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2022 showed Xi Jinping is not invincible; 2023 will be "rocky year" for him
What a year 2022 has been for Xi Jinping.
On the one hand, China's leader made clear he's the big boss after the 20th Communist Party Congress. On the other, he's been forced to roll back his zero-COVID policy following protests and the damage to the economy.
What will 2023 hold for Xi?
“It will be a rocky year for China,” former US State Department official Anne-Marie Slaughter tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World. Moving away from lockdowns was long overdue, but the big problem now is that a large part of the elderly population is unvaccinated.
And it's very striking, she adds, that Xi had to reverse course when he realized he couldn't stop the protests.
For international relations expert Tom Nichols, the experience humbled Xi, whose "regime has been cut down to size." China, he points out, is no longer 10 feet tall like in the early days of COVID but just another government facing the same problems they all did during the pandemic.
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A screen shows Chinese President Xi Jinping during the CCP's 100th anniversary in Beijing.
No, Xi Jinping is not on the ropes. But …
Seven months ago, Xi Jinping was at the pinnacle of his power, appearing untouchable as China's president and general secretary of the ruling Communist Party. He’d gotten the CCP to rewrite its own history, putting him on par with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping; brought the country's tech titans to heel to make China a more egalitarian society; and made Chinese kids study how he thinks.
At the time, though, we also warned that Xi would be on the hook if something went south, like failing on his zero-COVID strategy.
Since then, zero-COVID has continued to avert mass pandemic deaths in China — albeit at a very high cost. There's virtually no way the Chinese economy can hit its already-modest 5.5% growth target for 2022. And just ask people in Shanghai how they feel about going into lockdown again.
What's more, this is no ordinary year for Xi. In October or November, China's leader is set to obtain a precedent-defying third term as president and general secretary at the 20th party congress. But according to some recent chatter, it might not be the walk in the park he was hoping for.
Over the past two months, certain China watchers have been obsessing over growing speculation that Xi himself could be in trouble ahead of the meeting. Some have even suggested a split between him and Premier Li Keqiang, now tasked with the impossible job of trying to rescue the economy while doubling down on zero-COVID. Xi has already cracked down on the gossip, warning party cadres to keep their mouths shut.
So, should China’s all-powerful leader be worried about his immediate future? Nope.
"The intense rumors that Xi is losing his grip [are] greatly exaggerated. I think he is under growing pressure because of the widespread discontent about COVID policy and the economic slowdown," says Wang Xiangwei, a veteran Beijing-based columnist for the South China Morning Post. "But [Xi] is still firmly in control, and he has the final say over the composition of the next leadership, namely the Politburo Standing Committee."
Although China's top leaders are technically "elected" every five years by some 2,300 CCP delegates, the party's most powerful decision-making body is actually the Politburo Standing Committee, whose seven members — including both Xi and Li — are handpicked through backroom politicking before the event. They are the CCP’s inner sanctum; keeping track of who's up and who's down is the essence of Pekingology, the China watcher's answer to Kremlinology.
Still, even if Xi will call most of the shots, Wang believes that "some horse-trading is inevitable." For instance, he suggests Xi might find it hard to elevate favorites like Li Qiang, the party secretary in Shanghai, who's gotten a lot of flak for waiting too long to lock down China's largest city.
Xi might also promote more technocrats because his priority will be to maintain economic growth, says Eurasia Group analyst Neil Thomas.
Xi, he explains, could increasingly be "looking to empower and promote officials whom he thinks will actually be able to do a good job" on the economy — which, the general secretary tells senior officials, remains imperative to keep the party (and Xi himself) in power. That, in turn, could mean taking fewer risks to avoid rocking the boat in turbulent economic times.
For Thomas, Xi’s position might become materially weaker only if China’s economic growth "really falls off a cliff.”
Or perhaps he’ll come out stronger from zero-COVID. After all, Mao survived the famine unleashed by his Great Leap Forward, and Deng the Tiananmen protests, spurred by the pro-democracy movement that his economic reforms partly set in motion. Will Xi follow in their footsteps?People perform on the stage during the Great Conquest to celebrate the 100-year of the Chinese Communist Part at National Stadium, known as Birds' Nest in Beijing on June 29, 2021.
Can China's communists rule for another 100 years?
Beijing is organizing a big celebration to commemorate the 100th birthday of the Chinese Communist Party, which has ruled the world's most populous country since 1949. Ahead of a much-hyped speech to be delivered to a large audience by leader Xi Jinping on Thursday in Beijing, the party has been conducting a wide-ranging campaign to raise public awareness of its 100-year history. Beijing has ordered officials across the country to make sure nothing mars this week's events.
We spoke to Neil Thomas, a China analyst at Eurasia Group, to better understand the importance of this anniversary for China's leadership.
What exactly does the anniversary commemorate?
It marks one hundred years since the first National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which actually began in Shanghai on 23 July 1921. That first party congress, held at the suggestion of a Dutch Comintern agent, brought together 13 party members from across the country, including future leader Mao Zedong, who represented the city of Changsha.
Wait, so why is it commemorated on July 1st then?
By the time the party became a political force significant enough to celebrate its founding, in the late 1930s, Mao had forgotten the exact date of the first congress and chose July 1st.
Understandable, Mao was a busy guy. Ok, so what will the celebrations consist of?
The main event will be a "grand gathering" of dignitaries in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, at which Xi Jinping, as CCP general-secretary, will deliver an "important speech."that reflects on the party's history as he looks toward its future. There have already been a lot of awards given to model communist citizens and officials — both by Xi himself as well as at the local level — along with a huge output of new books, textbooks, movies, performances, and study programs for party members and for schools, all dedicated to shaping and bolstering people's understanding of the history of the party. Even China's rappers are involved!
