CCP 20th National Congress part 2
Western outlets have poured some much needed cold water on China's glowing review of the 20th CCP National Congress. But who's critique is fair, and who’s over-egging the pudding?
Sorry for the delay between part one and part two, many life events have occurred…
To pick up where we left off, the CCP’s 20th NatCon took place in mid-October, setting the course for China’s policy development and choosing the top leadership for the next 5 years. To no one's surprise, the event was hailed as a huge success by the Chinese press, who glossed over potentially awkward events to highlight the CCP’s strong and successful leadership.
Well, here comes the Western news circuit to rain on everyone’s parade. The Economist sees Xi as childish and dangerous. Foreign Affairs paints him as a fervent Marxist (I don’t think they’re sure what that means but sure OK let’s run with it). The NY Time’s (probably slightly more accurate) analysis raises Xi to the level of evil genius in a Bond film:
“In 10 years of ruling China, Xi Jinping has expunged political rivals, replacing them with allies. He has wiped out civil society, giving citizens no recourse for help but his government. He has muzzled dissent, saturating public conversation with propaganda about his greatness.”
I think NYT's piece is good (if very short), but their choice of words is very interesting:
“Mr. Xi is now positioned to be China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, whose nearly unfettered authority allowed him to lead China into years of famine and bloodshed.”
“That means that even as some of those policies hurt the economy, stoke public discontent and raise geopolitical tensions, to question them is to question him — increasingly unthinkable in today’s China.”
I don’t think they’re necessarily wrong, there’s no doubt that Xi casts a long shadow over the daily politics of China. But when it comes to statements about ‘questioning the party’, this is nothing new. China’s politics works on different levels – at the local level, it’s much easier for the average citizen to push back against local governance, and for the central government in turn to blame local politicians and bureaucrats for things that go wrong. No one has ever been able to question the Politburo Standing Committee, not even its members (see Peng Dehuai, Zhao Ziyang, Bo Xilai, etc…)
Second of all, comparing Xi to Mao, although something that almost everyone does privately, is a bit overdone at this point. What Xi represents is the grip that the CCP has over China at any given time. Deng Xiaoping was similarly able to exercise the party’s power over China by crushing arguably the biggest pro-democracy movement the country has ever seen. Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao were able to scale China’s economy to soaring heights, while cementing China’s position as a superpower all without kowtowing to Western demands for openness or even fair play. It’s not so much about Xi as a person, but Xi as a symbol. Why do you think they put his picture everywhere?
But still, they’re nowhere near the worst when it comes to dramatising the events of the National Congress, or Xi Jinping’s authority. According to the Foreign Affairs piece, “China under Xi is now very much a one-man show.” He is immensely powerful, but I would hesitate to say he is infallible.
One thing that has been pointed out a lot is how much space Xi’s picture takes up on the front page of the People’s Daily (and pretty much every major newspaper) as a representation of how much he has consolidated power compared to previous leaders. Again, I think the editorial choice is a mix of reverence for Xi and reverence for the party. It’s worth bearing in mind that all major national (and regional papers) are run by and editorially managed by the relevant party organs. They do not have editorial freedom, and when it comes to such a dry, procedural event, what other option does one have for the front page really?
All the king’s horses
While Xi is without a doubt the top man, what about the claims that he surrounds himself with pious lackeys? All seem to agree that Xi has stacked the top leadership (the Politburo Standing Committee) with his allies, sometimes referred to as the ‘Zhejiang Army’. According to Reuters:
“All but Guangdong party chief Li Xi worked under Xi in the 2000s, either in affluent Zhejiang province or in Shanghai. They were promoted during or after their time with Xi, a clear sign that they had earned his trust and benefited from his patronage.”
Li Qiang (not to be confused with Li Keqiang) was made Premier (a bit like being the Prime Minister), which surprised a lot of people. He is the first Premier to have not first served as vice-premier since 1976, and as Shanghai Party Chief during lockdown, he was actually the target of online ire over the past two years. But his close history with Xi – first as his chief of staff, then as his replacement as governor of Zhejiang when Xi became president – seems to be the most common explanation for his sudden elevation. Most talking heads I saw had a guy named Wang Yang on their list, or made copious Twitter threads about Hu Chunhua, who was in the SC but has since been demoted, allegedly due to his being too closely aligned with former President Hu Jintao and outgoing Premier Li Keqiang.
