[eternalban]

The US equivalent would be getting booted off of Twitter & denied friendly access via press.

Hu was apparently upset that the list of candidates was not what he had expected, since the session was to hold a simple yes/no to the entire list.

He wanted to check his list against Xi's list which is why he kept reaching for it. Apparently even his son was booted off along with various allies, like vice-premier of China. It seems it was indeed a surprise to Xi and company & a snap decision by Xi to remove Hu was made.

Lei's real talk on YT is an informed resource by a Chinese critic of CPC. NYTimes article today seems based on her (uncredited) work published earlier on YT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDQ-M0WJRfo