One of the main focuses of these propaganda efforts is to shape the image of Xi as a titanic figure in the party's evolution. He's effectively being elevated alongside Mao himself in the pantheon of party greats. This rewriting of official history is a significant maneuver that both confirms Xi's consolidation of power and further entrenches his political authority.
Why is this anniversary so important for the government?
Legitimacy. The party has always leant on its history of a successful communist revolution and then rapid economic development to burnish its political legitimacy. China's constitution, after all, credits the party explicitly with realizing the "historic mission of the Chinese people to overthrow imperialism and feudalism."
Will the anniversary have an impact on other political developments in the country?
The anniversary comes roughly a year before the 20th Party Congress in fall 2022, where the party will reselect the country's most powerful political posts: the Central Committee, the 25-member Politburo, the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, and of course the general-secretary, the position currently held by Xi Jinping. It's almost certain that Xi will secure a norm-defying third term as general secretary, but he wants to use the 100th anniversary to further burnish his authority as leader of the party and the country.
The centenary celebrations are also happening just a few months before the sixth plenum of the 19th Central Committee, an annual meeting which is likely this year to focus on "party building"— improving how the CCP operates — and could expand on themes introduced by Xi in his speech on Thursday.
Will the anniversary have any consequences for the rest of the world?
It is primarily a domestic event, but the national pride invoked by the centenary celebrations certainly bolsters Beijing's sense of purpose as it carries out assertive policies toward Xinjiang, Taiwan, and the South China Sea in the face of foreign criticism and opposition. However, Xi's desire for stability ahead of the 20th Party Congress makes highly risky moves in these areas unlikely.
A hundred years is a pretty good run – what does the CCP need to do to make it to 200 years?
Crystal ball-gazing so far into the future is a fool's errand but, if the party is to stand a chance of surviving for another hundred years, it will likely need to continue to grow the Chinese economy, keep improving the quality of life enjoyed by Chinese people, reduce its reliance on foreign technology, and maintain its domestic grip on the levers of military and political power. There's a lot that could go wrong, but the CCP's competence, resilience, and luck have continually surprised outside observers.
Neil Thomas is China and Northeast Asia analyst at Eurasia Group.
Meet the party that runs China
July 1st is the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, which dominates politics in the world's most populous country. You have probably read, or will read this week, a barrage of media coverage about the CCP's history, how it has changed under General-Secretary Xi Jinping, or what are its future plans for China. But today — and with some help by Eurasia Group expert Neil Thomas — we'll answer more basic questions about the famously opaque party.
What is the CCP? It's the ruling political party in the People's Republic of China. In power since 1949, the CCP has now controlled China for almost as long as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union controlled the USSR before the 1991 collapse.
Although it may seem communist only in name following the economic reforms that began in the late 1970s, the structure of the Chinese state under the CCP is similar to that of other socialist authoritarian regimes. But both ideas coexist peacefully: China pursues economic policies that are capitalist — albeit state-directed — yet the party remains the ultimate political authority.
How does the CCP work internally?CCP officials are "elected" to leadership positions every five years, when top officials meet in Beijing for national party congresses, although outcomes are decided earlier by party leaders in secretive negotiations. The most coveted positions are on the Politburo's elite standing committee, whose seven members have the final say on major political, economic, and social issues.
As CCP general-secretary, president of the People's Republic and chairman of the Central Military Commission, Xi has centralized decision-making power to become the most influential Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. What's more, since rising to the top of the party's leadership almost nine years ago, Xi has purged its ranks of potential rivals and removed presidential term limits, meaning he could well stay on for decades more.
How does the CCP rule China? It's often said that the party and the government are pretty much the same thing in China. In reality, the CCP controls the government, and through it — and the military — the country.
Party leaders, however, insist on referring to the CCP by its slightly different official name — Communist Party of China, or CPC — because in their view it belongs first to China and its people. The party, according to the official narrative, exists to support Chinese business and workers, rather than the other way around. That said, public criticism of the party itself is unwelcome, no matter how powerful you are... as billionaire Jack Ma found out a few months ago.
How much does the CCP control the population? It depends. As authoritarian as the party is, the CCP is in many ways not totalitarian. Most Chinese go about their daily lives without worrying much about the party, which nowadays rarely meddles in where people choose to live, what they study, or which job they can get. What the CCP does is set strict limits on political expression and enforce harsh punishments for those who cross its lines, and takes a hard line on surveillance and persecution of political dissidents and of ethnic minorities in places like Xinjiang.
At the same time, the CCP invests enormous resources in propaganda and censorship systems that ensure its message remains dominant. Yet the party knows that creating growth and delivering public services is key to its long-term political resilience, and so actively monitors public sentiment and welcomes citizen feedback on the performance (good or bad) of local officials.
How popular is the CCP among Chinese people? Overall, most Chinese don't live in fear of the CCP, whose nationalist appeals, development success story, and containment of COVID have endowed it with a surprising degree of popular legitimacy. Indeed, a lot of people want to join the party — which boasts almost 92 million members — because CCP membership is a ticket to upward mobility. Xi knows this, and has raised the bar to apply because he only wants the best, the brightest, and — importantly — the most loyal Chinese to rule.
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Kevin Rudd and China's Future
This week Ian talks China all episode long. First up, what China is getting right and what it is getting wrong. Then he sits down with former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to discuss Xi Jinping’s China. And on Puppet Regime, Vladimir Putin gets a brand new look. Let’s get to it.