Chinese President Xi Jinping's immediate predecessor, Hu Jintao, appeared confused and slightly disoriented as he was escorted out of the closing ceremony of the ruling Communist Party.
“China's former president Hu Jintao has been unexpectedly escorted out of the closing ceremony of the ruling Communist Party.
The 79-year-old, who was sitting on the left of President Xi Jinping, was led off the stage of the main auditorium of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing by two stewards.
He appeared to resist leaving, turning back to his seat at one point.
On his way out he exchanged words with Xi and patted Premier Li Keqiang on the shoulder.
Hu Jintao had appeared slightly unsteady last Sunday when he was assisted onto the same stage for the opening ceremony of the congress.
Chinese state media has claimed that Hu was ‘not feeling well’ and was accompanied out of the session to ‘rest’, adding that he feels ‘much better’.
Xinhuanet reporter Liu Jiawen claimed that Hu ‘insisted’ on attending the closing session despite taking the time recently to ‘recuperate’.
Li, the country's number two official and a chief proponent of economic reforms, is among four of the seven members of the nation's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee who will not be reappointed in a leadership shuffle on Sunday.
The four were not on the list of the Communist Party's new 205-member Central Committee that was approved at the closing session on Saturday. Only Central Committee members can serve on the Standing Committee.
The congress also approved an amendment of the party constitution that could further bolster Xi's stature as China's leader.
The text of the announcement has yet to be released but before its approval an announcer read out the reasoning behind it and repeatedly mentioned Xi and his achievements in strengthening the military and the economy and reinforcing the party's authority.
In brief closing remarks, President Xi said the revision ‘sets out clear requirements for upholding and strengthening the party's overall leadership’.
At the previous congress in 2017 the party boosted Xi's status by enshrining his ideas, known as Xi Jinping Thought, in its charter”. -Samuel Osborne, Sky News
At one point, Hu Jintao appeared to be trying to take some documents located between him and Xi, but the Chinese president resisted this attempt.
Hu, who decided to step down at the end of his second term as president in 2013, was publicly opposed to allowing Xi to remain in his position for a third term.
Some Western commentators were quick to describe the move as a “purge”, considering Hu Jintao was the neoliberal “rules-based” new world order’s mouthpiece in China whose rise to national power was derailed unexpectedly by Xi Jinping in the wake of his anti-corruption campaign that ‘netted’ over one hundred twenty high-ranking officials, including about a dozen high-ranking military officers, several senior executives of state-owned companies, and four national leaders, while also bringing about the indictment of over one hundred thousand Chinese people.
The campaign has been a part of a much wider initiative to clean up malfeasance within party ranks and shore up party unity. It has become an emblematic feature of Xi Jinping’s political brand.