Tao Chenghua was the most powerful CCP bureaucrat in the city of Jinhua. He lost everything, and has now confessed this was because of his “superstitious” beliefs.
by Zhao Zhangyong
Chinese Communist Party members are supposed to be atheists, but many of them, including local leaders, believe in systems of geomancy and divination such as Feng Shui and I Ching. Xi Jinping has indicated that this is incompatible with the Party’s official atheism, but his campaign against Feng Shui and I Ching has not been very successful.
Recently, Chinese media have proposed a cautionary tale of how using Feng Shui led to the ruin of a powerful CCP bureaucrat. Tao Chenghua was the Secretary of the CCP and the chairperson of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Jinhua, a prefecture-level city in Zhejiang province.
On November 30, 2020, Tao Chenghua was investigated by the Zhejiang Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision. He was accused of having used the services of a Feng Shui master to be further promoted and continue his progress in his CCP’s career. After the investigation started, he asked the Feng Shui master to perform rituals in front of his father’s grave, including by releasing rabbits, hoping that this would stop the prosecution.
However, in May 2021, Tao Chenghua was expelled from the CCP and dismissed from all his positions. He was also accused of taking bribes. On December 28, 2021, Tao Chenghua was sentenced to 11 years and 6 months in prison by the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court.
Chinese media now claim that he has been “re-educated” in prison, and have published his confession and self-criticism, where he states that superstition and Feng Shui deeply corrupted him, and compromised his “belief in Marxism-Leninism.”
Tao’s story is thus promoted to persuade Party members that Feng Shui and I Ching would not, as many of them believe, promote their career but on the contrary would destroy it.
