Were Chinese politics to follow the path of the past 30 years, then in 2022, after two full five-year terms of the Xi leadership, there would be widespread speculation about who his successor is likely to be. A decade in power was the time allowed Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. However, with Xi at this mark, we find ourselves in a different situation. He looks set to stay well beyond the Twentieth Party Congress scheduled for late 2022. The only impediment to this is his health and age – he will be 70 in 2023 – and unexpected events that might happen in China or the wider world, impacting on the country and causing his, and the party’s, removal.
Disasters cannot be discounted. Covid-19 threatened to be one of these. But a semi-perpetual leadership is still the strongest and most likely current outcome. Like Putin, Xi may be with us deep into the 2030s. An assessment of his future role today, therefore, can be only highly provisional. Nevertheless, so far we have a decade of events, responses and revelations – of a sort – about his world view and his style of leadership. 212 Compared to the eight years maximum allotted a US president, this is plenty to go on.
It is worth remembering the comments made by the nameless American-based individual who had known Xi in his youth, which were published by WikiLeaks in 2009. Long before Xi ever figured as a main leader in China, when he was only the first among many contenders, and it was likely he might be sidelined and supplanted, the acquaintance noted that while Xi was not corruptible by money or material goods, he might be corrupted by power. We now have a pretty good basis of evidence to assess if this is the case.
Questions about the nature of Xi’s power have recurred throughout this book. Answering them is not helped by the fact that the Chinese system privileges opacity. This has been part of the culture of the Communist Party since its days as an underground, subversive force. The trauma of the era in which it had to fight for its existence has left a profound mark on its memory. Throughout the Mao years, even when it had all the main levers of power at hand, paranoia was never far away. The party grew adept at outlining who its enemies were, and how they needed to be managed. Even the most loyal were swept away in some of these campaigns. Since the Deng era, while a huge effort has gone into institutionalising the processes of the party – holding more regular, predictable congresses and other kinds of meetings, more structure about 213 how cadres are assessed, diversifying and widening membership and defining party and other government functions – in the end, context, pragmatism and necessity trumps all else. If the situation demands a specific set of responses for the party to stay in power and see off organised opposition, then, broadly, anything goes. For the 1990s and 2000s, a more collegial leadership structure was needed, as China found its feet economically on the international stage. But China’s position is now very different. The state and country have far greater resources. The message of national rejuvenation is unifying, and tangible. The onus today is on maintaining focus, on not screwing things up and throwing this historic chance away.
Xi’s powers are intimately defined and shaped by those of the party. The Communist Party itself is a strategising body. That strategising must decide on the type of leadership and what role it plays in prevailing over the challenges facing the country. Of course, this can go wrong. If we look at Mao, we can see that over the 1950s and into the 1960s he grew increasingly frustrated with the leadership format given to him by the party. The Cultural Revolution was, on one level, an attempt to subvert and change this. Ultimately, though, with the rise of Deng, the party prevailed, even against Mao.
When structured in a successful way, leadership can articulate the party’s priorities with one voice, and achieve the great alchemy of transforming ideology into practical edicts. 214 For these reasons, Leadership with a capital ‘L’ has become an institution within the party in China. Much as there is an Office of the President of the United States with a whole army of enablers and administrators largely invisible to public view, so China has created an Office of the Party Secretary and President, from whom others can derive their authority to act. In a complex, often labyrinthine system, calling for policies in the name of the president and party leader gets things done. In a sense, it creates a power franchise, where others are able to act through delegated powers.
One of the striking developments in the Xi leadership style is the ways in which the premier, usually the second most powerful figure in the set-up, has been pushed into the background. The name of Xi’s current deputy, Premier Li Keqiang, has figured very little in this book. In studies of Hu or Jiang or Mao, their respective premiers Wen Jiabao, Zhu Rongji and Zhou Enlai were all immensely significant. This is not the case with Li. Even the usual guiding role the premier has over the economy has been scaled down so that all major issues in this realm have been shifted to the more political side of decision making. In a sense, that reflects the fact that economics for the party today are merely another political tool. Like social policy, and healthcare, economics takes its place in delivering one common objective – sustainable one-party rule. Xi is the chief politician in this system. Therefore, 215 he is also the chief person in command of everything – from the military to the markets.
