During a new round of power struggle among top Communist Party officials in Beidaihe, Hebei Province, the officialdom in Tangshan City continues to experience “earthquakes”, with three high-ranking officials including the vice mayor and director of the propaganda department being investigated intensively. Informed sources revealed that the recent wave of officials falling from grace in Tangshan is the latest rhythm of infighting at the top of the CCP, and President Xi Jinping is cracking down on local forces to prevent local strongmen from taking advantage.
The Hebei Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision Committee of the Communist Party of China reported late on the night of August 16 that Cao Quanmin, former deputy mayor of Tangshan City and a first-level inspector of Tangshan City, had been investigated, becoming the latest wave of “earthquakes” in Tangshan’s officialdom. On August 11, Hou Chunjun, deputy director of the United Front Work Department of Hebei Province, and Li Li, member of the Tangshan Municipal Committee and director of the publicity department, were investigated on the same day. The fall of the three high-ranking officials during the Beidaihe conference has attracted attention.
Former mainland Chinese media person Zhao Lanjian told Dajiyuan that the high frequency of officials in Hebei and Tangshan falling from grace during the Beidaihe conference is the inevitable result of intense factional struggles within the CCP and conflicts caused by the looting of mining resources in Tangshan.
Zhao Lanjian explained that several CCP red families have complex and intertwined local power in Hebei Province. Tangshan has abundant mineral resources, is close to Beijing, and has geographical advantages; and selling minerals is the easiest way for various factions in the CCP to make money and cash out.
Political commentator Li Yanming also told Dajiyuan that Tangshan is an important energy and raw material base and heavy industrial city in China, with a dark interest chain with many CCP elite families. Hebei-born national and deputy national high-ranking officials include former politburo members Jia Qinglin, Li Zhanshu, former Premier Sun Chunlan, current deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Liu Jinguo, and deputy chairman of the National People’s Congress Zhang Qingwei, have a profound influence in the CCP political arena.
Public records show that the newly fallen Tangshan official Cao Quanmin is 60 years old, a native of Tangshan, Hebei. In March 2002, he served as the deputy secretary of the Gu’ye District Committee and district head of Tangshan City, and was promoted to deputy mayor of Tangshan City in February 2011. In August 2021, Cao Quanmin no longer served as deputy mayor, and his title when engaging in official activities thereafter is a first-level inspector of Tangshan City.
Since April this year, a total of 11 provincial-level cadres, including Cao Quanmin, in Tangshan have been investigated.
Among them, on April 5, Deputy Mayor of Tangshan City Li Jianzhong was investigated; on April 9, Deputy Director of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Tangshan City Li Guifu was investigated; on April 30, former director of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Tangshan City Guo Yanhong was investigated; on May 21, Secretary of the Party Group and Director of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Tangshan City Yang Jie was under investigation; on June 6, former Party Secretary of Tangshan Normal University Sun Guishi was investigated; on June 28, Deputy Mayor of Tangshan City Hao Zhijun was investigated; on July 1, member of the Municipal Committee of Tangshan City, and Secretary of the Cao Feidian District Committee Hou Xu was investigated; on August 11, member of the Municipal Committee of Tangshan City, and Director of the Propaganda Department Li Li was investigated.
In addition, on May 31, Han Guoqiang, member of the Party group and deputy director of the Development and Reform Commission of Hebei Province, was investigated. Han Guoqiang had previously served as a member of the Gu’ye District Committee in Tangshan, deputy district chief, and secretary of the Qian’an City Committee under the jurisdiction of Tangshan City. On August 11, He Chunjun, member of the Standing Committee and deputy director of the United Front Work Department of Hebei Province, was investigated. He Chunjun had long been working in Tangshan City, holding positions such as deputy mayor of Qian’an City, deputy district chief of the Fengrun District, secretary of the Kaiping District Committee, and deputy director of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Tangshan City.
According to the Tangshan Labor Daily on July 2, since the beginning of this year, supervisory authorities at all levels in Tangshan City have initiated 2189 cases and disciplined 2116 individuals, including 90 county-level officials.
Tangshan City is a prefecture-level city under the jurisdiction of Hebei Province, the central city of Hebei Province, and one of the important cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, strategically located in the central area of the Bohai Sea and a vital transportation hub to Northeast China. The city is rich in mineral resources, with steel production ranking first in the country; over the years, Tangshan City’s GDP has consistently ranked first, maintaining its position as the largest city in the Hebei economy.
In the early hours of June 10, 2022, at a barbecue restaurant on Culture Road in the Lubiao District of Tangshan City, a violent incident occurred where several men viciously attacked four women after failing to sexually harass them during a gathering inside the restaurant. After the incident was exposed, issues such as the rampant black forces in Tangshan and inadequate law enforcement by the police attracted significant attention and strong reactions from society.
The surveillance footage of the day when the women in Tangshan were attacked was released to the public. Zhao Lanjian believes that from this incident, it can be seen that different senior-level factions are grappling in the dark, engaging in life-and-death struggles. These series of dark operations have nothing to do with social justice and the rule of law, but rather represent a bloody power struggle among gang factions.
Li Yanming analyzed that the presence of rampant organized crime in Tangshan and the complicity of the political and legal system in protecting these black forces have led to frequent serious incidents, causing significant social impact. Former Minister of Justice Fu Zhenghua and former Deputy Minister of Public Security Liu Yanping, both Tangshan natives who have been investigated, suggest a connection between these individuals and the ongoing issues.
Zhao Lanjian revealed that through a friend familiar with the political situation in China, it has been learned that the so-called anti-corruption campaign currently underway in Tangshan is part of Xi Jinping’s efforts to crack down on local forces threatening his authority. Since the Tangshan barbecue incident, the terror and darkness of Tangshan have been witnessed by the entire nation and garnered global media attention, bringing Tangshan into the sight of the central leadership.
Furthermore, according to Zhao Lanjian, through various sources, Xi Jinping has understood that due to Tangshan’s proximity to Beijing and its abundant mineral resources, some central officials have deep ties with Tangshan officials, and through local businessmen, have been involved in hoarding, laundering, and transferring money, forming a relatively strong and powerful local force of strong local leaders.
Zhao Lanjian added that these local strongmen control the entire political system from top to bottom, possessing unimaginable wealth. Authorities believe that once the situation becomes unstable, these forces could threaten central authority, especially in a place as close to Beijing as Tangshan. The crackdown on Tangshan officials is far from over. Some important businessmen have also been investigated, including a businessman from Tangshan, Zhao Yujiang, who is the owner of the Jiujiang General Company.
According to information from one of Zhao Lanjian’s friends, even people from the Central Organization Department have been implicated in Tangshan’s authorities’ investigation, but the CCP has blocked the news, with no information leaking out.
“The crackdown on the power of Tangshan strongmen will be determined entirely by the central leadership of Xi,” stressed Zhao Lanjian. Xi Jinping is not cracking down on the local black forces in Tangshan solely because of the assault case, but because he realizes that the huge local forces in Hebei and Tangshan have become brazen and are threatening the stability of his rule.
Since coming to power, each year during the Beidaihe conference, there have been constant rumors of internal struggles and even political upheavals; the officialdom in Hebei has also been continuously cleansed, including high-ranking officials such as Provincial Party Secretary Zhou Benshun and Political and Legal Affairs Committee Secretary Zhang Yue falling from grace. This year, during the sensitive period of the Third Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee and the Beidaihe conference, the officialdom in Tangshan is deeply cleansed again, with officials falling intensively. Li Yanming believes that “this round of cleansing may affect multiple current and former national-level officials from Hebei and Tangshan.”