China's Cai Xia: former party insider who dared criticise Xi Jinping
In the mid-1990s, Cai Xia, a devout believer in Chinese communist doctrine, experienced her first moment of doubt.
She was a teacher at the central party school for training cadres when a friend called with some questions. Cai, an expert in Marxism and Chinese communist party theory, enthusiastically answered.
She remembers how the friend, after listening to her responses, then asked: “Do you think communism can really be implemented?”
Cai, who at that point had spent decades serving the party, was shocked. “No one had ever asked me this. I always felt everything I did was normal and natural, and I never thought about whether it was right or wrong,” she said.
The friend followed up with another pointed question: “Do you know what you are like, what you are?” To Cai’s confusion, the friend said: “You are a preacher of the communist party,” – a proselytiser verging on religious fanaticism.
“I knew being called a preacher for the Chinese communist party was a derogatory term,” she said, noting the negative connotation of religion within the party. “These two questions lodged in my mind,” she said. “I still think about them.”
Over the past week, Cai, 68, has become a celebrated dissident to some and a reviled traitor to others. On Monday, she was expelled from the party after comments of hers calling the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, a “mafia boss” were leaked online in June.
Following her expulsion, Cai gave the Guardian permission to release a previously unpublished interview with her in which she went even further, blaming Xi for “killing a party and a country” and turning China into “an enemy” of the world – extremely rare criticisms of the top leader from within the party establishment.
In the days since, state media have called Cai “a traitor” and an “extreme dissident” aligned with anti-Chinese forces in the US. “She has betrayed not only the oath of the party but also the interests of China and the Chinese people,” the nationalist outlet Global Times wrote.
The central party school held a special meeting this week to strengthen discipline to prevent “major political incidents” as well as increase the political and ideological training of retired staff.
“Party organisations at all levels and the entire school’s faculty and staff should take profound lessons from Cai Xia’s serious disciplinary violations,” the school said in a notice.
Yet Cai, who has been overseas since last year, said she had lost neither sleep nor appetite, nor suffered anxiety from these attacks.
“Whatever other people say, I will not be moved. I only care about whether my understanding is right or wrong. If it is wrong, I will fix it. If it is right, no matter what pressure I come under I will persevere. This is just my personality,” she said. “I know what I need to do.”
Her outspokenness and willingness to criticise Xi are even more remarkable given her background. As the daughter of early party cadres, those who fought for the communist revolution that established the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Cai belongs to an elite class known as the hongerdai,or “second red generation”, whose deep party roots often provide key connections.
She was raised within the military
in Jiangsu province in eastern China where parents taught her the importance of equality and stripped away any semblance of privilege. When Cai was eight, they dismissed the family nanny and Cai was ordered to do house chores such as cooking and cleaning.
She grew up to be such a fervent believer that as an adult studying at the central party school in the 1980s, her classmates called her malaotai, “old lady Marx”, behind her back. She joined the party in 1982 after years of serving in the military. She also worked at a factory and as a schoolteacher before turning to academia.
For Cai, the change in heart was gradual. In the early 2000s, when helping to draft a doctrine under the former leader Jiang Zemin known as the “three represents”, Cai was dismayed to see how Marxist theory was being used as a tool of propaganda. “This was the first time I realised that, in fact, some of the theories are deceptive and absurd,” she said.
She remained hopeful, subscribing to the belief that the party could
out for the many dual-national Iranians who had been through similar experiences.
“It is shedding more light on what’s already happening because we know many, many, many more people goes through the same thing,” Esfahbod said.
“The problem is we don’t know the extent. We don’t know if it’s ten people or a thousand people a year. We just know that most people can’t come out because they can afford to psychologically. People have very legitimate reasons to not come forward.”
Mehdi Yahyanejad, a friend of Esfahbod’s, a tech entrepreneur and an activist who co-founded Net Freedom Pioneers, an advocacy group for social change, said: “Considering the way he has timed this, this is something he has thought through well. It is not a rash decision.”
Esfahbod eventually quit his job. His relationship with his Portugese partner, a photographer and artist, fell apart, and he moved to Canada to stay with relatives, and start life anew.
“I like to quote this line from Janis Joplin,” he said. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”