Xi Can No Longer Protect Him — Ma Xingrui Absent from the “Two Sessions”

Ma Xingrui Absent from the “Two Sessions”

[People News] The Fourth Session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference of the Chinese Communist Party opened yesterday (the 4th) at 3 p.m. in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Politburo member Ma Xingrui, who should have been seated on the presidium, did not appear. Yesterday, the National People’s Congress of the Chinese Communist Party also announced the list of the presidium, and Ma Xingrui also did not appear on the list as would have been customary. Some commentators believe that Ma Xingrui’s absence from the Two Sessions shows that his downfall is already a done deal. And Ma Xingrui is a “fellow Shandong native” of Peng Liyuan. If Xi Jinping cannot even protect Ma Xingrui, that shows Xi’s power is not as great as the outside world imagines, and that the anti-Xi forces within the Party are not to be underestimated.

On March 4, the Chinese Communist Party announced the list of the presidium and secretary-general for the Fourth Session of the 14th National People’s Congress. This year’s presidium has 167 members, 9 fewer than last year’s 176. Members of the presidium are mainly composed of Standing Committee members of the National People’s Congress, as well as so-called “Party and state leaders,” major local officials, and others. Compared with last year, in this year’s list, Politburo member and Central Military Commission vice chairmen He Weidong and Zhang Youxia, whose downfalls have already been officially announced, have both disappeared. Ma Xingrui, who had originally been listed behind Xi Jinping, also did not appear.

This year’s presidium list added 5 people, all of them major local officials who assumed new posts last year. At the same time, 14 people were removed, including 6 whose downfalls have already been officially announced: former Inner Mongolia Party Secretary Sun Shaocheng, former government chairwoman Wang Lixia; former Guangxi government chairman Lan Tianli; former Central Military Commission vice chairmen Zhang Youxia and He Weidong; and former chief of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission Liu Zhenli. In addition, there was 1 person who resigned, 2 senior officials who stepped back to second-line positions, and 4 members of National People’s Congress special committees who were removed from office.

Ma Xingrui is the only official among these 14 whose whereabouts remain unclear. Last July, he stepped down as Party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and the official notice at the time said he had been assigned another post. At the end of last November, Ma Xingrui was absent from a Chinese Communist Party Politburo group study session, drawing public attention. After that, he was successively absent from important high-level meetings such as the Central Economic Work Conference and the Chinese Communist Party Politburo democratic life meeting.

On the afternoon of March 4 (Wednesday), the Chinese Communist Party’s Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference meeting opened in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. According to convention, members of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee and Politburo members who do not hold positions in the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference should sit in the second row of the presidium. However, Ma Xingrui, a Politburo member, was absent and nowhere to be seen.

Recently, rumors have continued to circulate on overseas internet platforms that Ma Xingrui has fallen from power. It is rumored that Ma Xingrui is a fellow Shandong native of Xi Jinping’s wife Peng Liyuan, and that because of their close relationship he received rapid promotion.

According to a report by The Epoch Times, U.S.-based political commentator Chen Pokong said that something had gone wrong with Ma Xingrui long ago, but because Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan had been protecting him, Xi wanted to preserve his own face and planned to arrange a soft landing for Ma Xingrui. However, Ma Xingrui’s downfall can be said to be a certainty set in stone, impossible to reverse. “This shows that Xi Jinping’s power is not as solid as the outside world imagines. There are still very powerful opposition forces within the Party, including the mainstream faction of political elders, the mainstream faction of the red second-generation princelings, and even probably the majority among the upper levels of the Chinese Communist Party, who secretly are all resisting Xi Jinping.”

Shen Mingshi, a researcher at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told The Epoch Times that in handling Ma Xingrui, it is probably hard to say whether Xi Jinping is actively choosing to deal with him or is being forced by pressure to do so. Because Ma Xingrui may also have delivered many benefits to Xi Jinping’s family, handling Ma Xingrui is like handling problems involving Xi Jinping’s family.

Independent commentator Du Zheng wrote in Taiwan media outlet Up Media on February 28 that Ma Xingrui is politically a favorite of Xi Jinping and his wife. The move now to take down Ma Xingrui is due to the spread of corruption in the military-industrial system, together with the fact that Ma Xingrui is also on the long list involving benefits transferred by Evergrande’s Xu Jiayin, while his family’s corruption has also been reported by whistleblowers, making it difficult for Xi and Peng to handle. Xi Jinping has no choice but to “tearfully execute Ma Xingrui in the Year of the Horse.”

He also said that the more complicated aspect of the Ma case is that Li Xi, who heads the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, now has to deal with his former “partner” in Guangdong, while Ma Xingrui may also hold evidence of Li Xi’s corruption in Guangdong.

A recent report by The Wall Street Journal said that before Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, although Chinese Communist Party politics had a secretive character, there were still patterns to follow. But as the system shifted toward high centralization of power, political operations became extremely opaque, forcing foreign scholars, officials, and corporate executives to revive the “Pekingology” of the Mao Zedong era, trying to decode the secrets of power from the wording of official media reports and details in images.

According to the report, this “field of study” includes examining seating arrangements at meetings, the order in which officials appear, and even body language. For example, the Chinese Communist Party officialdom places great emphasis on strict seating protocol: the highest-ranking person sits in the center, while the others are arranged according to rank and the number of strokes in their surnames. Once an official is absent, if that person’s seat is “skipped over” or filled by someone else, it often suggests that his political career has already entered a danger zone.

The report points out that from He Weidong’s “slow-motion collapse,” to Zhang Youxia’s “lightning purge,” and now to Ma Xingrui’s “continued disappearance,” all show that power struggles at the top of the Chinese Communist Party remain intense and full of uncertainty. △