From the Death of Xi Jinping’s Childhood Friend Nie Weiping to Xi’s Red Guard–Style Governance

On December 4, 2024, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping, accompanied by members of the Central Military Commission (CMC), visited the headquarters of the newly established Information Support Force in Beijing. 

[People News] Nie Weiping, the renowned Chinese Go master known as the “Sage of Go,” passed away from illness in Beijing on the evening of January 14 at the age of 73. Nie Weiping’s death means that the Chinese Go community has lost a key figure. Beyond his legendary Go career, he and CCP party chief Xi Jinping were middle-school classmates and close teenage friends during the Cultural Revolution. With his passing, a chapter of his association with Xi Jinping has once again been brought out of the dust of history.

News of the death of Go grandmaster Nie Weiping was like a heavy bomb, instantly igniting public opinion and becoming the focus of attention. Netizens expressed their condolences one after another, saying “Rest in peace” and “Forever the Go Sage.”

Looking back to the 1980s, the name Nie Weiping represented the glory of Chinese Go. Gifted from a young age, Nie began learning Go at the age of six and won the national youth Go championship at ten. From 1985 to 1987, in three consecutive China–Japan Go Challenge Matches, he served as the main player and turned the tide, defeating several top-tier Japanese players and creating the “ladder match miracle.” At that time, he was not only a top master in the Go world honored as the “Go Sage,” but also a household name and a national idol whose influence long surpassed the Go community itself.

Born in 1952, Nie Weiping was less than a year older than Xi Jinping. His father, Nie Chunrong, had participated in campaigns of the Fourth Field Army and later served as secretary of the Secretariat of the China Association for Science and Technology and director of the Intelligence Bureau of the State Science and Technology Commission. During the Cultural Revolution, he was persecuted and labeled a “black gang member.”

Xi Jinping once served as secretary to Geng Biao, then Vice Premier of the CCP and Minister of National Defense. Geng Biao liked to play Go and required all staff around him to learn Go, believing it trained one’s sense of the overall situation. For this reason, Xi Jinping specifically sought advice from Nie Weiping on methods for quick victory, but Nie Weiping refused, fearing that Xi’s skill level was insufficient and that he would embarrass himself.

Before Xi Jinping became the top leader, Nie Weiping had frequent contact with him. Each time Xi was transferred to a new post, they would get together.

Nie Weiping was famous for speaking without restraint and for having a “big mouth.” It was widely rumored that in his youth he could drink astonishing amounts of alcohol, and once drinking he liked to chat endlessly with drinking companions, especially about his interactions and gossip involving the children of high-ranking officials. After Xi Jinping became a national leader, Nie no longer sought him out. It was said that he deeply regretted privately joking about Xi while drunk.

In his book A Go Life, Nie Weiping mentioned a perilous episode in his life that he experienced together with Xi Jinping and Liu Weiping, the son of CCP general Liu Zhen. At the time, all three were studying at Beijing No. 25 Middle School. Their fathers had all been overthrown, and each of their names contained the character “Ping,” so they were collectively known as the “Three Pings.”

After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, they had no academic pressure and nothing to do, so they often played together. At that time, the Red Guards at No. 25 Middle School had split into many factions. Nie Weiping, immersed in Go, originally belonged to the carefree faction and did not participate in “armed struggle.” But under the influence of Xi Jinping and Liu Weiping, he shifted to the “Old Red Guard” faction.

One day, news came that at Beijing No. 38 Middle School there was a gathering of “landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, and bad elements” rebelling, and that “Old Red Guards” from various schools were being called to go and “wipe them out.” The three of them rushed to the gathering point, only to find several hundred people charging out from inside with sticks, shouting and beating anyone they saw. Xi Jinping and Nie Weiping reacted quickly and escaped, but Liu Weiping was a step slower and was beaten into a concussion.

Thirty years later, when Nie Weiping spoke of this incident with Xi Jinping—then deputy secretary of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee—in Fuzhou, they both lamented that if they had not run fast back then, perhaps there would be no “present story” now.

