Low-Key Party-Building Meeting Held: Cai Qi and Li Xi Shift Tone

The CCP’s training program for provincial and ministerial-level cadres. (Video Screenshot)

[People News] On August 29, the CCP’s official media carried a front-page article titled “Xi Jinping Issues Important Instructions Emphasizing Perseverance in Implementing the Spirit of the Eight-Point Regulation and Advancing the Normalization and Institutionalization of Work Style Construction.” The report mainly focused on Xi once again issuing so-called new instructions on the “continued implementation of the Eight-Point Regulation” and on party-building, calling for the “determination and perseverance to fight tough and protracted battles.”

What is unusual is that immediately after Xi’s instructions were relayed, the article mentioned that the CCP’s Central Party-Building Work Leading Small Group held a meeting on the 29th to convey Xi’s directives. Attending the meeting and giving speeches were Politburo Standing Committee members Cai Qi and Li Xi, who respectively serve as the group’s head and deputy head.

The oddity lies in the fact that in the past, these would have been reported as two separate news stories—one to highlight Xi, and the other to spotlight Cai Qi and Li Xi as well as the importance of party-building. For example, on March 12 this year, when the same leading group convened, the headline read: “Central Party-Building Work Leading Group Holds Meeting to Study and Deploy Deep Implementation of the Spirit of the Eight-Point Regulation and Educational Work—Cai Qi Presides and Speaks, Li Xi Attends and Speaks.”

Yet, after the Beidaihe meeting, anomalies have repeatedly emerged: Xi visited Tibet but was not head of the central delegation; Zhang Youxia openly did not accompany him; Hu Chunhua made a high-profile visit to Nyingchi (where Xi and Li Keqiang had been before) and attended the Northeast Asia Expo with three local leaders; Xi received the King and Queen Mother of Cambodia in the rather shabby Chunyi Zhai inside Zhongnanhai. Now, reports about the Party-Building Leading Group meeting and about Cai Qi and Li Xi have also been downplayed. There must be reasons behind this.

In fact, on April 3, 2024, Cai Qi and Li Xi had already attended a meeting of the Party-Building Work Leading Small Group. That session focused on studying and implementing Xi’s speeches and instructions on intra-Party disciplinary education.

Commentator Zhou Xiaohui of The Epoch Times analyzed that this March’s meeting appeared abnormal compared to last April’s. One anomaly was that this year’s meeting was convened at the demand of the “Party Central Committee,” overriding Cai Qi, whereas last year’s was convened at Cai Qi’s initiative, with “approval by the Party Central Committee.” The former wording reflects top-down collective leadership, requiring Cai to act whether he wanted to or not, while the latter suggests Cai himself had the intention and sought approval—a bottom-up initiative.

Another anomaly is that holding such a meeting two years in a row is extremely rare. Over the past decade, the number of Party-Building Leading Group meetings has been very limited, and never consecutive. The only unusual case was around 2012, when Xi was about to take power, during which two such meetings were held within six months.

Moreover, last year’s report highlighted Xi’s role in “providing important guidance for intra-Party disciplinary study,” emphasized “ensuring that the whole Party consciously maintains high consistency with the Party Central Committee with Xi Jinping at its core in thought and action,” and stressed “loyalty.” In contrast, this March’s report omitted all that. At least in the official report, Cai Qi’s speech contained no excessive flattery of Xi. This marks a deliberate downshift. If Xi remained the unquestioned “core,” Cai’s praise would logically have become even more effusive, not less.

So why hold another Party-Building Leading Group meeting less than half a year after March? This is clearly another anomaly. Was it to use Xi’s name to continue internal rectification, or to signal the attitudes of Cai Qi and Li Xi to the outside?

It is worth noting that although Cai and Li had already toned down in March, the report still contained language such as “deeply understanding the decisive significance of the ‘Two Establishes’ and resolutely achieving the ‘Two Upholds,’” which were still words of praise for Xi. But in the latest meeting, even those expressions disappeared. Who directed Cai Qi and Li Xi to shift tone?

Considering Zhang Youxia’s defiance, Hu Chunhua’s repeated high-profile moves, and now Cai Qi and Li Xi’s changed tone, the truth becomes evident: the real power-holder behind the scenes is not Xi, nor his faction.