Footage of former Chinese President Hu Jintao being escorted out of the Communist Party's congress has sent China-watchers into a tailspin, with multiple theories now emerging around what was behind it.
Videos of the incident show a visibly distressed Hu resisting efforts to be led out of the meeting, sparking speculation his removal was part of a political purge executed by current President Xi Jinping.
Hu, 79, Xi's immediate predecessor, was seated to the left of Xi. He was led off the stage of the main auditorium of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing by two stewards.
Video footage published by AFP showed a steward repeatedly trying to lift Hu from his seat, drawing concerned looks from officials seated nearby. Hu then put his hand on a sheet of paper placed on Xi's folder but the President quickly put his hand on the sheet.
China's top legislator Li Zhanshu, seated to Hu's right, gave the former president's folder to a steward, wiping his own head with a cloth after Hu finally stood up.
Looking distressed, Hu appeared to resist leaving as the stewards escorted him out, turning back to his seat at one point. On his way out, he exchanged words with Xi and patted Premier Li Keqiang, seated to the right of Xi, on the shoulder.
What happened?
Chinese state media is claiming there is nothing nefarious behind the incident and it was sparked by the former President's poor health.
State news agency Xinhua said in a tweet: "Xinhuanet reporter Liu Jiawen has learned that Hu Jintao insisted on attending the closing session of the party's 20th national congress, despite the fact that he has been taking time to recuperate recently."
A second tweet said: "When he was not feeling well during the session, his staff, for his health, accompanied him to a room next to the meeting venue for a rest. Now, he is much better."
Hu has been visibly frail during the party congress and Alfred Wu Muluan, a Chinese politics expert at the National University of Singapore, told AFP there has been speculation for a long time Hu is suffering from health issues.
"Hu has aged dramatically," Wu told the agency, adding in 2012 when Hu handed the reins over to Xi, he appeared "to have some sort of Parkinsons-like symptoms."
Writing for Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, columnist Alex Lo also says the ill-health explanation is the most likely.
"Maybe Hu was in danger of dozing off, and that would make terrible television. The foreign press would absolutely go riot. Well, so what if the septuagenarian was mercifully given his beauty sleep?" he wrote.
But the poor-health explanation still leaves open questions of why he was led away so suddenly and publicly, just after media cameras had been set up.
One possibility put forward by James Palmer, deputy editor at Foreign Policy, is there was an unexpected COVID-19 diagnosis of which he was unaware, but Palmer added "that would mean a PCR test was processed just at the wrong moment - coming up positive when the rapid tests administered to everyone who comes near the leadership failed to catch anything."
Hu's time in power from 2002 to 2012 was marred by rampant corruption which Xi pledged to crack down on. It was also a more liberal time, with China more open to the world and more tolerant towards different factions within the Communist Party and freedom of speech.
Many of Hu's former allies have been arrested in Xi's corruption purges, including his chief aide Ling Jihua in 2015.
Hu's exit must therefore be viewed in the context of "the scathing criticism of the Hu era as outlined in the 20th Party Congress report by Xi," Henry Gao at Singapore Management University told AFP.
"Given how carefully choreographed the Party Congress is, it is no coincidence that this was allowed to be seen in front of all party delegates and the media," he said.
Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said "My speculation is that (Hu) was very unhappy about the composition of the Central Committee."
Lam said Hu might have therefore been removed after expressing reservations about Xi's policy decisions.
"I think he must have said something that upset Xi Jinping, maybe some words of protest, and that's why Xi Jinping summoned security people to drag him away," he told AFP.
Palmer also lists this as a possibility, saying information may have come to light "that made Xi - who would have had to personally approve any such move - afraid that Hu might abstain or even vote against him in the rounds of otherwise unanimous voting that finished off the Party Congress."
Palmer said this could have been "a remark by Hu to his former colleagues backstage or perhaps even signs of dementia that caused a sudden panic that something might go wrong."
Li and Wang out
The party's new 205-member Central Committee, elected by delegates at the end of the week-long congress, did not include outgoing Premier Li Keqiang or former Guangdong party boss Wang Yang, who had been seen as a potential replacement as premier.
"The main theme of this congress, as seen in the constitutional amendment and the report, is to highlight the core status of Xi," said Chen Gang, senior research fellow at the East Asian Institute in Singapore.
"With this congress, Xi's authority grows even more. Going forward, we will see more concentration of power around Xi and around the centre," he said.
Li, who will step down in March as premier, and Wang, who heads the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, are both 67 and therefore eligible under China's age norms to serve another five years on the Standing Committee, which currently has seven members.
Neither is seen to have long-standing ties with Xi, who is likely to bring four new faces onto the Standing Committee, according to analysts and media reports.
Li and Wang both have ties with the Communist Youth League, a once-influential group that experts say has lost power under Xi.
The premier is charged with overseeing the world's second-largest economy, although the influence of the position is widely perceived to have diminished as Xi has steadily consolidated control during his decade in power.
A Beijing-based politics scholar who asked not to be named because he is not authorised to speak with media, said Li had been the lone contrarian voice on the standing committee.
"From the looks of it, Xi is free to do anything he wants. It means he no longer faces any resistance or checks and balance in the PSC. All future policies will be carried out according to his will," the scholar said.
Current PSC members Wang Huning, 67, and Zhao Leji, 65, were both re-elected to the Central Committee and are expected to be reappointed to the Standing Committee.
Two other Standing Committee members are past retirement age.
Newshub/Reuters
