Insight Perspectives
China
China’s new “core
leader” – Xi Jinping
By Invitation
Insightperspectives regularly invites experts to write about
“special” issues of importance to the financial market. In this
context, Joergen Delman, professor, PhD, China Studies,
Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University
of Copenhagen, has been invited to make his assessment of the
just closed annual plenary session of the CPC Central
Committee.
Joergen Delman works on China’s political economy, politics,
civil society, climate policies and environmental issues. He is a
frequent public speaker and media commentator on these
topics and has lived in China for ten years, working as a
consultant for international development organisations, as
well as Danish and international businesses. He has worked
extensively with and within Chinese government organisations
at central and local level. Joergen Delman is Co-coordinator of
ThinkChina.dk.
While Xi Jinping has been acting as the de facto “core
leader” of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CPC)
leadership for long, he has now become officially
equipped with the title. This was the main news from the
annual plenary session of the CPC Central Committee
last week of October. The Plenary focused exclusively on
the party’s own internal affairs and challenges under the
heading of anti-corruption and party discipline.
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Judging from the documents that came out of the
Plenary and the highly controlled public debate ensuing
it, the latter is the most likely explanation. The Party has
deep internal rifts, it must bring its own house in order
and reinvigorate itself. With his new title, Xi has staked
his political destiny on bringing the party through this
moral and political crisis. He demands absolute loyalty
from all corners of the party; otherwise, it will be unable
to renew its legitimacy vis-à-vis ordinary Chinese
citizens.
Shanghai, who was brought in by Deng to clean up the
mess after the military crackdown on popular protests
around China in 1989, a boost vis-á-vis, Zhao Ziyang, his
dethroned liberalist predecessor who was quite popular.
Jiang’s successor, Hu Jintao, was never conferred the
title. Therefore, Xi now belongs to a very special group
of four historically significant CPC leaders.
Xi’s appointment should not be interpreted as symbolic
politics only. He needed the title to force his peers to
support his tough policies, or, at least, to recognize that
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It is noteworthy that the Party in charge of the world’s
second largest economy, which is not performing as well
as it should these years, have considered it necessary to
spend a precious, once-in-a-year gathering of its 197 top
leaders entirely on its own affairs. This could be
interpreted as the luxury of an incredibly self-confident
and successful party, or it could be seen as a symptom
of a party in deep conflict with itself.
Why a core leader?
By becoming core leader, Xi is put on a par with the two
most iconic leaders of modern China, Mao Zedong and
Deng Xiaoping. Deng coined the term in 1989 to denote
the special political and historical roles of Mao Zedong
and himself, and to give Jiang Zemin, the leader of
the risk of opposing him has been upped considerably. A
recent run of strictly choreographed interviews on TV
with a series of repentant top leaders and officials
brought down during the anti-corruption campaign and
now in jail has shown that the road from being a
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“bigwig” to becoming a zombie prisoner without rights
at all for the rest of one’s life is not that long these days.
While focusing on anti-corruption and party discipline,
the Plenary strongly emphasized that leaders at all
levels, not least party leaders who are the “number one
power holder” (第一把手) in any given organization, are
personally responsible not only for their own
misdemeanors, but also for those of their families or
their organizations. It was strongly emphasized that in
the future there will be no more free zones, no special
privileges or exemptions from supervision for any
leader, including absolute top leaders.
It has been speculated that Xi has been carving out a
position for himself as a new Mao Zedong, a new
penultimate totalitarian “great leader”. Although the
Chinese propaganda apparatus would happily support
such an effort, this is not the most likely way forward for
Xi. With the clout that the new position accords him, he
is already at the apex of power. The new title was
accorded formally, but it is not defined in official party
statutes. Therefore, Xi can use it to exalt his already
considerable power within the existing power
arrangements.
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Power struggle on the way?
So why did Xi Jinping become core leader? Presumably,
he needed the title to boost his position and to match
Jiang Zemin whose network is still considered influential.
More specifically, the Plenary decided on a time frame
for conducting the 19th Party congress. The congress
members will be appointed during the coming spring
and the new congress will have its inaugural meeting
during the second half of 2017.
This will mark the beginning of Xi Jinping’s second 5-year
term as party leader. While foreign observers have
speculated that Xi will not respect the institutionalized
rules for the elections that have been put in place since
Deng Xiaoping initiated them, there is no foundation for
such speculation. It is more likely that the process of
organized elections cum appointments of candidates for
the congress, its central committee and the politbureau
will happen in reasonably orderly fashion during the
course of the next 6-8 months.
The Politbureau and its Standing Committee, China’s
absolute top leadership, will be formally elected
amongst the new members of the Central Committee.
