

The New York Times photograph by Tingshu Wang/Reuters But those moments predated the internet age, and were clearly intentional. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, were purged or publicly shamed. During the Cultural Revolution, many leaders, including Mr. In 1959, the party formally adopted a resolution denouncing Peng Dehuai, a high-ranking military official, after he criticized Mao Zedong’s economic policies. Previous party meetings have been stages for political maneuvering and the humiliation of former leaders. Xi’s importance as the “core” of the party. The amendments, revealed later, reaffirmed Mr. Xi’s report on the progress of the previous five years, or a report on internal party discipline.

The delegates had not yet voted on amendments to the party constitution, approving Mr. The party’s top leaders and retired elders historically have a great deal of influence over the selection. Xi had pushed out perceived moderates in favor of loyalists. The congress was about to announce the new Central Committee, which would make clear that Mr. Hu is led away, he appears to be reaching for a document on the table, where the top leaders and retired elders of the party preside. But a deconstruction of video footage provides additional details and context about the much-scrutinized moment. The world may never know the answer, given the utter secrecy around Chinese high politics. “This was an astonishing episode - even during the Mao period, you didn’t see a dramatic disruption of the congress like this,” said Victor Shih, a specialist in Chinese politics at the University of California at San Diego. Hu, 79, suffering from poor health, as Chinese state media would later report? Or was he being purged in a dramatic show by China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, for the world to see? The moment, captured on video by journalists who had been allowed into the hall minutes earlier, prompted questions and wild speculation.

Hu - who appeared reluctant to go - out of Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. The roughly 2,000 delegates to the congress had just cast ballots for the party’s prestigious Central Committee.
