On February 4, 2026, Xi Jinping called Vladimir Putin and had an important conversation. Then he called Donald Trump and had an important conversation. Why?
Trump is an important enemy, one who is scheduled to meet with Xi in China in April, and Putin is an important friend. So it’s not mysterious that the parties should talk to each other. But why on that particular day?
Lei of Lei’s Real Talk suggests that Xi Jinping desperately wants external validation of his importance as a leader because of how lousy domestic politics are for him right now. He is not getting the support from within CCP institutions that he needs to legitimize his arrests or “investigations” of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli. So Xi is “seeking foreign backing to prop himself up.”
The case of Zhang Youxia (shown above with Xi), the most senior general and the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission until his arrest last month, is “still unresolved.” Because Xi is not getting “the procedural cover that he needs, [he] is suddenly reaching out to Trump and Putin at the highest level.”
The silence
As Lei has argued in previous live streams, Xi Jinping’s “sudden detention of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli violated the CCP’s internal procedures and lacked basic legitimacy. And yet every level of the party and the military has remained silent, except for a few PLA daily op-ed and articles. There’s no endorsement, no ritualistic statements of support, nothing.”
Xi urgently needs some form of institutional approval to retroactively…legitimize what he’s done. His first attempt was the Politburo meeting last Friday, January 30. That meeting failed to produce any consensus backing the generals’ arrest. A few days later, the CCP announced an emergency session of the 20th meeting of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, which was held yesterday….
Now the moment this ad hoc meeting was announced, many people recognized what it was for immediately. The expectation was clear. It was to revoke Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli’s NPC delegate status, and their positions in the State Central Military Commission would be formally removed. Revoking their NPC delegate status would score a big win for Xi Jinping.
But that didn’t happen…. The two generals were not mentioned at all….
Remember, Xi detained Zhang Youxia and then publicly announced it just four days later, without following proper party procedures. Under normal logic, Xi would now be racing to complete the most basic formalities, stripping the generals of their NPC delegate status as quickly as possible….
[The only possible conclusion is that] Xi Jinping no longer has full control over the National People’s Congress.
Contrary to what some observers argue, far from still being in full control, Xi Jinping
seriously underestimated the level of resistance he would face inside the party, the government, and the military. He thought once Zhang was taken down, everyone would fall in line. They would pledge loyalty to him and move on. Instead, he got collective resistance….
It’s not that Xi Jinping doesn’t want to fix the legitimacy problem. It’s that he cannot. At least not right now….
So realizing how stuck he is, he moved fast on the external front….
Lei then discusses the two phone calls to Putin and Trump, initiated by Xi. About the call to the U.S. president, Lei concludes that
Xi Jinping made a major effort to please Trump. Not only did he significantly soften his language on Taiwan, his overall tone was noticeably milder. And we shouldn’t rule out the possibility that he also made real concessions on Iran behind closed doors….
Why would he do this? Because he desperately wants something in return. From the two official readouts, or one readout and one social media post [by Trump], it’s very clear what Xi Jinping is after. First, he wants to lock in Trump’s visit to China in April. Second, he wants Trump to publicly signal political support for him.
As for why President Trump would cooperate and publicly stress how indispensable his relationship with Xi is, Lei believes that Trump is helping Xi because “Xi Jinping is doing something no CCP leader has ever done before. He is tearing the system down from the inside. Xi Jinping’s move against Zhang Youxia shattered the CCP’s own internal rules and procedures…. He has effectively declared war on the Party itself…. He’s no longer just purging rivals. He’s turning against the CCP establishment as a whole…. By taking down Zhang Youxia, who is a heavyweight princeling inside the PLA, Xi Jinping has crossed the line he cannot walk back from….
“No one has been more effective at weakening the Chinese military from the inside than Xi Jinping himself. So how could Trump not find this useful?”
Lei’s reasoning is not quite as airtight as she supposes. For one thing, this isn’t the first time that Trump has publicly gushed about Xi and his relationship with Xi. But even if some of the details can be otherwise interpreted, she makes a plausible case. If she’s right, and Xi loses his power struggles, and somebody else takes over, we can only hope that the new CCP dictator will be better.