This process will be preceded by tough negotiations
between influential elite actors and their alliances. As
It has been speculated that Xi may break the 10 year
term limit imposed on top leaders, but there are no
indications to support this either. Even as a core leader,
he would be taking a very big risk of being brought down
by his peers, if he did so. It is however likely that Xi’s
successor will be amongst the new members, although
Xi may not wish to actually point to the candidate at the
outset. Previous CPC core leaders have had serious
difficulties with keeping their preferred successors in
position if they appointed them prematurely.
Xi Jinping’s three traps
Xi’s handling of the Plenum shows that he wants to deal
with the future leadership line-up, to swing support
from all corners of the party for his tough disciplinary
policies, and to gain new momentum for reforms. The
underlying argument for doing this are three traps he
has identified that that are critical to navigate to
safeguard the power and survival of the party. The first
is the Tacitus challenge (塔西佗陷阱), named after the
ancient Roman philosopher, Tacitus. The argument is
that if the party does not have the trust of the people,
i.e. legitimacy, it does not matter whether the party tells
the truth or not, or whether it does good or bad things nobody will believe what it says or does anyway.
Therefore, the party needs to rebuild trust with its
constituency, i.e. China’s ordinary citizens, primarily
through measurably more equitable and inclusive
development, not least to bring more people out of
relative poverty.
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the core leader, Xi Jinping will be dominant in these
negotiations. Even more, since five members of the
Standing Committee are expected to retire due to age
limits, the battlefield is wide open. Even the current
prime minister, expected to continue on the
Politbureau, may see himself sidelined to another
position in the leadership to allow Xi the freedom to
appoint his own prime minister.
The Thucydides trap (修昔底德陷阱) is next. This time
the reference is to an ancient Greek philosopher who
argued that when a new great country rises, it must
challenge or embattle the existing great countries to
protect its development and position. Xi argues that
while this is a risk for a rising China, the CPC does not see
China as a threat or a menace to the world. Instead,
China offers itself as a new opportunity to the world
community. Xi’s numerous foreign policy and overseas
investment initiatives should be judged fron this
perspective.
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Finally, China is facing a middle income trap (中等收入
陷阱). This concept stems from the 2006 World Bank
report An East Asian Renaissance. The report pointed to
the risk that some East Asian economies could end up
with dwindling growth before becoming fully developed.
To avoid the trap, middle income countries have to
diversify their economy, accelerate innovation and
equip workers with skills that allow them to adjust to
new technologies. These are all focus points of Xi’s
economic policies according to official Chinese sources.
The Plenary last week dealt with the first trap, but it
deferred the assessment of the results of the CPC’s
substantial ongoing reform packages to next year’s Party
Conference. They are meant to address the third trap.
At that time, Xi Jinping will have to defend their
outcomes as core leader. With regard to the second
trap, Xi’s international policies, initiatives and activities
testify to a solid effort to ensure global stability and
peace to protect China’s rise. What comes after, is
impossible to predict. But there will certainly be a new
world order.
Where do we stand?
The Plenary last week strengthened Xi’s position as
absolute top leader and he will undoubtedly carry on
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with centralizing political and ideological control. His top
down leadership style will continue, and party-state
leaders at all levels will be even more alert to new
signals, policies and instructions from Beijing if they
carry his imprint. Xi’s vigorous anti-corruption campaign
is, however, also pointing towards a cleaner party-state
administration. Indications are that local officials across
China have become cautious not to trespass the
increasingly strict disciplinary regulations.
However, Xi also continues to insist that the party must
to control the party. Therefore, the party largely remains
outside the reach of the law. If there is no independent
authority to monitor and control the party, it is not
unlikely that it may fall into old bad habits, because Xi
will eventually be too busy with other things.
While decentralization continues, local governments will
have more and more say on a variety of matters. They
depend however on local taxes for their daily operations
and survival. The decisions at the Plenary last week could
be seen as a helping hand to cleaner local government
and a more transparent business environment. Since the
local party-state administrations and their business
ventures are laying low due to anti-corruption efforts
and the demands for more transparency and
accountability, the private sector will have more room to
In sum, the Plenary Session confirmed Xi Jinping’s
policies and endorsed his key position as the top leader
of party, state and military. The situation around Xi
seems to be stable, although there are grudges against
him in the military. He is working frantically, with strong
support from the official media, to demonstrate that he
is on top of every conceivable political issue and agenda
point, nationally and internationally. Whether he is
overplaying his role is too early to say, but in case he
succeeds in avoiding the three traps, it is likely that the
designation as “core leader” will earn him a painting in
the row of the existing Marxist-Leninist icons in China
after Marx, Hegel, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Deng.
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maneuver, become more prosperous and possibly
contribute more to local coffers.
Denmark, November 2, 2016
Front page – Table of Contents
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