Chinese Politics in the Era of Xi Jinping

Renaissance, Reform, or Retrogression?

Willy Wo-Lap Lam

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317515760
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Renowned for his coverage of China's elite politics and leadership transitions, veteran Sinologist Willy Lam has produced the first book-length study in English of the rise of Xi Jinping--General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since November 2012. With rare insight, Lam describes Xi's personal history and his fascination with quasi-Maoist values, the factional politics through which he ascended, the configuration of power of the Fifth-Generation leadership, and the country's likely future directions under the charismatic "princeling."

Despite an undistinguished career as a provincial administrator, Xi has rapidly amassed more power than his predecessors. He has overawed his rivals and shaken up the party-state hierarchy by launching large-scale anti-corruption and rectification campaigns. With a strong power base in the People's Liberation Army and a vision of China as an "awakening lion, " Xi has been flexing China's military muscle in sovereignty rows with countries including Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines while trying to undermine the influence of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region. While Xi is still fine-tuning his art of governance, his zero tolerance for dissent and his preoccupation with upholding the privileges of the "red aristocracy" and the CCP's status as "perennial ruling party" do not bode well for economic, political, or cultural reforms. Lam takes a close look at Xi's ideological and political profile and considers how his conservative outlook might shape what the new strongman calls "the Great Renaissance of the Chinese race."

1
Factors Behind Xi Jinping’s Rise

Factional Intrigue and Controversies Over the Future of Reform

Introduction: Is Xi Jinping Up to the Challenge?

Xi Jinping signaled his intention to shake up the trajectory of twenty-first century history when he announced, during an official visit to Paris in March 2014, “The lion has woken up.” While he went on to reassure his audience that China would remain a “peaceful, pleasant and civilized lion,” the undisputed leader of 1.3 billion people had served notice that the fast-rising quasi-superpower was going to prove true the prediction attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: “China is a sleeping lion, and when she awakes, the world will shake.” Had he not been in Paris, Xi might have delivered the same message with a quotation from his idol, Mao Zedong, who pronounced sixty-five years ago at the rostrum of Tiananmen Square, “the Chinese people have stood up!”¹

Xi came to power at the Eighteenth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in late 2012, which was a critical—and paradoxical—juncture in Chinese history. Dozens of books have predicted that China will “rule the world.” Both Chinese and Western experts have touted the “Chinese model” (a.k.a. the “Beijing Consensus” or “Chinese Socialism 3.0”) as a viable alternative to laissez-faire capitalism.² The Renmin University international relations expert Jin Canrong is confident that the forthcoming “hegemonic transition,” shorthand for China replacing the United States as the ultimate arbiter of global standards, will definitely occur. “The United States knows full well that it is unable to contain China’s rise,” said Jin, adding, “The premise of a successful containment policy is that the object of containment is relatively stupid and that it likes to antagonize [other countries].… The transition of power lies in the hands of China.… If China does not make mistakes, the power transition will surely take place. To a big extent, the fate of China and the fate of the world lies in our hands.”³

Jin and other optimistic observers can certainly refer to a number of relatively positive developments on which to base their bullish predictions. Despite the near-consensus view that double-digit growth is a thing of the past, many economists reckon that the GDP growth rate can be maintained at the still-healthy level of 6 percent or 7 percent through the 2010s.⁴ Moreover, starting with the second half of the Hu Jintao administration (2007–12), Beijing has skillfully used its hard-power projection, including massive outbound foreign direct investment (OFDI), to win friends and deflect criticism on different continents (see Chapter 5). The massive military modernization programs under Hu and particularly under Xi have vastly boosted China’s say in geopolitical issues.

Things, however, are hardly looking good on different fronts. Compared to most Western and Asian countries, China seemed to have gone through the global financial crisis of 2008 relatively unscathed. Yet the decision by ex-premier Wen Jiabao to inject RMB 4 trillion to resuscitate the economy has dealt a blow to economic liberalization. The bulk of the funds went into relatively inefficient infrastructure projects that were run by state-owned enterprise (SOE) conglomerates. As the Peking University economist Zhang Weiying pointed out when he summed up the ten years of the Hu-Wen administration: “The economy retrogressed from being market-oriented to being government-oriented; the trend of ‘private enterprises advancing at the expense of the public sector’ changed to ‘the public sector advancing at the expense of private firms.’” The gap between rich and poor yawned wider even as the unholy alliance between top party clans and business groupings became more pronounced. Professor Zhang added that the ten years of the Hu-Wen administration was “the decade of stagnation in structural reform, the lost decade in terms of [promoting] social harmony.” The slogan of ‘building up a country with rule of law’ has deteriorated into ‘preserving stability is the overriding task,’” he argued.⁵