There is one problem that Xi is in place to solve, and by which history will judge him: to make party rule perpetual. Achieving that would mean that China has succeeded where the USSR failed. It would upend the so-called laws of modernity, which state that only a democracy can control a successful, large, middle-income economy. In order to attain this goal, almost anything is justifiable. Much of Xi’s authority and power derives from the fact that it is he who is ruling China at the moment when this objective of the party is closer to realisation than ever before. At a time of such promise and culmination, failure is not an option. Because many in the outside world do not regard this objective either as desirable nor possible, they do not understand the appeal Xi holds for his party colleagues and the Chinese people more broadly.
Where Xi has shown true innovation and acted differently to his predecessors is in international affairs. He has diverged from the low-key, almost silent style of Hu. Even so, this is not surprising. None of Xi’s predecessors had the advantage of a country with such a huge economy and so many material strengths in terms of military, space and technological assets. Whether they wanted to or not, previous leaders were not able to spell out a Chinese global vision. The closest any of them came to one was, perhaps, Mao’s Third World 216 idea, announced by Deng Xiaoping during one of his brief rehabilitations in the early 1970s. However, that notion was more about carving up the world so that China had space to face its two opponents, America and the USSR. Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative is designed to embrace anyone who wants to join with it, rather than reject specific nations. That neither Japan nor America has opted to join it is their choice. Globalisation with Chinese characteristics is a new outcome, arising from a new situation. It is also an admission by the Xi leadership that China’s domestic fate is intimately tied to its international situation.
The production values of the whole performance are of high quality. The projected image of Xi is of the leader a country deserves when it is the world’s second largest power, waiting until it can occupy the pinnacle itself. Xi’s propagandists have been helped by the other global leaders currently in power. Trump’s unique style of speaking and divisive personality made Xi look coherent and authoritative. European leaders either lacked the profile Trump enjoyed or followed Trump’s lead and ended up making Xi look comparatively competent. It is no minor point that China’s responses to various UK-originated criticisms of its actions in Hong Kong have become sharper and more dismissive since 2016, as its diplomats watched the struggles to deliver Brexit and the various dramatic contortions in the politics of their old adversary. 217
The way Xi uses language has also had a strong impact, both domestically and internationally. In his early years in power his style was clipped and direct. Phrases like ‘China Dream’ were repeated ad nauseum. The notion of party values and of the mission of China under Xi’s rule to be a great rejuvenated nation were hammered home at every possible opportunity. He avoided using heavy doses of ideological language, choosing to tell stories instead. The dense use of statistics was also jettisoned. Optimism was stressed – China was entering the New Era, where all challenges could be solved, and every day offered a new opportunity. Trust was created by solemn pledges to strike hard against corruption. These words were put into action when significant figures were dramatically taken in and made examples of. Xi was the man who said he would do things, and honoured his word. Obama’s winning 2008 election campaign used the phrase, ‘Yes we can’. In Xi’s China a similar sense of purposefulness is present. All of this was manifested in the confident, expansive and fluent way in which Xi spoke, not just to China, but to the wider world. Chinese people could see images of him travelling the world, unafraid to speak on an equal basis with other global leaders. It is noticeable, though, that the longer he has been in power, the more verboseness has crept back in.*
218 Beyond all this, though, acknowledgement has to be given to Xi’s political instincts. He may be acting out a role written by the party, but he is playing it well. He has often spoken about comprehensiveness; he needs to see the bigger picture, being the one person who can sit atop the vast edifice, see all that is going on and offer some form of strategic direction. Xi is the sole head of the military, the party and the state. He heads many other things too. As conductor-in-chief, to use his own metaphor, even he has limits. He can’t create new instruments or invent new ways of performing. But he can decide tempo and volume. He must prioritise the main tasks that China has to do, as a conductor draws out a melody. Disciplining the party was essential, just as a conductor needs players who are able to keep time and play in tune. Similar discipline had to be enforced in the military, the media and business. Focussing on the development of the needs of the middle class and strengthening their legal and financial situation had to be prioritised because of their importance in making China a middle-income country. It also meant, somewhat more problematically, that any disruption to the goal of becoming a middle-income country had to be controlled – most notably in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Xi made the most of the opportunities proffered him, responding to the challenges of the Trump era, and then Covid-19, reshaping the main strategic goals so that they run in a slightly different way. As of 2022, Xi has managed to get 219 the priorities right. The country has not been beset by disaster. The show has gone on. That, in view of the complexities of the task facing him, is no small feat.
