expect senior leaders to change their schedules.

“That is standard Communist party practice at a time of crisis,” she noted. “Yet Hu Jintao did not cut short his trip to Vladivostok for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum; another senior leader, Wu Bangguo, travelled to Iran; and a third high-ranking official has visited Sichuan this week.”

If he has suffered a heart attack, Mr Xi’s aides may be delaying an announcement until he is well enough to present an image of strength.

When Chairman Mao was dealing with party infighting in 1965, he demonstrated his power by swimming across the Yangtze river at the age of 72.

It is also not unknown for Chinese leaders to suffer serious illnesses in secret. In April 1993, Li Peng, the then premier, disappeared for six weeks after a heart attack. The foreign ministry said he had “a cold” and confirmation that he had been treated in hospital did not come until this July.

Source

China’s Xi Jinping resurface in state media TODAY

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping has made his first public communication in nearly two weeks, state media said on Thursday, amid swirling speculation about the whereabouts of Beijing’s leader-in-waiting.

Xi has not been seen in public for 13 days and has cancelled meetings with four foreign dignitaries including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, giving rise to intense speculation about his health.

His unexplained disappearance has come at a highly sensitive time for China, which is gearing up for a generational handover of power that has already been marred by two major political scandals involving senior communist officials.

On Thursday, state media said he had “expressed condolences on the death of old party comrade Huang Rong”, who died on September 6 – a day after Xi missed a planned meeting with Clinton.

The report in the Guangxi Daily newspaper – mouthpiece of the Communist Party committee in China’s southern Guangxi region – marked the first public communication by Xi since he delivered a speech on September 1.

The news was published widely in China, but made no mention of Xi’s health, which has been the subject of widespread speculation in recent days. His reported ailments have ranged from a heart attack to a back ache.

Xi has been widely tipped to succeed President Hu Jintao as leader of the ruling Communist Party at a crucial meeting that is expected to be held sometime next month, before taking over as head of state in March.

His disappearance from public view has attracted global attention, as well as some speculation on China’s popular but heavily censored microblogs.

US Ambassador to China Gary Locke declined to weigh in on Xi during an appearance in Washington, but noted that the heir apparent called off meetings not only with Clinton but with other foreign dignitaries.

“Of course you are all speculating as to what’s happening with Vice President Xi, but it appears it had nothing to do with Secretary Clinton or the US government,” Locke said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The country’s tightly controlled state-run media has ignored the issue, focusing instead on a row over Japan’s purchase of the disputed Diaoyu islands, known in Japan as the Senkaku islands.

China’s government has so far given no explanation for his absence. At a daily media briefing on Thursday, foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei refused for the fourth day running to answer repeated questions about Xi’s whereabouts.

Hong did, however, say that preparations for the 18th Communist Party Congress – where Xi is expected to be named party leader – were “well under way”, adding that “Chinese authorities will release relevant information in due course”.

The dates of previous party congresses have been announced months in advance, and some experts have suggested the delay in announcing the schedule for this year could be linked to Xi’s absence from public view.

However, analysts of Chinese politics say Xi is likely suffering from a relatively minor health complaint, as anything more serious would have prevented Hu from leaving the country to take part in last week’s APEC summit.

Source

1 COMMENT

  1. Xi Jinping is expected to replace Hu Jintao. Hu Jintao’s supporters were out-voted when they tried to keep Xi Jinping out of succession at meetings 5 years ago. But Hu Jintao may promote vice-premier Li Keqiang at the last minute. Currently Li Keqiang is expected to replace Premier Wen Jiabao, who is tainted by corruption following his family amassed $2.7 billion in the past 10 years. Still, ousting Xi Jinping may not be necessary because as Premier Li Keqiang could remain Hu Jintao’s man in the palace.
    Xi Jinping, groomed as Hu Jintao’s successor for almost 5 years, suddenly disappeared from public 2 months ago for more than a month. That was strange for a person found on front pages almost daily, including a high profile visit to the US last February. During his absence, Xi Jinping did not attend an important session of China’s Military Commission of which he is the Vice-Chairman and Hu Jintao is the Chairman. If Xi Jinping’s recent disappearance was caused by poor health rather than political infighting, making him the leader could become a problem because Xi Jinping may not survive his 10-year term. Xi Jinping’s supporters were clashed with Hu Jintao’s group earlier this year because Hu Jintao wants to continue as China’s Military Commission Chairman for another 2 years. There is precedent for that as Deng Xiaoping also continued as China’s Military Commission Chairman for 2 years after handing over China’s reins to Hu Jintao. Xi Jinping’s supporters want him to have full control of the military and the civilian Politburo immediately after accession. They do not want Hu Jintao breathing down on them for another few years.
    Xi Jinping favors entrepreneurial and capitalist-style business but is also close to the military. If Xi Jinping’s ascension results in a slant towards the military, US President Obama may have new problems on his hands as China would assert more power in its neighborhood, causing erosion of US leadership there. With foreign reserves of more than $3 trillion, China already has more money than the US to buy influence with foreign leaders.
    China is not hostile to the West but its leaders have urgent need for their own survival to boost the economy and improve social equity for their people. That boost will inevitably confer more wealth and power to China, which will eventually make many in the West very nervous.

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