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On the way to Mr Xi's second term in China

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China's President Xi Jinping speaks during the ceremony to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the China's People's Liberation Army at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, 1 August 2017. (Photo: Reuters/Damir Sagolj).

In Brief

As Xi Jinping's first term as China's Communist Party Secretary General and President of the People's Republic draws to a close, China watchers are sharply divided about what his tenure at the top means for China's political development.

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Pessimists see Xi as a strong-man autocrat who is singularly focused on concentrating power in his own hands at the expense of the collaborative power-sharing model promoted by Deng Xiaoping in the wake of Maoism. Xi’s critics charge that, in destroying his opponents, silencing critics and promoting his own personality cult, he is turning dangerously to Maoist ways.

Optimists see Xi Jinping as doing what is necessary to neutralize the ‘leftists’ — a term that in China refers to hardline conservatives — and galvanize his authority so that he has the means to implement much needed reforms during his second term (2018–2022). His defenders acknowledge the toughness with which this course has been pursued, but anticipate a period of fang (loosening) will eventually follow the current period of shou (tightening). Some supporters even suggest, perhaps wishfully, that Xi is really a closet liberal, wrapping himself in the trappings of cultural conservatism only so far as necessary as to out-manoeuvre factional rivals.

Over the coming months, East Asia Forum will feature more commentary from leading analysts around the world on the important dimensions of the leadership transition that will be put in place through the 19th Party Congress later this year. This is among the most important national political events in the global political calendar and its impact will be far reaching.

In this week’s lead essay, Carl Minzner, as part of this commentary, makes a case for the pessimists. He argues that Xi is taking China away from collective authoritarianism and toward personalised rule. Critically, Minzner argues, Xi is trashing the informal rules of the post-Mao era that have enabled power-sharing, peaceful leadership transition and political stability. In the grand tradition of Pekingologists confronted with a black box, Minzner is forced to speculate about what this might mean for the future, noting, as have others, that Xi could be setting himself up to continue as General Party Secretary after 2022.

The upcoming Party Congress, Minzner argues, may see two other major reform-era party norms crumble.

‘First, informal rules regarding retirement and succession of top leaders may be broken. Speculation has mounted that age limits could be bent to allow China’s anti-corruption czar Wang Qishan to continue serving on the Politburo Standing Committee … Xi himself might depart from established practice and avoid elevating a clear political successor to the Politburo Standing Committee as he begins his second (and theoretically final) term as general party secretary. The dramatic 22 July 2017 removal of Chongqing CCP secretary Sun Zhengcai — one such contender for this role — has heightened such suspicions’.

Either development, Minzner contends, would raise the possibility of a yet more dramatic shift later on, such as Xi continuing on — Putin-like — as general party secretary after 2022. More importantly, he says, it appears increasingly likely that CCP ideology will be altered to dramatically raise Xi Jinping’s status in the leadership pantheon.

Current rules do not place term limits on Party secretaries — only the state president is restricted to two terms. So it is feasible that Xi could remain as head of the Party (paramount leader) while the position of state president passes to a close ally in 2022.

But, in stomping on some of the unwritten rules of elite politics, is Xi doing irreparable damage to the political institutions that have allowed China to prosper during the past three decades?

This is a difficult question to answer. Xi might be departing from certain practices to which his recent predecessors adhered, but he has, at the same time, presided over a strengthening of Party institutions and bureaucratic mechanisms, particularly those related to discipline and performance management. He has also promoted a rash of legislation that is designed to restrain the exercise of executive power. What this means in a one-party state is difficult to foretell. But, on the rhetoric at least, there is intent  to restrain the arbitrary exercise of power.

Xi has amassed great political power, certainly more than Hu Jintao or Jiang Zemin before him, but it is not yet clear that he has done so at the expense of the Party or China’s governance model.

The 19th Party Congress will be momentous in the clues it offers for China’s future. And all eyes will be on the first year of Xi’s second term in search of signs that Xi is using his power to pursue reform rather than his own dictatorial ends.

The EAF Editorial Board is comprised of Peter Drysdale, Shiro Armstrong, Ben Ascione, Amy King, Liam Gammon, Jillian Mowbray-Tsutsumi and Ben Hillman, and is located in the Crawford School of Public Policy in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.

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