There are storm clouds on the horizon though. As of 2022, Xi’s style of power and leadership poses problems in three areas: over-promising, overreaching and over-idealising. Xi’s 2017 Party Congress speech and the 2021 resolution were replete with promises. Some of Xi’s speeches read like a utopian statement along the lines of William Morris’ News from Nowhere, where the future is only ever bright and the sunshine here to stay. But in almost every area where these promises were being made, there were trade-offs: vast resources were involved, huge financial and business vested interests were provoked and there were real risks of poor implementation. Policies around mental health, healthcare, pensions and the environment were the most problematic. Failure to keep up with the delivery of some of the many promises will quickly burn up what credit Xi and the party has with the great emerging middle class, who are crucial for the party’s future and its legitimacy. The China Dream will turn into the China Nightmare if things go badly wrong in any of these areas.
Overreach is the corollary of this. The party under Xi is doing too much, and doing it too intensively. One example is the much-heralded and commented-on social credit system. Envisaged as a national network covering almost every citizen 220 and allowing immense predictive and controlling range to the authorities, in 2021 its implementation remained confusing and patchy. In principle, the idea is not difficult. People are assigned scores for debt, misbehaviour and failure to pay taxes or fines. This is not so different to the rubrics used by debt agencies and insurers in the West. However, the concern was that because China has zero meaningful legal data protection, the party was theoretically able to gather even more information on the lives of its citizens. The lack of clarity from the central government about how local officials were meant to roll out the programme, and a host of technical and other problems, showed that incorporating 1.4 billion people in one network was not straightforward.
Then there is the final issue – Xi and the party’s habit to idealise. The greatest tragedies and mistakes of the past seven decades of party rule in China have derived not from malign intent but the precise opposite – good intentions gone awry. It was not Mao Zedong’s intention to see many millions of his own people starve during the famines of the early 1960s. Reportedly, when he became aware of the suffering rural China was enduring, he was devastated and uncomprehending. The same goes for the Cultural Revolution from 1966; Mao’s utopianism, the establishment of communes and the cleansing of class ranks all looked sensible and beneficial, on paper at least. The miserable social and personal impact of this 221 was only apparent once the clean theory was translated into messier practice. Deng Xiaoping was less prone to such pure ideals, but even he, in 1989, was unapologetic about placing the party needs above those of anyone else – its prime function was to deliver what he regarded an increasingly perfected society, which only the party was able to do. His conviction meant tolerating dissent, such as that in Tiananmen Square, was impossible.
Idealism has always lurked in the body politic of modern China. Xi shows this too, when he slips into the language of the New Era, where everything will be better, bigger, faster. His vision is of a China that is clean, rich and full of happy, fulfilled people. By 2049, Xi’s refrain goes, the country will be a democratic, developed, prosperous one (though with the important qualifier that this democracy will be ‘with Chinese characteristics’). Its economy will overshadow all others. It will be restored to its historic status as a great, strong, powerful country. The dream will have come true. But one has to wonder, what happens to the party after that? What is its function then? It will have done what it set out to achieve. Will it be disbanded? Will it morph into some other shape? One thing is certain: if China ever does get to this point, the party will need to radically change to justify its continued power. That will prove to be the hardest challenge of all. It may well be insurmountable. 222
I have described Xi as an actor performing in a drama written by the party, to convey the crucial, complex relationship that Xi has with the party of which he is a part. He cannot be understood outside of this relationship. As of 2022, to his audience in the party, and among many Chinese people, his act has been good enough. But there is one element of this performance that has become increasingly unsettling. Bit by bit, what was once a more fully peopled stage has slowly lost most of its other players. Supporting acts, members of the chorus and co-leads have gone. Some exited dramatically – figures like Bo Xilai. Others seemed to fade gradually – Wang Qishan comes to mind; in 2022 he barely figures in the party despite his previous influence. Military, artistic and media figures – like the tennis player Peng Shuai, who, after claiming she had been sexually harassed by a former top-level leader Zhang Gaoli, confusingly disappeared and then reappeared in 2021, or Alibaba’s Jack Ma Yun, who suffered a similar period of silencing – have all seen their roles either reduced, or, in some cases, written out of the plot altogether. Will we end up with a one-man show? And will that really be enough to carry the enormity of the drama that China is today and will be in the decade ahead? At some point, will the audience watching from the dark amphitheatre grow tired? And if that point comes, how will the one-man show end? All we know is that Xi’s name is still up in lights. They haven’t dimmed yet. The problem is, 223 when they do, turmoil and uncertainty in China will reach deep into the outside world. Like it or not, the drama the party has written, and that Xi is playing – comedy or tragedy, happy or unhappy ending – is one that, wherever we are, we will have to keep on watching. We are all Xi’s audience now. 224
* Witness the epic three-and-a-half-hour speech at the 2017 Party Congress.