Retired Chinese teacher Cai Xia, expelled from the Communist Party of China (CCP) on Monday, described the country’s President, Xi Jinping, as a “mobster leader” and assured that “there are more and more critical voices” within the party
Cai Xia was expelled from the CCP for “damaging the country’s reputation”.
In an interview with Radio Free Asia (RFA), the 68-year-old teacher said she is now in the United States and said that if she eventually returned to China, she would be put in prison.
The teacher was relieved to “stop working with the PCC‘ gangsters ’”.
Cai Xia said that “the idea of changing the current leadership is common among many people”, but that it is difficult “due to the totalitarian control that exists now. Everyone is in danger ”.
The teacher was expelled from the PCC on Monday and lost the pension she received from the Central School, where thousands of leaders are trained each year and where Cai Xia taught classes.
The School assured that the expulsion occurred due to its speeches “of an extraordinarily execrable nature”, which “seriously violate party discipline and damage the country’s reputation”.
In the interview with RFA, Cai did not back down and said: “When a country is wrong on important issues, the party must be held accountable and its leaders must take responsibility”.
“The problem with the CCP is that Xi always has the final decision. I said that Xi is like the head of a mafia because there is no transparency and no mechanism for making decisions. When dissenting opinions like mine appear, they simply expel you and cancel your pension ”, said the teacher.
Cai Xia added that there were “attempts at political reform” in the past, in the early 2000s, but that they disappeared as soon as Xi ran for power, which he won in 2013.
“The space for debate has gradually narrowed,” he said, citing as an example that several initiatives by the CCP to ask for the opinion of researchers and academics ended up ending.
The professor also said that her criticisms intensified after the death in February of this year of doctor Li Wenliang, who was reprimanded for “spreading rumors” for alerting his colleagues about a possible new disease, when the coronavirus outbreak started in the city of Wuhan.
“Then the national security law came to Hong Kong. I was very upset and wrote a critical text saying that the CCP was being hostile. Xi’s decisions are ridiculous. The School then called me and I confirmed that yes, I had said that ”, he stressed.
“In China, you can criticize the CCP, but you can’t say that Xi is not good,” added Cai, for whom the decision to eliminate the two presidential term limits of the Constitution approved in 2018 by the Chinese legislature “was not just a mistake, it was, to some extent, a crime ”.
However, the teacher said that at this moment it is “practically impossible” for Xi to be removed from power. “He broke the CCP. There is no exchange of opinions. Everyone is monitored, social interactions are not allowed. They want everyone to stay home and do reports, ”he said.
Cai also expressed support for real estate entrepreneur Ren Zhiqiang, who is missing and will presumably face corruption charges for similar criticisms.
“No one has seen him since he was arrested. I am very worried about him ”, said the teacher.
In April of this year, the Disciplinary Inspection Commission, the anti-corruption body of the Communist Party of China, opened an investigation against Ren for an article in which the businessman criticized the supposed initial concealment of the first stages of the new coronavirus outbreak and the progressive accumulation of Xi’s powers.
