Gliding towards the congress
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May 20th 2017
IN A set piece of imperial pomp, power and benevolence for which the Chinese capital seems designed, the leaders of more than two dozen countries, plus envoys from fourscore more, gathered in Beijing last weekend—in awe of Xi Jinping. At his much ballyhooed “Belt and Road Forum”, the Chinese leader laid out what was intended to look like a new global economic order: Chinese-led investment in railways, roads, bridges, ports and other infrastructure that would transform 60-odd countries to China’s south, west (along the old Silk Road) and as far away as Africa. No immodesty was spared as Mr Xi promised Chinese guidance and more than $100bn of Chinese money to create what he called a “big family of harmonious coexistence”.
Strength, poise, harmony: China’s leaders set great store by the display of such virtues. If Mr Xi were a bird, he would be a swan. But though the waters of Chinese politics on which Mr Xi glides look smooth, in reality they are dark and troubled.
Every now and then come hints of furious paddling beneath the surface. The belt-and-road initiative is a case in point. It was devised by Mr Xi partly as a desperate attempt to find a solution to the crippling overcapacity that exists at home among state-owned infrastructure and other firms. But he appears uncertain what exactly the vast and amorphous scheme should involve, or how to persuade foreigners to sign up to it (thin attendance by European leaders was noted at the gathering). Many of its projects look financially dubious.
For the rest of the year Mr Xi is likely to be distracted by his biggest priority: putting his stamp on a five-yearly party congress, the 19th since the Communist Party’s founding in 1921, which is expected to be held late in the year. Mr Xi came to power in 2012, yet the current Central Committee, comprising about 350 members of the country’s political elite, is not of his own making. It was chosen (as convention dictates) by his predecessors.
Foreigners who have spent time with the Chinese leader suggest he has an almost messianic desire to save his party. Mr Xi, whose late father was a comrade of Mao Zedong’s, nourishes a nostalgic sense of the 1950s being a golden era, when the party was supposedly driven by zeal, purity and purpose (never mind the murderous violence that killed millions). Today he sees its pervasive cynicism, self-interest and corruption as threats not only to the country’s economic transformation, but to the survival of the party itself. Hence his unprecedented campaign to tighten discipline, which has felled over 100 senior leaders and tens of thousands of lesser ones. Since Mr Xi cannot conceive of any other body running the country, to save the party is to save China.
Mr Xi’s chance, in the coming months of fierce if (to outsiders) invisible horse-trading, is to stuff the Central Committee with allies. At the congress, five of the seven members of the Politburo’s Standing Committee—the elite’s inner sanctum—are expected to retire. This will give Mr Xi an opportunity to install his own successors. And the event will allow him to burnish his image—there is speculation that delegates might honour him by calling his musings “Xi Jinping Thought” (making him the first named leader since Mao to have thought with a capital T). The congress may also offer hints about whether Mr Xi intends to break the unwritten rule that Politburo members retire at 68 (he is currently 63) and stay on beyond 2022, when he would be expected to retire as general secretary were he to stick to the usual ten-year term. As it is, conventional wisdom holds that within a supposedly “collective” leadership Mr Xi’s power greatly surpasses that of his two immediate predecessors, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, and approaches that of Deng Xiaoping or even of Mao.
Yet the way Mr Xi is wielding his power suggests that he still sees huge challenges to it. Take his swingeing crackdown on lawyers who defend dissidents and the like. They argue for little more than that China should live up to international civil-rights agreements it has signed and to the protections promised in its own constitution. But the trials of some have ended in verdicts of subverting state power and heavy sentences. This month one prominent lawyer, Xie Yang, was released on bail in the central city of Changsha, but only after retracting accusations of being tortured by police. The retraction looks odd, and Mr Xie remains under heavy surveillance. Mr Xi is taking no chances.
Elsewhere are clues that the anti-corruption campaign is getting fiercer, and perhaps even more personal. In January Xiao Jianhua, a billionaire businessman with links to the political elite, including, it is thought, to Mr Xi’s family, was kidnapped from his hotel in Hong Kong—presumably by mainland agents. He was spirited out of the territory to an unknown fate.
The Chinese authorities are also waging a bitter campaign against another billionaire, Guo Wengui, who, from self-imposed exile, has been making lurid accusations of corruption at the top of the party. Mr Guo may be no angel—one former state-security chief has confessed to making wire taps, freezing assets and intimidating journalists on Mr Guo’s behalf, to help bring down rivals. But whatever the facts of this murky saga, the implication is of collusion between dodgy businessmen and venal officials—state power put to the service, perhaps on a massive scale, of private gain. A lot is at stake for many potential targets of Mr Xi’s anti-corruption drive. Some may be pushing back by encouraging Mr Guo to point fingers at people close to Mr Xi.
It all contributes to a febrile mood—as do rumours of Jiang Zemin’s poor health (retired leaders cast a long shadow; their deaths can shift political balances). Mr Xi is likely to succeed in promoting his protégés. But he may not feel secure enough to do what many observers believe he would like: to rip up the party’s unwritten rules and keep himself in power indefinitely. Breaking the norms of collective leadership may be beyond him.
