Recently, a private letter from former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has been widely circulated on the internet, focusing on academic and personal matters without touching on any political topics. However, the public release of this letter has sparked widespread attention. Political analysts say that the exposure of Wen Jiabao’s letter carries subtle political signals, hinting that political elders represented by Wen Jiabao still hold significant influence in the Chinese Communist Party.
According to a photo of the letter circulating online, it was dated December 23, 2024, and written in traditional vertical characters with a brush. The letter was addressed to Professor Yang Weiran from Wen Jiabao’s alma mater, China University of Geosciences. It mainly expresses Wen Jiabao’s concerns for the academic community and shares some insights and academic thoughts on cutting-edge issues in geoscience.
Wen Jiabao’s letter, after widely spreading on the internet, has stirred public attention. Even though the letter did not touch on political content, analysts believe that its timing and background imply political signals, especially in the current complex and delicate political environment.
Recently, insiders revealed to Dajiyuan that the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo held its annual democratic life meeting from December 26 to 27, 2024, which was characterized by tension and animosity. One of the main purposes of the meeting was to purge retired political elders and initiate investigations against them.
On January 2, 2025, in an interview with Dajiyuan, a Chinese political commentator based in the United States, Tang Jingyuan, stated that the public release of Wen Jiabao’s letter is evidently not coincidental.
Tang Jingyuan pointed out that since Xi Jinping came to power, he has been dedicated to combating “elderly officials meddling in politics” and strictly controlling the activities and public appearances of political elders. While Wen Jiabao’s letter did not touch on any political topics but instead focused on academic exchange, its release during a sensitive period sends subtle political signals. This indicates that certain political elders, represented by Wen Jiabao, still wield significant influence in the Chinese Communist Party.
Tang Jingyuan analyzed that although the letter was originally a private correspondence from Wen Jiabao to a professor, its full exposure on the internet was evidently not incidental but a deliberate arrangement. He believes that through this method, Wen Jiabao expressed the political beliefs of the political elders, showcasing their divergent path from Xi Jinping’s “party controls everything,” return to the Mao Zedong era, and confrontation with the West. Tang Jingyuan emphasized that the public release of this letter in itself conveys very subtle political signals.
Since the Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party held in July 2024, Wen Jiabao’s role has attracted increasing attention. On September 30, he attended the 75th anniversary celebration of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing, sitting unusually on the left side of the party leader Xi Jinping. In the news footage aired by China Central Television, the 90-year-old former Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Li Ruihuan, and the 82-year-old Wen Jiabao were seated on either side of Xi Jinping upon entering the venue. The interaction between Wen Jiabao and Xi Jinping during the event appeared notably frequent, leading to various speculations.
Wen Jiabao is known as the “most significant reformist within the Communist Party of China.” Before stepping down as Premier in March 2013, he underscored the need to change the situation of excessive and unconstrained centralized power through institutional reforms. This was seen as his discontent with Xi Jinping’s path.
Xi Jinping, after consolidating power, started to gradually halt reforms. He not only abolished term limits for the presidency but also enforced political controls in various fields in the name of national security. Since the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping has vigorously promoted and implemented Mao Zedong’s “mobilizing the masses to attack the masses” and the “Maple Bridge Experience.” It is widely believed that Chinese society has made a comprehensive leftward turn, regressing to the era of the Cultural Revolution, a direction Wen Jiabao has long opposed.
Wen Jiabao is among the most vocal within the top ranks of the Chinese Communist Party in advocating for political system reform, particularly in preventing a revival of the Cultural Revolution.
After retiring, three letters from Wen Jiabao have been publicly circulated online, including the one addressed to the professor at China University of Geosciences.
The first letter was a handwritten brush letter by Wen Jiabao. In January 18, 2014, Hong Kong media published a letter from Wen Jiabao to former Hong Kong delegate to the National People’s Congress, Wu Kangmin. In the letter, Wen Jiabao emphasized that he had never done and would never do anything for personal gain through power and expressed his desire to lead a clean and honest life to the end. At that time, Wen Jiabao and Xi Jinping were political allies. Before stepping down, he collaborated with Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping to take down Bo Xilai, a former member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and the Party Secretary of Chongqing, and supported Xi Jinping’s rise to power.
The second letter dated 2021, Wen Jiabao wrote a long article titled “My Mother,” which was serialized in four issues from March 25 to April 15 in Macau Daily. One section particularly emphasized the “unprecedented” calamity brought upon their family by the Cultural Revolution. During that period, his father endured immense suffering and was frequently subjected to brutal interrogations and beatings.
Subsequently, some public WeChat accounts reposted the article, but it was soon banned from further sharing in moments or groups. WeChat cited the violation of “WeChat public platform operating norms,” and content that had already been reprinted in some media and platforms was all deleted.
In fact, before stepping down as Premier, Wen Jiabao had publicly stated that the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution had not been entirely cleared. He believed that without successful political system reforms, historical tragedies like the Cultural Revolution could reoccur.