Key Points and Summary – Recent purges and prolonged public absences by Chinese President Xi Jinping have fueled intense rumors of a political crisis or even a coup within the ruling Communist Party. Xi, once a prolific traveler, has been increasingly delegating duties and skipping major international events.
-While this has stoked speculation that he is facing an internal challenge, long-time analysts believe the opposite is true.
-They argue Xi’s grip on power is now so absolute that he no longer needs constant hands-on management, and the rumors are simply a product of a political system that has become more opaque than ever.
Xi Jinping in Trouble?
The heavily guarded Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing is the long-time home of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership. The compound is often referred to in the Western press as “China’s Kremlin.”
Like that famous Russian medieval fortress, the Chinese analogue has also always been a center of intrigue. And harking back to the Stalin era of Soviet history, when senior Communist Party members disappeared in the middle of the night never to be heard from again, the CCP is having its own round of purges and unexplained dismissals that add to the mystique and dark shadows associated with Zhongnanhai.
In recent months, arrests and disappearances of senior CCP officials, as well as other unexplained personnel changes, have stoked rumors of a political crisis developing behind the gates of Zhongnanhai. But the rumors are hard to validate, as so little of what takes place within the CCP is ever recorded, released, written, or spoken about. No one really knows what is normal activity within these walls, so, naturally, it is impossible to gauge what is not normal.
These rumors are the product of a political system that has always lacked transparency. But under President Xi Jinping, that system has, as a recent Wall Street Journal article described, become “increasingly opaque and personalized.”
Why Leadership Struggle Rumors Get Started
The increasing number and duration of Xi’s absences from public view have given rise to speculation that CCP senior leaders are opposing his one-man rule.
Xi was not seen for a two-week period from late May to early June. Then he elected to not attend the early-July BRICS summit, after a perfect attendance record of the preceding 12 such conclaves.
Xi is known for being the most well-travelled leader in the history of modern China, but that record has somewhat changed. A recent retrospective profile points out that Xi travelled to “10 countries across four overseas trips in 2024, and five nations over three trips in the first half of this year, compared with his average of visiting about 14 countries a year between 2013 and 2019, and a 20-nation peak he set in 2014.”
More recently, as Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, points out, “Xi is increasingly willing to delegate the operational bits of foreign policy to his trusted interlocutors” rather than handling these interactions himself.
Loh, who assesses Chinese political developments, said “China is certainly not taking its eyes off foreign policy. But it seems to me that Xi is now content with exercising broad strategic direction and while selectively choosing his trips abroad.”
What is Likely Taking Place Behind Closed Doors
Long-time analysts of the CCP’s inner workings tell National Security Journal they do not believe Xi’s disappearances indicate he is facing a challenge within the party.
They also do not see Xi’s decision to spend more time inside rather than outside of China as a sign that he feels pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs, or from any flexing of Washington’s military might.
Rather, they say, Xi has created a ruling order and a system of interlocking subordinates and institutions that can carry out the functions of the state while he presides. He has enough control, authority, and alliances built up that constant hands-on management is no longer required.
But rumors nonetheless continue to gain traction that Xi may be facing an internal coup or a fracturing of the CCP’s absolute power. Logical explanations about the diminishment of his public presence are not enough to quell suspicions about the health of a government that is shrouded in secrecy.
“Rumors are an endemic feature of the Chinese system,” said Joseph Torigian, an analyst of Chinese politics and the author of The Party’s Interests Come First, which is a biography of Xi’s father. “And the kind of rumors people want to believe spread more easily.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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bobb
August 1, 2025 at 1:18 pm
Xi needs to go, same as Putin.
Xi has made too, too, far too many errors, especially the galactic error early from 2015.
In early 2015, serious cyber intrusions against OPM were detected and attributed to xi. Or his henchmen.
As a result, American intelligence organized the famous Tianjin payback in August 2015.
Xi has learned nothing useful from that episode. Which took place during Hussein Obama’s time.
Today, there are massive foreign elements or presence and they have their own domestic agents working with them. Since 2015, they have become even bigger or larger.
Another grave error is xi’s propensity to listen to reuters for economic advice, unable to assess that reuters has very close links with the Deep state.
Another example is still allowing western navies to traverse the Taiwan strait and thereby keep fanning the big flame of tensions over the cross-strait relationship.
How about building artificial islands in the shallow waters (100m) and building piers and wharfs, all growing in size with each passing year.
Instead xi has spent billions and possibly even trillions on the belt and road pet project and padding out bribes as though handing out sweets.
Xi must go.