In fact, in China, for those born in the 1950s, most college and middle-school students participated in the Red Guards, while elementary school students born in the 1960s were Little Red Guards. With Mao Zedong’s support, the Red Guards smashed, looted, burned, and beat; they were a fanatical organization with violent tendencies that brought profound disasters to China and its people.

The Old Red Guards referred to by Nie Weiping were the earliest Red Guards, all children of high-ranking CCP officials. They believed in “bloodline theory,” with slogans such as “Dragons beget dragons, phoenixes beget phoenixes; mice beget offspring that dig holes,” or “Heroes beget good sons; reactionaries beget bastard sons.” Nie Weiping said that during that period, they worried every day about food for their next meal and had no time to talk about life ideals. He never imagined that Xi Jinping would eventually become the top leader.

When Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, Ren Jiantao, then a professor at Renmin University of China, offered an assessment of Xi. He predicted that after Xi took office, China would enter twenty years of stagnation. This prediction has since become reality.

Ren Jiantao stated that people such as Xi Jinping, Bo Xilai, and Wang Qishan—born in the 1950s—and Hu Chunhua, Zhou Qiang, and Sun Zhengcai—born in the 1960s—after entering the top leadership would become increasingly lacking in personal charisma. This was because both generations came from Red Guard and Little Red Guard backgrounds, whose greatest characteristic was the absence of rules.

He asserted that a fundamental condition China was about to face was entering a twenty-year period of lifelessness.

He said that the generations born in the 1950s and 1960s were basically educated and molded under Mao Zedong’s proletarian dictatorship and the theory of continuing the revolution, making their way to high-school graduation. At university, they were essentially restoring the authority of the Communist Party and did not receive truly modern, rigorous intellectual training, making it difficult for them to have modern concepts. As a result, they could not clearly distinguish between the authority of a system and the authority of a personality.

Ren Jiantao pointed out that people like Xi Jinping believe they can reshape personal charisma by shouting hoarse-voiced, empty political slogans, thinking this will establish their authority. In reality, even within his own generation, Xi’s ability to mobilize support has already been severely insufficient.

Ren Jiantao’s remarks led netizens to exclaim: his assessment of Xi Jinping was incredibly precise—astonishingly sharp, clear-minded, a prophetic judgment, and an accurate reading of people.

Everyone’s upbringing determines their outlook on life, and their level of education determines their worldview. Many people wonder why Xi Jinping, having experienced the pain of the Cultural Revolution, still reverses course.

When Xi Jinping was young, his father Xi Zhongxun was overthrown. Xi spent the most important years of his youth and early adulthood in hunger and cold; not having enough food left one of the deepest shadow memories for him. On the other hand, he never received a proper formal education and grew up during the most culturally repressive period of the Cultural Revolution. He therefore never experienced what spiritual fulfillment was like. So where, then, could personal charisma come from for Xi Jinping?

If freedom of speech might lead to regime instability, he will suppress speech without hesitation. Between “turning left” and “turning right,” he has always chosen the left without hesitation. Because he understands better than anyone that only by holding great power can he preserve his own life.

Xi Jinping demands that Communists be loyal to the Party, yet he himself does not truly believe in communism. A former Japanese prime minister mentioned in his memoirs that “Chairman Xi once said that if he had been born in the United States, he might not have joined the Communist Party, but would likely have joined the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.” Xi believes that joining a party that cannot control political power is meaningless. Shinzo Abe therefore commented that Xi did not join the Communist Party because of ideology, but to seize political power—“a strong realist.” Xi used the Communist Party system step by step to reach the pinnacle of power.

In fact, officials at all levels of the CCP and various insiders within the system are well aware of the CCP’s hypocrisy and crimes. Privately, they are the ones who curse the CCP the most; publicly, they are also the ones who clap and cater to their superiors. The reason remains the protection of their vested interests. When the CCP collapses due to some triggering event, there will not be many people who stand up to defend the Party.

(First published by People News)
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