I'm John Batchel with my good colleague, Merrick Kistel, Executive Vice President Stevens,

Incorporated, former senior advisor to the Secretary of State. We leave Budapest, Bosco, Washington,

Brussels behind, and we go immediately to Beijing, the fourth plenum of the Chinese Communist Party underway, and big news

or impossible to interpret news. This is fog of communism. Suddenly, seven names are brought

forward as generals who are purged because of corruption suspicion. Suddenly, there's talk in all directions that there's need for new leadership,

that the economy is now grinding to a halt.

The unemployment is so high they won't give us numbers.

And exporting out of our way of this problem is impossible.

It's not going to work. We have a property

crater. We need new leadership. Is the talk? It's talk. It's not real. However, Mary, I need

your help interpreting these events. It appears that Xi Jinping has overstayed his welcome

in the Chinese Communist Party.

I can't tell because he's all powerful, but these generals were his appointments.

This has been going on for some time.

In addition, there's another general named in many of the rumors named Zhang, who's the top military commander,

and he is said to be the driver for making changes. It's not a coup, but Mr. Xi is welcome to step towards retirement in the indefinite future.

Does that sound sensible, Mary, or is this Hollywood talking for the rumor mail?

John, as we've said many times on the show, it's impossible to say because we don't have the

normal sets of information that one has in a democracy. We could indeed wake up tomorrow and

Xi Jinping could be deposed. We could also wake up tomorrow and Xi Jinping could be deposed. We could also wake up

tomorrow and see his power consolidated. He has been absolutely ruthless since he took power more

than a decade ago in taking out not just his political opponents, but people who he feared were

...