How Xi Created China’s Party-State

At the time of Xi Jinping’s rise to the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012, the pages of the Communist Party’s newspapers were hotly debated between the party’s ‘left’ and ‘right’ factions, each of which The debate was going on. different direction in the politics of the country

For the Mao-inspired leftist, Deng Xiaoping’s decades of reform brought only inequality and ideological confusion. It was time, he argued, to go back to first principles. For pro-market people, the change of leadership was an opportunity to pursue ultimately stalled political reform and rule China not by party power but by law and constitution. The son of a reformist former deputy prime minister, Mr. Xi was his great hope.

Fast forward a decade, and the party media is a very different animal. Some pro-reform outlets have been closed and others have changed their leadership. The neo-Maoists have carefully maintained silence, breaking it only to praise the present chieftain. In fact, there is no clear left or right wing faction anymore, at least publicly. Everything begins and ends, as editorials with Xi Jinping declare on a daily basis.

new era

In recent days, several bridges that pass over Beijing’s Ring Road have been decorated with tall, red banners praising a “new era” in China’s development. For anyone who has lived in China in the past decade, the phrase “new era” (or “Xin Shidai”) immediately indicates one thing: it refers to the Xi era, which began in 2012.

Since taking office, Mr. Xi has been in a hurry to reshape Chinese politics to define his era. When he launches the CPC’s 20th Party Congress this week, he presides over a political landscape that is almost unrecognizable at the time he took power amid an unprecedented political scandal that embarrassed the party, Including the corrupt former Politburo member – and once Xi’s rival – the murder of Bo Xilai and his wife, a British businessman. When the CPC, last year, passed its third “historic resolution” in its 100-year history – the first in four decades – it pointed to this sense of crisis, noting that when Mr. Xi had “been loose and weak at first”. took command of the regime” enabled inaction and corruption to spread within the party and caused serious problems in its political environment, which damaged relations between the party and the people, and between officials and the public, the party’s creativity, solidarity. and weakened the capacity, and created a dire situation. Test your practice of national governance.” Mr. Xi declared, “solved many difficult problems that had been on the agenda for a long time but never solved and achieved many things that were desired but never happened.”

Indeed, the party’s sense of existential crisis in the transition to 2012 played to the advantage of Mr. Xi, who was given a mandate by party elders to keep the ship afloat. However, the former leaders who gave him carte blanche to clean up the rot got more than he bargained for.

Xi. policies of

The key to Mr. Xi’s rapid accumulation of power was an anti-corruption campaign launched soon after he took office. It laid down strict rules for party members, which were welcomed by a weary public who had seen CPC officials raking in fortunes. At the same time, it also neatly eliminated all of Mr. Xi’s rivals. This gave him the political space to begin a massive reorganization of the party-state, which was completed in 2018, when the CPC unveiled an entirely new governance structure that saw party organs out of the shadows for the first time in decades. brought and placed him firmly in charge of the bureaucracy of the state.

The “collective leadership” model modeled after Deng was also gone, which saw a division of responsibilities in the top Politburo Standing Committee. The premier was no longer given the reins of the economy, and was left to preside over reducing the state bureaucracy.

The party-state division and parallel governance system were designed to professionalize the administration, especially in running the economy. Mr. Xi bridged that divide, and his 2018 reforms declared that “the party is the supreme power for political leadership.” Central lead groups that in the past had little influence on the policy implemented by the state were upgraded to “commissions”. A new National Supervisory Commission was created that would take over all anti-corruption work – the tip of Mr. Xi’s spear.

The Central Commission for Comprehensive Intensive Reform, headed by Mr. Xi, replaced state council bureaucrats as key policy-making bodies, such as the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission and the Central Foreign Affairs Commission. Emphasized control over diplomatic policies. ,

The main goal was to eliminate the “property” that had emerged in the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao regions and put the party – and its “original” leader – in charge of all domains. The civil service – a state within a state – was likewise brought directly under the central organization department which now handles both the party and the state. The party’s secret Central United Front Work Department was put in charge of running all religious and ethnic matters, which were previously managed by state commissions.

army cleaning

Along with the change in the political system was the reform of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – the largest of all the fiefs – which all of Mr. Xi’s predecessors had failed to return to Deng. Here too, the anti-corruption campaign, which created fear among generals after Xi purged two of the PLA’s highest-ranking generals who had been accused of running a “post for post” army, prompted Mr. Xi to do what he could. Permission was given by the PLA Daily. It has been described as “the largest-scale military reform since the 1950s”. The reforms abolished the Soviet-style General Staff departments, dissolved the four vast bureaucracies that handled staff, politics, logistics and weapons, and brought them under the direct control of the Central Military Commission. The seven large military commands were consolidated into five theater commands, with a focus on jointness between forces.

Mr. Xi’s reconstruction of the party-state may have established unchallenged control for him, but has removed all room for disagreement. At the same time, it has raised the stakes for China’s leader as the country deals with a slowing economy and an unpopular “zero-Covid” regime at home, as well as what many in Beijing see as an increasingly hostile environment abroad. . If the party’s success in dealing with these challenges, as its media reminds, rests on Mr. Xi, so will its failures.

This is the first article in a three-part series looking at China’s changing politics, economy and diplomacy in the Xi decade.