Sinologist Chloé Froissart analyzes the evolution of the Chinese regime and the relationship between the State and Chinese society. On June 24 and 25, it is co-organizing at Inalco, the international conference “Trajectory of the PCC over a hundred years in the light of its founding principles”.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will celebrate its 100th anniversary on 1er July 2021. He has been in power for seventy-two years, less than the seventy-four years during which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) ruled the USSR. Can we say that he is doing well?
Opinion polls, with their bias in China, show that the CCP enjoys strong popular support. Even the Covid-19 crisis did not have the expected “Chernobyl effect”. Since coming to power in 2012, Xi Jinping has continued to strengthen the Party’s authority, its hold over the state, society and the economy, through the eradication of civil society, imprisonment of activists, lawyers, and the creation of Party cells in companies, including foreign companies. But precisely this desire of the CCP to eradicate everything it cannot absorb reveals more fragility than strength. His power is based on terror, but he himself lives in terror.
What consequences can this have for his future?
National security is a priority on the political agenda, it is the subject of five central committees out of the eleven that exist. Any criticism is equated with dissent, and the Party is now run like an army. There is no longer any feedback mechanism or procedure to limit dictatorial practices. The fear of being accused of disloyalty prevents executives from showing initiative and innovation, or even from bringing up crucial information as at the start of the crisis due to Covid-19, in Wuhan. The Party is therefore not in a good position to meet the challenges ahead.
“The ‘wolf-fighting’ diplomacy has degraded its relations with many countries like Australia. The CCP is therefore ready to sacrifice its economic interests to stay in power ”
The extreme concentration of power in the hands of Xi Jinping and the image of an infallible leader that the propaganda builds for him weaken him: he has no right to make mistakes. The coronavirus crisis was also managed as an attack on national security, the army was sent to Wuhan and citizen journalists were imprisoned.
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