Why China’s ex-leader was escorted out of Communist Party congress - BBC News

[Music] well the first thing you notice from these incredible events at the Great Hall of the people is that China's former leader when asked to leave doesn't want to go and you have to ask yourself why what's going on that question from the BBC's China correspondent Stephen McDonald is one a lot of us have been asking on Saturday the scene was set as the Communist Party Congress Drew to a close reporters have just been allowed in there was President XI having Consolidated his power to his left was huge in Tao his predecessor and then in

front of all of us watching huge in Tao was escorted out within minutes the footage was going viral Soon Chinese State media reported huge in Tao was not feeling well during the session and that now he's much better certainly as he seeks to take president xi's notes huge in Tao appears confused there's also 45 seconds where he seems unsure why he's leaving and he has been assisted before this footage is from a week earlier [Music] but many are questioning the official explanation the academic Henry GAO told the New York Times with G he doesn't do

these things for nothing Global risk analyst Ian Bremer goes further asking why publicly humiliate former president huge in town he goes on power Politics on full display but being sure of any aspect of this is hard here's the BBC's China media analyst Kerry Allen it can sometimes be very frustrating trying to work out what's happened and even though this happened in front of foreign journalists it was out of earshot and it was very difficult to assess you literally have to try and pick over the fine details and do guesswork then on Tuesday more footage emerged

showing just before huge in Tao was taken out Mr Hugh goes to open a folder but is stopped now we don't know what was in the folder we do know that the new Central Committee had just been announced and that Mr Hughes faction had been frozen out and that's drawn the attention of the Chinese dissident and artist AI weiwei those papers supposed to have the name of the the new Bureau Circle of the sea and they must have some kind of deal before made so but now what the reality must be has a completely different

reality at this stage that's a theory no more but these power dynamics connect to why this moment matters as the incident unfolds Xi Jinping looks at the man to his right this is Lika Chang he's one of huge entails Protege he's been Chinese Premier second in command for 10 years this week he found out he'll be losing that job and as his mentor is removed he stares forward impassively so too do the rest of the powerful standing committee whether intentional or not the imagery is unavoidable the ways you're putting down left the stage has been

you know his heavily symbolic of the demise of his faction and and now the enough sitting ping is a complete domination of the Chinese leadership and let's not forget this all happened just when the cameras were allowed in these events are very heavily choreographed and so for something like this to happen there are questions about whether it happened by accident at this Congress Xi Jinping definitely wanted the world to see these displays of unanimous support perhaps he wanted us to see this too either way what we did see was a president with even greater power

and an empty chair where his predecessor would be