Most crucially, despite having vowed to promote “intra-Party democracy” and a “scientific outlook on development,” ex-president Hu put political and institutional reforms largely on the back burner. According to the legal expert Jiang Ping, “not only is there lack of progress in political reform, there has been a turning back of the clock in certain areas.”⁶

Wuhan University law professor Qin Qianhong called the past ten years “the decade of severe retrogression in the rule of law.”⁷ Independent historian Zhang Lifan was equally blunt. “It can almost be said that nothing was accomplished on the political front under Hu Jintao,” he contended. “The ten-year-long procrastination on reform has resulted in the exponential growth of vested interests, meaning that his successors will face even tougher challenges.” Zhang said Hu’s only significant contribution was his surprise decision to vacate all his party positions, including the chairmanship of the policy-setting Central Military Commission (CMC)—which is China’s equivalent of commander-in-chief—in late 2012.⁸

Indeed, Xi was lucky that Hu (born in 1942) decided to retire from his CMC post at the Eighteenth Party Congress. At the Sixteenth Party Congress a decade earlier, then vice-president Hu succeeded Jiang Zemin as general secretary; but the head of the Fourth-Generation leadership (a reference to cadres born in the 1940s) had to wait two more years before Jiang relinquished the all-powerful CMC seat.⁹ Big question marks, however, hang over whether Xi can successfully pick up the threads of economic, and particularly political, reform that were laid down by the late patriarch Deng Xiaoping and his first two designated successors, former general secretaries Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang.

This chapter looks at political changes introduced at the Eighteenth Party Congress, which, at least in theory, paved the way for the transition of power from the Fourth-Generation leadership to the Fifth-Generation leadership (i.e., senior officials born in the 1950s). The traits and orientations of the Gang of Princelings (a reference to the offspring of party elders and senior cadres), of which Xi is the de facto leader, are examined. Also analyzed are the proclivities—and political fortunes—of the Communist Youth League (CYL) Faction, which is the only party clique that can pose some kind of challenge to Xi and his powerful allies. The phenomenon of state entrepreneurs and returnees (Chinese with degrees from foreign universities) being inducted into the upper echelons of the Party-state apparatus is appraised. The issue of whether Xi and his new team are in a position to battle the entrenched vested interests and resuscitate the reform agenda is discussed in detail.

The Eighteenth Party Congress and the Advent of the Xi Jinping Era

Xi’s Problematic Emergence as Supreme Leader

Xi was officially selected as general secretary and CMC chairman at the first session of the Eighteenth Central Committee, which took place on November 15, 2012, a day after the conclusion of the Eighteenth Party Congress. During the week-long conclave, the 2,270 delegates representing the CCP’s 85 million members met for their quinquennial convention to pick the 205 full members of the ruling Central Committee, as well as 171 alternate, or nonvoting Central Committee members.¹⁰

At least in theory, Xi (b. 1953) should have been very happy with the results because of the political identities and traits of the six other members of the supreme Politburo Standing Committe (PBSC): Premier Li Keqiang (b. 1955), NPC chairman Zhang Dejiang (b. 1946); chairman of the top consultative organ, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Yu Zhengsheng (b. 1945); executive secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat Liu Yunshan (b. 1947); secretary of the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI) Wang Qishan (b. 1948); and Executive Vice-Premier Zhang Dejiang (b. 1946). Except for Premier Li, who is a senior representative of the CYL Faction led by ex-president Hu, all six PBSC members have ties to either ex-president Jiang Zemin’s Shanghai Faction or Xi’s Gang of Princelings.¹¹

