to come back to Beijing. As the wife of the former Vice-premier she still had privileges to contact the top leadership. How her letter reached the Premier, however, is unknown, and again it might be through her revolutionary veteran sister who was safe and sound in Beijing. It was definitely not through the China postal service. If she had just posted the letter into any letter box, it would definitely end up at a police station and likely not be delivered. It must have been entrusted into the hand of a sympathetic go-between with direct access to Zhou Enlai himself.
Since Mao had never said that her husband was an enemy of the people directly, there was room for some hope. In fact, for both Qi Xin and Xi Zhongxun their Party membership was never revoked. Still it was a surprise and huge relief when word was received that permission was granted for her request. In addition to Qi Xin being allowed to travel to Beijing to see her sick mother, she could also arrange for all of her children to also come back to Beijing and gather at her sister’s home.
Emboldened by this success, Qi Xin did the unthinkable. She raised three more wishes to the Central Party.
She wanted to see her husband
She wanted a home in Beijing
Her husband’s salary should be paid, at least partly
How extraordinary that someone would dare to raise these conditions to the Central Government during the Cultural Revolution! Xi Jinping’s family, through the bravery and sheer tenacity of his mother, proved that they were still a force to be reckoned with.
Soon all her three wishes materialized. It was supposed that Zhou Enlai arranged everything personally. Xi’s family may thank Zhou Enlai as they certainly should, but their case was very special. Over the years of his persecution a number of high-profiled people put in nice words for Xi Zhongxun, but Mao ignored all of them, choosing to leave Xi Zhongxun in the dark, in limbo. Nobody could reason with Mao. All that could be done was just to accept what it was and wait for the chance to use something or someone in the system at an opportune moment. Such a plan had to be under Mao’s radar and had to be rationalized away as orthodoxy to anyone questioning it.
Before the year was out, the Xi family happily reunited in Beijing. All the family members were allowed to visit their father at an undisclosed location somewhere in Beijing where he had been incarcerated since 1966. Xi Jinping never mentioned that he was at this reunion with his father. But in his mother’s memoir she recorded the event. When her husband saw the children, he cried and said he could not recognize them anymore.
Xi Jinping was now a nineteen year-old young man. Years of harsh countryside life had changed him considerably; as had his other siblings’ experiences changed them. They had grown up quite a lot due to their circumstances, and not just the passage of time.
“Have you joined the Party?” This would have been the essential question Xi Jinping’s father would want to ask his eldest son. His father had joined the Communist Youth League at the young age of twelve, and then joined the Party at fourteen. His mother joined the Party at the age of fifteen. Their whole political careers were thanks to their Party membership. Whatever the circumstances Party membership was essential. That was the only passport to any success in China.
Xi Jinping’s answer to his father would have to be “No”. At age nineteen he was certainly old enough to join the Party but he hadn’t even joined the Communist Youth League, the preliminary organization leading to potential Communist Party membership. His father, the former Vice-premier of China must have been dumbfounded.
It certainly didn’t very look good for a young man who was trapped in the countryside not even applying for Party membership. Where was Xi Jinping’s future, if he didn’t join the Party? To achieve anything at that time the first thing to do was to be part of the political system. There was no way around it. In fact all descendants of the old veterans had applied for Communist Party membership, nearly one hundred per cent. Xi Jinping must have been totally naïve to not do anything about it. Obviously, he didn’t fully understand or accept that reality, at least not yet.
To document this miraculous family reunion, Qi Xin, along with her two daughters and two sons went to a photography studio to have a family photo made. Unfortunately her husband, Xi Zhongxun, was still under detention, and his absence in that family photo spoke volumes. But for his wife and children to all be together after so long and such a fierce struggle was truly amazing and needed to be recorded. The five of them looked delighted, happy, even glorious. Other than the silent absence of the head of the family, there was no sign of depression in this remarkable photo.
In the absence of her husband it was Qi Xin, their mother, holding the family together. What she had achieved in bringing them all together in Beijing, even temporarily, was just the start. With her husband in jail, she now had to play a big part in her children’s careers. She brought fresh hope to her family by her demonstration of personal courage, and she got results. From then on, throughout their lives, Qi Xin continued to provide valuable guidance, support and a strong role model for her children.
The trip to Beijing also reconnected the Xi family with the power center of China. This is a very important consideration as all political and social power was centered in the capital. It would be easy to forget oneself and be forgotten outside of Beijing in the countryside, and of course this was exactly Mao’s strategy. This family visit in the center of Beijing served as a wake-up call for Xi Jinping. After the family reunion, he started to change.
Xi Jinping returned to his small village in Shaanxi a changed young man. The news that he had seen his father sent a clear signal to the village. There was obviously something going on in Beijing. The peasants were eager to hear as much as they could from him upon his return.
Xi Jinping had even more shocking news for the local officials. Mao’s hand-picked successor, Lin Biao, had died in a plane crash in Outer Mongolia, then a Russian satellite country on the Chinese border with its semi-autonomous region of Inner Mongolia. What in the world was Lin Biao doing flying there? On the tragic night of the 13th of September 1971, Lin Biao took his wife and his only son, along with a small entourage of close supporters and family, and secretly boarded a British-made Trident passenger jet airliner, one of thirty-three ordered for the Chinese air force and the national civilian airline.
Nobody knew exact how they died. There was much exciting speculation in Beijing. Some said the Trident had been deliberately shot down by a Chinese missile. Some said they had lost their orientation and had flown out of China unknowingly. The official version was that Lin Biao was trying to defect to Russia and the aircraft had run out of fuel. The story sounded like a political thriller full of tension and mystery and intrigue.
What Xi Jinping reported to the locals was too shocking to believe. Why Lin Biao? Wasn’t he in second place, right after Mao, in the Party’s inner circle? Hadn’t Mao pursued and persuaded him to take on this position? Wasn’t Lin Biao present at every one of Mao’s public appearances, always making sure he got their ahead of Mao so he could be seen and photographed welcoming and greeting Mao? Why go to the Soviet Union? Wasn’t Russia still the enemy of China following their armed border confrontation in 1969? If this were true, how could Chairman Mao, their revered leader, have hand-picked such an evil person to lead China in his eventual absence?
Soon classified documents came from Beijing proving what Xi Jinping had said was correct. According to official Communist Party documents, Lin Biao was a traitor and had tried to flee China following a failed coup attempt against Mao Zedong. Lin, his wife Ye Qun who was also a powerful Politburo member, and their son, an Air Force officer had laid plans to assassinate Mao by blowing up his train. Unaware of the supposed plot against him, Mao nevertheless changed the travel route of his train, thus avoiding the attack, and made it back to Beijing unharmed. His bodyguards foiled several more attempts over the next twenty-four hours,
