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by yorwba 1656 days ago
> I don't see the chinesse people raising against CCP for this.

There doesn't need to be a popular riseup. Zhang Gaoli's enemies in the CCP now have some ammunition they can use to convince the people in the CCP who don't give a shit about Zhang Whoever that it's best to get rid of him. Then it's all up to how many true allies he has. (Probably not many, as a has-been.)

I've seen a lot of reporting on Peng Shuai's public appearances or lack thereof, but little on Zhang Gaoli's whereabouts. My guess is that he's under house arrest while the party leadership decides how to deal with him.

No CCP leader is untouchable; they're all reliant on the support of their allies to remain in power. If that support ever runs out, they quickly find themselves stripped of all titles, at the wrong end of a corruption investigation and risk getting executed in the end.

2 comments

In theory, that could be true. It could even be that China is doing due diligence and trying to avoid tarnishing a reputation of an individual before enough evidence is collected: he's probably lost the support even if everything that happened was deemed "consensual" (not sure if you've read the original message from Peng, but there was a description of an encounter where his wife was in a room next door: I can't imagine that being considered commendable in any way).

But they would probably mention that because this has become such a hot topic: "investigations into Peng's accusations are ongoing" should not be such a hard thing to mutter out.

But even if they did do something proper yet invisible, the obvious pressure on Peng to withdraw her claims and act as if nothing happened are alarming. As is the attempt to rewrite history of the case. They did not even make her say something like "I was under duress/drunk/whatever" or "somebody else stole my phone and wrote that": there is obviously some respect for her public stature, but the main concern is with "health of the nation". By making it all a lie.

Here's a bit of evidence for the last statements, and it doesn't even include Gao Gang and Bo Xilai as major targets (though it does mention the latter):

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/2/in-its-100-years-who...