[4][5][6] In the middle of the closing meeting (after the three personnel votes ended and the media entered the venue), according to the photos taken by reporters from ABC and the videos taken by reporters from Channel News Asia, Hu Jintao, a member of the Standing Committee of the Presidium of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, was to check the documents on his table.

After Xi signaled,[8][9] according to the scene footage taken by reporters from The Straits Times, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, and other media, Director General of the Bureau of Secretaries [zh] of the General Office of the CCP, Kong Shaoxun, a representative of the 20th National Congress (from a constituency named "CPC central committee and state organs"), and Xi's personal bodyguards came one after another,[10] intending to take Hu away.

[26][7][27] The Economist said that while it is possible the act was deliberate, it was more likely that Hu was not feeling well, saying that the event "looked consistent with a sudden episode of mental confusion".

[31] James Palmer, a deputy editor at Foreign Policy, interpreted the incident to have been political, suggesting that it could have been Xi's intention to "deliberately and publicly humiliate his predecessor.

There were many problems of having a vague understanding of upholding the party's leadership and lack of action, and there were many problems of weakening, falsifying, and diluting the implementation of the party's leadership, and some party members and cadres had shaken their political beliefs ... some people lacked confidence in the socialist political system with Chinese characteristics ... money worship and hedonism, wrong thoughts such as extreme individualism and historical nihilism appeared from time to time, and online public sphere was chaotic, which seriously affected people's thinking and social public opinion environment ... there were many weaknesses in the modernization of national defense and the military; the institutional mechanisms for implementing "one country, two systems" in Hong Kong and Macau was not perfect; national security was facing severe challenges, and so on.

At that time, many people in the party and society were worried about the future of the party and the country.Xinhua News Agency, China's official press agency, learned some information from Liu Jiawen and wrote in English on Twitter: "When [Hu] 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.

[37][38][39] Academics Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung write that the ban on images and reporting of the incident suggests that Xi did not intend to humiliate Hu.

[40]: 1 Hu appeared in public alongside Xi on 5 December 2022, attending the state funeral for Jiang Zemin before his body was cremated in Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.