At this moment I am watching live on Bloomberg News the opening speech by President/Party General Secretary/Chairman of the Military Commission Xi Jinping of the once-every-five-years Chinese Communist Party Congress. This is far more important than what one finds on other TV networks whether pro-Trump right now (how great his tax plan/tromping on immigrants and football players are) or anti-Trump (what is the latest gossip from the Mueller investigation and will Republicans in the Senate stand up to Trump). A major theme seems to be a reassertion of party power and discipline, with a reinvigoration of the State-Owned Enterprises, with Communist Party cells to operate in nominally private enterprises, socialism with Chinese characteristics, with a reaffirmation of the foundation based on Marxism-Leninism. Yes, he used that term.
While there all kinds of issues about the future path of economic, social, political, environmental, and military policies, and also the big question of the unveiling of the new leadership for the next five years in terms of the membership of Politburo and above it the ruling Standing Committee of the Politburo (of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China), with all this to be ratified by the 3000 delegates at this Congress, taking place on the Great Hall of the People on Tiananman Square (with reportedly super high security there in place), the really big question is whether or not Xi Jinping will follow recent practice and plan to retire in five years and recognize a likely successor at this Congress, or will he clearly lay out a plan for him to continue in power after that. This remains unclear as of this point, but he was just referring to Marxism-Leninism again and the heroic past of the party. Offhand this looks like possibly laying the groundwork for becoming the new Mao and seizing greater and more permanent power.
Addendum, 12:10 AM, 10/19:
Xi Jinping is still speaking, now having passed three hours. He has now covered nearly everything. A major theme does seem to be mostly affirming a status quo, although with nods to “deepening reform.” Markets are important, and supposedly there will be opening to foreign direct investment and possible loosening of foreign exchange rate policy. But “deepening reform” also clearly includes increased emphasis on the importance of the state and especially the party as noted above. He has talked about just about everything. One observer is forecasting that five out of the seven members of the ruling Standing Committee of the Politburo will be replaced, but that is a rumor. Again, really big issue is whether Xi will indicate an heir or assert a third term for himself after five years from now. Given the general strong man authoritarian trend in the world, the latter looks highly possible, and his emphasis on the importance and power of the party would fit with that.
Barkley Rosser
I deep-dived on Chinese politics yesterday and I’m still not enlightened on Chinese political dynamics.
Leaving aside that this is more or less the equivalent of the Republican National Convention, I have a lot of trouble understanding why there are political parties in China.
The western narrative seems to be that they exist so whoever is in charge of the communist party can say “see, we are a democracy, we have opposition parties” but that doesn’t fit the historical appearance of these parties, many of which are effectively the result of ideological schisms in the party, and some of which reflect historical structures present in the time of Mao. Nearly all of the other parties in China have more seats in the national congress than their membership would reasonably justify, and it is unclear to me whether there is actually a hard cap on how many seats they can have.
The entire “tax farming” style system of elections is in many ways similar to the US (grass roots electors elect the next level, and those elected elect their own leadership), but is often portrayed as if it is some bizarre structure again alien to the way “the west” does things.
It’s also weird to see echoes of the ideological “battles” that lead to some of these tiny parties showing up in the convention of the largest party.
The fact that some parties are outright banned from participating in elections isn’t even that unusual worldwide, even in Europe and parts of Asia that are considered “democracies.”
Given internal politics, I wonder whether anyone in China can actually act in a particularly authoritarian manner (aside from skimming off the top). In practice, Xi Jinping can’t do anything that his next level of support doesn’t generally agree with, he’s an organ of the state, even though on the surface he wields something similar to supreme executive power. Even though there is a current alignment where he has somewhat unitary authority of his party, the government, and the military, these roles are not actually tied to one another as they (at least executive and military control) are in the US, and de-facto are in the UK and many other countries.
I’m kind of simultaneously shocked that 1. China works at all as an entity, and 2. that the level of corruption, exploitation, and military independence isn’t higher than it is.
With any other structure, you probably can’t have a China that is capable of projecting power and defending its borders.
The commander-in-chief of the PLA (Chairman of the Central Military Commission) has always been, since the revolution, either the Chairman of the CCP or the Secretary General of the CCP. (Those two titles are really the same thing.) Mao, Hua, Deng, Jiang, Hu and now Xi. It’s more unified than it looks.
Mr. Rosser, did you see Jiang Zemin in attendance? I thought I did and I am wondering if that’s a signal that Xi will step down after the next five years and kind of assume the role Jiang played after his retirement? . It’s a similar role that Deng played in his retirement years.
Little John I think your larger point is correct, real power is in the hands of the Chairman of the Military Commission. But I believe Deng actually gave up his Party titles and retained the Military Comm Chairmanship and so, as you point out, real power. I don’t remember if this was to maintain the surface requiremnt of set retirement ages that Xi would be running u against if he went for a formal third term.
J. Goodwin,
What are you talking about regarding democracy and lots of parties? There is only one political party allowed in China, and it is having its one every five years Congress, the Communist Party. Thus, all the ideological struggles, and they certainly have them there, are within the party. Indeed, this is part of why the speech by Xi was interesting, to see what the current line is, which seems to involve at least some reaffirmation of traditional Marxist-Leninist ideology.
Little John,
The position of Chairman of the party was abolished in 1982. Bruce Webb is largely right about the position of Chairman of Military Commission.
There are three positions at the top, and generally a supreme leader has all three, although there have been some slipis and slides. Those positions are President (Head of State), General Secretary of the Communist Party (which Xi will be reaffirmed as at the end of this Congress), and Chairman of the Military Commission, with the latter two more powerful than the first, with this a matter of balance between the party and the military.
Deng Xiaoping never was either President or General Secretary, but he was Chairman of the MIlitary Commission for a long time. He was a Vice Premier for awhile, Premier being sort of the executive leader of the government under the President. But who really wields power in China can be murky at times, with none of these positions necessarily guaranteeing anything. Jiang Zemin was President and General Secretary when Deng was Military Chairman. However, after Deng retired, it was claimed that he and Chen, another retired Long March veteran, were really the most powerful men in the country, the “Sitting Committee” because they were so old, and lived in the compound at Zhongnanghai where the real power struggles took place. Presumably now Jiang and Hu are the current Sitting Committee.
When took over there was a transition where Jiang played Deng and retained being Chairman of the Military Commission for about a year while Hu was President and General Secretary. However, according to most accounts Xi is holding more power than anybody since Mao. He took all three positions right away when he took power, although he does remain somewhat constrained by the party. However, all this is very much up in the air as the issue of whether he is going to set himself to remain in power with whichever positions five years from now.
The CCP Chairman of the CMC is the most important position in the PRC. (The NPC also has a CMC but it is toothless.) With the 2015 reorganization of the PLA from Military Regions to Theatre Commands the importance, from a control standpoint, of the Party Chairman of the CMC has been enhanced.
Deng never needed to have a top State title. He learned from Liu Shaoqi, Lin Baio and Hua Guofeng that those titles meant nothing. Even Mao hated those titles. He thought it was a way to segue the paramount leader
Into honorific positions.
In the post-Mao era Deng never lived in Zhongnanghai. He lived in a siheyuan off of a hutong in Beijing.