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Insight: What are the consequences of Xi Jinping’s break with tradition at the helm of the Chinese Communist Party?
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The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concluded as anticipated — with the re-election of General Secretary Xi Jinping for a third term in power.
This represented a break in precedent after term limits were abolished in 2018, uprooting a long-held succession process.
Xi also used this year’s National Congress — which took place from Sunday, 16 October to Saturday, 22 October — to promote loyalists within the CCP to his inner circle.
Xi’s power play seemingly served as a demonstration of his domestic authority as he looks to assert China’s presence internationally.
According to Richard McGregor — senior fellow for East Asia at the Lowy Institute — the Congress has “drawn a line in the sand”, dispensing with the “old factional system”.
“He has crushed expectations that he would nurture a successor. He has ignored the informal age caps on officials serving in top positions,” he writes.
McGregor cites Neil Thomas, a China specialist at the Eurasia Group, who noted the beginning of a “maximum Xi” era, in which the old rules governing CCP leadership are “all but irrelevant”.
McGregor continues: “In place of rules in domestic politics, Xi has substituted what he calls ‘political standards’, which essentially means absolute loyalty to him and his policy program.
“Starry-eyed foreigners can no longer interact with Beijing on the pretence that there is a nascent group of influential friends at court, so-called ‘reformers’ whom they can nurture and rely on.
“Beijing hasn’t given up on reform. The Chinese are simply reforming on their, or Xi’s, own terms. It just so happens that this looks nothing like the kinds of changes that the West hoped for.”
McGregor claims Xi has cast himself as the “saviour of the country”, preventing a slide into what Xi has described as “weak, hollow and watered-down party leadership”.
“Xi’s political persona is a mix of fire and brimstone preacher, a tender pastor administering to his flock and unrepentant autocrat willing to expunge anyone should they stray from the correct line,” McGregor adds.
“The latest revision of the party constitution says all party members are ‘obliged … to uphold Comrade Xi Jinping’s core position’ as the head of the party.
“Xi has been skilled in exploiting the enormous powers of his office to do what a communist party does best — mobilise the state, the workforce, capital and technology in a singular effort to get his way in the world.”
McGregor goes on to claim the new-look political structure under the leadership of Xi has set China up on a “war footing”, with Xi wanting to appear in “absolute control” to ensure he can “project maximum strength abroad”.
This allows Xi to gain leverage ahead of any potential “showdown” with the United States.
“In truth, China is already locked into a permanent struggle with the US on many fronts — over geopolitics, trade, the region, militarily, and technology,” McGregor writes.
“Perhaps most importantly of all, China sees the confrontation with the US, and by extension, with its allies, as a contest of political systems, which Beijing has long thought it is winning.”
China’s economy, however, remains Xi’s “Achilles heel”, with his commitment to a COVID-zero policy “crushing the economy, with no visible way of reopening”.
But according to McGregor, over the longer-term, the CCP’s broader ambitions to absorb Taiwan under mainland rule and curb US influence in the Indo-Pacific remain iron-clad.
“It might take a decade or more, but for the foreseeable future, Xi has made clear he will remain in power to execute the plan,” McGregor writes.
“As he said at the close of the conference — ‘The road map has been drawn and the bugle sounded’.”
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