Dissent in the ranks
Happiness in China has become a concern in recent years, as the party’s response to movements such as ‘lying flat’ have shown. The recent Sitong Bridge protest is another expression of this discontent. On 13th October, just one week before the NatCon took place, one man appeared on Sitong bridge in Beijing displaying signs denouncing Xi Jinping and the CCP. One of the signs read “We want food, not PCR tests. We want freedom, not lockdowns. We want respect, not lies. We want reform, not a Cultural Revolution. We want a vote, not a leader. We want to be citizens, not slaves.” He was hauled off by police, and images of the banners were quickly removed by online censors. Despite this, he has caused a ripple effect, as posters echoing his message appeared in campuses in the US and Europe in the following days.
Though there are tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of protests in China every year, many are local, whether online or offline. The bank protests that we spoke about in a previous newsletter are an example of this. Though a lot of people were affected, really it was a local issue that could be solved locally. To see a protest aimed specifically at top leadership is rare, so rare, in fact, that I believe nothing has been seen like it since 1989. But that doesn’t mean that people are happy with top leadership. In fact, it is often just the case that people trying to organise such protests get caught before they can even start. WeChat groups are spied on, troublemakers are disappeared, posters are torn down, keywords are deleted.
It’s almost impossible to do anything on a large scale; real estate and bank protests that we’ve seen are often organised by small cells online, who meet up offline to create a larger group. But this type of protest is becoming increasingly more difficult to pull off. As data about recent protests and the complexities of China’s surveillance system continue to emerge, people who are concerned that China is starting to look more and more like the world of 1984 may not be so off the mark. It is unlikely we’ll ever see ‘Bridge Man’ again.
But for me, the most dramatic and questionable moment of the whole event was when Hu Jintao, former general secretary and Xi’s immediate predecessor, was escorted from the hall during the closing ceremony. The scene was highly visible, as Hu was sat right next to Xi, resisted leaving, tried to talk to Xi who blanked him, and touched Li Keqiang on the shoulder as if to say ‘bruh’. The Chinese media has not commented in domestic print, but Xinhua had this to say on Twitter:
“"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.”
It’s not entirely clear what’s going on here, but the whole thing seemed very dramatic and staged to me, as if a point was supposed to be made. It could well be that an elderly, sick member of the party was simply being helped away so he could recover in peace. However, as mentioned earlier, Hu Jintao is part of the faction that supposedly ‘opposes’ Xi, or at least provides a different perspective, and includes Hu Chunhua and Li Keqiang. Perhaps this was a message meant to be understood internally – although Hu was somewhat popular for his steady, technocratic leadership style, so it’s difficult to guess what he could have done wrong. It’s possible Hu will just be Zhao Ziyang’d out of existence, though I agree broadly that it’s too early to speculate. I doubt we’ll be seeing him in public again, unless it’s to make some token gesture of worship for Xi… or a public apology.
Verdict
I think it’s fair to say that the West is not optimistic about China’s new leadership. The markets are down bad (OK, they’ve rallied a bit since I wrote that sentence, but they’re still shaky!), Zero-Covid is the word of the day, and people are nervous about the clear lack of a succession plan. Despite China’s own claims that everything is going great, neither people nor businesses are borrowing money, leading to deflation as demand drops. There’s also been a drop in demand for exports, as inflation sinks its teeth into China’s major trading partners. No wonder China wants to insulate itself from major international turbulence; though it won’t do much good unless the CCP can stimulate the domestic economy enough to supplant its lucrative global trade.
As for the Party and Xi, no one is comfortable with a dictator, especially not one making a grab for global dominance. The word emperor is being thrown around with gay abandon, but at the same time people are worried about the the lack of a plan or major policy announcements, particularly concerning Taiwan and the economy. This lack of messaging may just be a temporary thing though – it could be that Xi wanted all eyes on him and his personnel decisions this week, making his stranglehold on power absolutely clear before moving on to bigger and better things.
I don’t think fears over Xi’s absolute dominance may be unwarranted for now. The party still has to respond to the people, and they are more than aware that they cannot keep a lid on information about popular unrest forever. This has been reflected in minor but significant changes made to China’s zero-covid policy just last week. Does that mean Xi will go as far as to drop zero-covid altogether? He’s called for a return to order, but changes are so erratic that it’s impossible to predict accurately what will happen next. He’s told the people and the party to brace for “high winds, choppy waters and even dangerous storms on our journey ahead,” which shows he knows there are challenges ahead, but reveals little about how he plans to deal with them.
What is clear is that when it comes to China’s leaders, outlook, and rhetoric for the next 10 years, there will be very little change.