Giang Trạch Dân, - Con hổ - Lớn nhất sẽ bị hạ bệ? - Trung quốc không kiểm duyệt

On this episode of China Uncensored, China's big political shake-up... begins. Hi, welcome to China Uncensored. I'm your host, Chris Chappell. What happens... when the leader of the most populous nation on earth... is crazy? Well, you don't have to wonder because it happened. Meet Jiang Zemin, the leader of China from 1989 to 2002 and... sort of beyond. He was... not the most well mannered person. In fact, he was known for committing some pretty big diplomatic faux pas. Like... being a little too affectionate with world leaders, or combing his hair during a welcoming ceremony by King Juan Carlos of Spain, or... jumping on the piano that used to belong to Mozart and playing a Communist Revolutionary opera. This kind of behavior didn't exactly endear Jiang to Chinese public. They have a nickname for him: Ha Ha! No, they aren't laughing at him. They're calling him... a toad. The word for "toad" in Chinese is 'ha ma' and... well, some have noted the similarity. The newest online slang for him is to just repeat that first character, "ha ha" and it's turned Jiang Zemin into a living joke. But it's not so much that Jiang as crazy as it is. He's crazy! Look at this video of him responding to a question from a news reporter. Jiang didn't like the question which was about whether Jiang supported Hong Kong's Chief Executive, so he freaks out and accuses the reporter of being stupid. And that's him being nice because he knows he's on camera until... So how's a guy like this get into power? The Tiananmen Square massacre. In the first half of 1989, Jiang was a high-ranking official but still third tier but, after expressing strong support for... shall we say... clearing the square of troublemakers, Jiang was promoted to the top tier. You see, after the guy who was supposed to be in that spot got purged for supporting those troublesome students, there was a bit... of power vacuum and Jiang filled it with his ample visit. With that ray of sunshine as at the start of his rule, his tenure went on to be marked by political infighting, massive corruption and environmental degradation, also genocide. Did I mention the genocide? Yeah, like Saddam Hussein levels of genocide. But... why would anyone intensely kill thousands, maybe millions of his own people? Because... POWER! And Jiang looooves... power! In 1999, he found a great excuse to create a police state that would give him unlimited power. He took China's most popular meditation practice, Falun Gong which was practiced by about one in every twelve Chinese and made it illegal. Now, a hundred million people were suddenly... a threat to the Communist Party, so Jiang had an excuse to create a multi-billion dollar internal police force, to you know, crack down on Falun Gong... for doing this. And then he promoted people to positions of power in exchange for helping him eliminate Falun Gong Before Jiang's official retirement in 2002, he had so many of his people in positions of power that he was able to hold on to control of the military directly for 2 more years and indirectly until very recently. It would be like if Obama got elected in 2008 but George W. Bush still ran a government-funded paramilitary force and use it to arrest or kill American citizens... who do yoga because the downward dog clearly subvert state power which... brings us to today. The current Chinese leader Xi Jinping is trying to give off the image of a reformer with his anti-corruption campaign but in reality, it's about removing his political enemies, those people Jiang Zemin put into positions of power and maybe settling once and for all the question of who has the highest pants in China? It's Jiang... but not for much longer. Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he's put away hundreds of officials with ties to Jiang. You know some of their names if you've been watching the show. So *** Lijun leads to Bo Xilai who to leads to Zhou Yongkang. Who is next? And what's really tying them all together? Yes, finally it seems Xi Jinping is directly going after Jiang Zemin, the top dog or... top toad, I suppose. Check out this quote from an August 10th article in the Communist Party's official mouth piece, People's Daily, read between the lines here: "There are Party leaders who, while they are still in power, name their trusted aides to take on key positions for the purpose of extending their influence in the future." What's more, after these party leaders have stepped down, they are not willing to give up exerting their influence on major issues. That seems pretty obvious. It reminds me of the time I had to have a little talk with my roommate. "Somebody has been eating my pizza, Carl. I'm not gonna say who, but somebody has." Any China watcher will tell you that this article means, Xi Jinping is criticizing Jiang Zemin and it follows the same pattern as other big takedowns in Xi's anti-corruption campaign. Let's see. Takedown second in command? Check! Criticism in state-run media? Check! Prominent calligraphy possibly written by Jiang's important school conspicuously removed? Check! Now, there are even rumors that he's been placed under control which means his movements have been restricted. Politically savvy people in China can see that this could potentially shake the entire political foundation of the Communist Party and it's not yet clear what will happen when the shaking ends but remember, even if Xi Jinping successfully takes down Jiang Zemin, that doesn't mean the good guys have won. Maybe it will be like when Godzilla bites off King Ghidorah "Our savior come back to protect us" Because even if Ghidorah loses, you still stuck with Godzilla. So what do you think all this political infighting means and who would you rather have ruled China? Godzilla or King Ghidorah? Leave your comments below. Once again, I'm Chris Chappell. See you next time.