CHINA The names of the delegates for the 20th Congress of the Communist Party were revealed: no surprise

Preparations for the event are over. Despite the “rumors” of a coup d’état, the renewal of the upper echelons of power should take place without trauma and Xi Jinping would continue to lead the government. A nationalist hawk launches an unusual online debate on the Covid-19 pandemic calling for more “transparency”.

Beijing () – The official press today published the list of the 2,296 delegates who will participate in the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party starting on October 16. The participants must name the new Central Committee and the two decision-making bodies of the regime: the Politburo and its Standing Committee.

The fact that one of the delegates is Xi Jinping and there are no particular surprises in the final list, denies on paper the “rumors” that have circulated on the web in recent days about a possible coup in the country and that the Chinese president would be arrested. The only two prominent figures who have been excluded from the Congress are Zhang Xiaoming, former deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, and former deputy attorney general Ying Yong.

The debate on the distribution of power between the different factions of the Party has very likely been more heated than expected, but Xi should get a new term in power, which in itself constitutes an exception to the limit of two terms of office. five years at the head of the State, the PCCh and the Armed Forces, a practice that has been consolidated for more than 30 years.

Observers note that the announcement of the opening date of the Congress and the appointment of delegates may mean that the game is up and the event will proceed smoothly. Preparations are already underway in Beijing and, above all, security measures and Covid-19 controls have been increased.

In this scenario of apparent calm, however, Hu Xijin’s public comment on the pandemic emergency in China is striking. The former director of the official Global Times, known for being a nationalist hawk, yesterday published a post on Weibo (a kind of Chinese Twitter) in which he asks doctors to speak openly about the issue and carry out an exhaustive investigation to share it with Public opinion.

Hu’s post received more than 34,000 “likes” and sparked a debate that authorities did not censor. An extremely unusual case, given that discussions about Covid-19 are normally censored.