While the Eighteenth Party Congress was billed as one of the CCP’s most momentous events in the twenty-first century, it was also swathed in the patriarchal—and undemocratic—traditions of the ninety-one-year-old party. As with past practice, the composition of the new ruling organ—the seven PBSC members—was determined by the outgoing PBSC members as well as party elders, especially ex-president Jiang (b. 1926), who effectively ran China from 1989 to 2004.¹² Three of the seven members of the new PBSC are deemed Jiang protégés. Apart from Xi, NPC chairman Zhang Dejiang and ideology and propaganda tsar Liu Yunshan owed their elevation to Jiang’s recommendation. Jiang and former Premier Li Peng (born in 1928) were instrumental in preventing two of Hu’s loyalists—Li Yuanchao (b. 1950) and Wang Yang (b. 1955)—from making it to the PBSC. Both Li and Wang, who have reformist reputations, have managed to hang on to their Politburo seats. Wang, who established a reformist reputation when he was Guangdong Party secretary from 2007 to 2012, became vice-premier in charge of foreign trade after the congress. Li, a former head of the CCP Organization Department, was given the consolation prize of vice-president—a post that does not have substantial powers.¹³

Xi’s apparent ability to get his way at the congress, however, was a function of several developments that illustrated the efficacy of the rule of man—not the rule of law or of institutions. First, there was a resurgence of geriatric politics. Jiang, who was instrumental in Xi’s promotion to the PBSC at the Seventeenth Party Congress in 2007 (see Chapter 2), again played the role of kingmaker in 2012. Jiang’s preeminent position was illustrated by protocol arrangements at the opening session of the Eighteenth Party Congress on November 8. The first to greet the delegates at the Great Hall of the People was outgoing general secretary Hu, who was closely followed by Jiang. A distance of several meters separated the two potentates from the other eight soon-to-retire PBSC members and Party elders including former PBSC member Song Ping (b. 1917).¹⁴

Moreover, the choice of the seven-member PBSC and the twenty-five-member full Politburo was also influenced by three political incidents, none of which were handled according to the spirit of “intra-Party democracy.” The first was the fall of the ambitious Chongqing Party secretary Bo Xilai (b. 1949). This became inevitable owing to revelations about the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood by his wife, Gu Kailai, in late 2011 and efforts by Wang Lijun, Bo’s police chief and right-hand man, to seek political asylum at the U.S. consulate in Chengdu in February 2012. Before his downfall, Bo, the charismatic son of Party elder Bo Yibo, had catapulted himself to center stage through his campaign of changhong dahe (singing [Maoist] red songs and combating criminal gangs). Bo also told intimates that he was a more qualified person to lead the country than fellow princeling Xi.¹⁵ In the wake of the Heywood and Wang scandals, Hu, Wen, and Xi pooled their resources to ensure the end of Bo’s career. Bo was relieved of all his Party positions in March 2012 and given a life sentence for corruption and abuse of power in September 2013. Gu received a suspended death sentence the same year. The entire handling of the Bo scandal, however, reeked of old-style skullduggery and back-stabbing. There was little “democratic” discussion of the Bo affair within the Party. And the punishment meted out to Bo and Gu was based on political, not judicial, considerations (see Chapter 3).¹⁶

For a brief period, the downfall of Bo the bad-apple princeling gave the CYL Faction some momentum. Given the widespread public perception that princeling-cadres had abused their special privileges—particularly in accumulating massive wealth and laundering their ill-gotten gains—Bo and Gu’s shenanigans brought disrepute to cadres with “revolutionary bloodlines.” Several princeling cadres and military officers suffered collateral damage due to their chummy ties with Bo. They included Generals Liu Yuan and Zhang Haiyang, who are the sons, respectively, of State President Liu Shaoqi and former general and Politburo member Zhang Zhen. Immediately after the announcement on March 15 that Bo’s Politburo membership had been suspended, there were wild stories of an aborted coup in Beijing. While these rumors turned out to be untrue, the Bo affair adversely affected the careers of Generals Liu and Zhang.¹⁷

Yet the so-called Ling Gu affair of March 2012 turned out to be even more of a disaster for the CYL Faction, particularly ex-president Hu. Ling Gu, the only son of Ling Jihua, who was then director of the CCP General Office and a close adviser to Hu, was killed in a traffic accident in Beijing. The twenty-three-year-old Ling was driving a Ferrari sports c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Why Is Xi Jinping So Fearful of Challenge?
• List of Acronyms
• 1 Factors Behind Xi Jinping’s Rise: Factional Intrigue and Controversies Over the Future of Reform
• 2 The Making of a New Helmsman
• 3 Xi Jinping’s Ideology and Politics
• 4 Economics vs. Politics: Beijing’s Uphill Battle to Retool the Chinese Model
• 5 China’s Great Leap Outward
• 6 Conclusion: Xi Jinping and the Closing of the Chinese Mind
• About the Author
• Index