Beijing: The National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which is held once in five years, began on the 16th in the capital Beijing and ended yesterday.
2,300 party executives participated in this. The general secretary of the party will be selected on the final day. He himself will continue as president. According to the Chinese constitution, the president can only hold office for 10 years. Accordingly, the term of President Xi Jinping ends yesterday. However, the term limit of the President’s tenure was removed in 2018.
Accordingly, yesterday, the last day of the conference, it was expected that President Xi Jinping would be elected as the General Secretary for the 3rd term. In this case, to participate in the meeting on the last day, one of the party executives, former President Hu Jintao (79) came as usual and sat to the left of President Xi Jinping. The assistants who came there grabbed Hu Jintao’s hand and told him to leave. He left sadly.
He then spoke to President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang for a minute and left. Hu Jintao tried to pick up the papers on his desk as he left. But instead of taking it, President Xi Jinping grabbed the sheets by pressing them on the table. Former President Hu Jintao patted President Xi Jinping on the shoulder as he left.
No journalists were allowed inside the week-long meeting of the Chinese Communist Party. But since it was the closing day of the conference, journalists were allowed inside the Great Hall where the conference was held only yesterday. As the incident unfolded, journalists captured footage of former president Hu Jintao’s ouster.
The reason for Hu Jintao’s ouster was not given. However, this incident happened before President Xi Jinping was elected General Secretary for the 3rd term.
Chinese political expert Neil Thomas said, “Unfortunately, Hu Jintao has been ousted, whether or not Hu Jintao protested the re-election of President Xi Jinping as General Secretary.”
Soon after the incident, Hu Jintao’s Twitter and other social media sites were heavily censored by Chinese government officials.
Former President Hu Jintao patted President Xi Jinping on the shoulder as he left.