The investigation of two senior officials formerly responsible for internal security means that the 2021 legal-political rectification campaign has reached the top levels of the Party. Fu Zhenghua, the former deputy head of the Ministry of Public Security who led the investigation into Zhou Yongkang’s corruption, is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and national laws.” Sun Lijun, a former deputy minister of the Ministry of Public Security, was kicked out of the Party amid a host of charges including corruption, immorality, neglect, superstition and, most damning, of disloyalty to the party. Although the reasons for their sudden disgrace remain opaque, many observers believe they are linked to preparations for the 20th Party Congress to be held in 2022, where Xi is expected to pursue a third consecutive term, breaking the precedents of the era of the Reforms. . On CNN, Nectar Gan and Jessie Yeung reported on the widely vilified Fu Zhenghua:

But Fu was not only attacking corrupt political elites. As Deputy Minister of Public Security, in 2013 he unleashed a sweeping crackdown on thought leaders on Chinese social media site Weibo, arresting several prominent commentators with many followers. He was also in charge of the nationwide roundup of lawyers and human rights activists in 2015, in what has become infamously known as the “709 crackdown,” according to people close to the detained lawyers.

[…] “The targets of Fu Zhenghua’s crackdown are people at the heart of Chinese civil society. Therefore, the entire intellectual sector of the country and the general public are all delighted with (his fall from grace), ”said Wu Qiang, political analyst in Beijing.

[…] Fu’s bossy approach was also applied to police officers and prison guards, some of whom hailed their former boss’s downfall as “the most gratifying.” Commenting on social media, many accused Fu of imposing grueling and unreasonably harsh demands on field officers, such as not allowing prison guards to take breaks during night shifts. [Source]

Veteran human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang reflects on the fall of former justice minister Fu Zhenghua, who arrested lawyers, critics and human rights activists. And while Fu’s fall may reflect politics more than the rule of law, Pu notes, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving man. https://t.co/iNl6yr7Vk4

– Anthony Kuhn (@akuhnNPRnews) October 6, 2021

The list of high-profile crackdowns and investigations that Fu led during his tenure is long: the Zhou Youngkang investigation, the investigation into the “malicious trading” that brought down the Chinese stock market in 2015, a crackdown on Falun Gong , a crackdown on Internet commentators of the “Big V” and the crackdown on 709, which targeted lawyers and prominent members of civil society.

Weird that the Western coverage of the fall of Fu Zhenghua + Sun Lijun follows the official “anti-corruption” narrative https://t.co/4KgVs7rRAQ when the most appropriate framework should be Xi’s political-legal rectification campaign in 2021, which China’s non-establishment media are focusing on.

– Maya Wang (@wang_maya) October 4, 2021

His arrest is likely part of a political-legal rectification campaign, first announced in 2020, which began in 2021. The campaign was explicitly modeled on Yan’an’s campaign for rectification from 1942 to 1945, during from which more than 1,000 Party members were killed in the service of achieving Mao’s tripartite objectives: “to achieve exclusive power within the Party, unify the Party and the army to overthrow the power of the Kuomintang after the defeat of the Japan, and make himself the absolute ruler of China ”- all he accomplished. Almost 180,000 executives from the legal-political sphere were disciplined during Xi’s restructuring in 2021; 1,985 have been charged with crimes. Alfred Wu of the National University of Singapore described the campaign as an effort to build support ahead of the 20th Party Congress. “Xi Jinping thinks that the politico-legal system is the most important because it is a disciplinary force [… Moves like this suggest] he is not very confident despite outsiders saying he will get 100% a third term, ”he told the South China Morning Post.

Sun Lijun was the subject of a public inquiry for the first time in 2020, although Nikkei Asia reports that he was secretly under investigation as early as 2019. At the end of September, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced his expulsion from the Party in a moving statement. At the Wall Street Journal, James T. Areddy wrote about the importance of Sun’s withdrawal from the Party:

The opinion of the Central Party Antigraft Discipline Control Commission accused Mr. Sun of rumors, deception, theft, extravagance and immorality, as well as disloyalty to the party, superstition and negligence in stopping the spread of Covid-19. “The circumstances were particularly serious, the nature was particularly bad and the impact was extremely serious,” the statement said.

[…] Now in his 50s, Mr. Sun is among the ousted officials who were once considered to be Mr. Xi’s political loyalists. His impeachment “signaled the unfolding of a new wave of purges targeting those who once helped Xi consolidate power,” according to a study last year by University of Victoria political science professor Guoguang Wu, published in China Leadership Monitor.

[…] Wu said Thursday that a reference in the allegations to Mr. Sun’s involvement in “cliques” likely indicates that his problems are also related to the behavior of other officials. [Source]

BBC 中文: The charges against #China‘s Sun Lijun inc. “Betrayal” (背叛) of the “core” of the Party, a political accusation going beyond “corruption” and “abuse of power” in view of the 20th CP 中共 发动 新 一轮 官场 整肃 背后 的 关键词 ： “二十 大”，“ 刀把 子 ”https://t.co/dwuuXRh4AU

– Patricia M Thornton (@PM_Thornton) October 8, 2021

At The Diplomat, Jesse Turland reported that Sun Lijun’s problems could stem from his work as a member of a team sent to Wuhan from Beijing to deal with COVID:

Online, observers have speculated that Sun’s “arbitrary discussion” of government policy may have been at the heart of CCDI’s vitriolic rebuke. Sun is rumored to have failed to keep sensitive information about the handling of the novel coronavirus a secret.

In early 2020, Sun traveled to Wuhan to help maintain stability in the city. According to an untouchable rumor, Sun wrote notes regarding the party’s handling of the situation in Wuhan to his Sydney-based wife, which were intercepted by Australian intelligence agencies.

Sun’s arrest in April last year coincided with the arrest of Zhang Feng, an executive at Tencent, the company that owns WeChat, for breach of data security. According to Toronto freelance journalist Wen Zhao, this gives credit to the possibility that Sun and Zhang were jointly targeted for disclosing information, intentionally or unintentionally, about the handling of COVID-19. [Source]

2. He is also “sentenced” for abandoning his post while on duty in Wuhan at the start of the pandemic. Well, that is indeed unforgivable. Given that he holds a master’s degree in public health and urban management from UA New South Wales United, he should have shone in Wuhan!

– 𝐋𝐢 (@lingli_vienna) October 4, 2021

There is another intriguing angle to the story of Fu Zhenghua and Sun Lijun. Eccentric billionaire Guo Wengui brought unfounded bribery charges against the two in 2017, accusing them of having “no faith in the system or the country” and of hiding highly classified Chinese government documents abroad . Guo also brought charges against the two men’s superiors, Meng Jiangzhu and Wang Qishan, both of whom remain – as far as outside observers can tell – in good standing within the Party.