Hu Jintao: Fresh China congress footage deepens mystery over exit

Fresh footage has emerged showing more of what happened before China’s former leader Hu Jintao was dramatically led out of a session during last week’s Communist Party Congress in Beijing.

It shows in greater detail how outgoing Politburo member Li Zhanshu, to Mr Hu’s left, takes a file away and speaks to him.

Then China’s current leader Xi Jinping gives lengthy instructions to another man who subsequently attempts to persuade Mr Hu to leave.

The unexpected moment led to intense speculation, with some arguing that it was a deliberate power play by Mr Xi to show that the more consensus-driven Hu era was definitively over while others suggested it could have been because of Mr Hu’s poor health.

The official Xinhua news agency later tweeted that Mr Hu had been escorted from the chamber after feeling unwell – but it did not report that domestically. Twitter is blocked to users in China.

The moment unfolded the day before Mr Xi announced his third term and his top team of loyalists – both the timing and the fact that Chinese politics are so opaque sparked a global guessing game as to what had happened.

Many wondered if it was a deliberate piece of political theatre. Unlike Mr Hu, whose presidency between 2003 and 2013 was seen as a time of opening up to the outside world, Mr Xi has presided over a country that has become increasingly isolated.

The new footage, filmed by Singapore-based Channel News Asia, does not debunk the official line that Mr Hu was ill. But it also suggests that Mr Hu’s handling of the document in front of him played a role in the incident.

Adding to the intrigue, Li Zhanshu appeared to be about to stand up to help Mr Hu but was then seemingly tugged back down into his seat by Wang Huning to his left.

Meanwhile Mr Hu said something to an impassive Mr Xi as he was escorted out, while the other men seated in the row did not turn around as he was led out.

Deng Yuwen, a former editor of Communist Party newspaper the Study Times, says there is no reason that the party would put a document that Mr Hu was not allowed to read right in front of him at such a high-profile meeting with cameras rolling.

“It was indeed an unusual situation,” he says. “No-one can explain it until there is more evidence of what was inside the file, or what was being said at the scene.”

Wen-ti Sung, a lecturer at the Australian National University, says the new footage remains inconclusive.

“China is all about order, especially at high profile events like that and especially in Xi’s era where it’s all about control,” he said.

“So an arguably out-of-control Hu and this sudden exit definitely seems strange, and that’s why it justifies a lot of the rumours. But that’s not to say that the rumour or speculation about a purge is necessarily correct.”

But Mr Deng says the spectacle of other senior officials – including Mr Hu’s former second in command Wen Jiabao – looking straight ahead as Mr Hu was led out behind them does say something about Mr Xi’s China.

“There would be a chilling effect on the officials watching what was happening on the stage,” he said. “Although this won’t threaten Xi’s power, it will create a psychological impact on those officials.”

If the previous day’s drama was indeed unscripted and motivated by concern for Mr Hu’s well-being, Mr Xi’s new Politburo Standing Committee line up the following day drove home the symbolism of the former leader’s exit – there would be no return to the policies of the Hu Jintao era.