En 1956, 20e Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was that of de-Stalinization and marked, according to the Chinese reading of it, the beginning of the end of the USSR.
At the time when the 20e congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Sunday October 16 in Beijing, Xi Jinping can be reassured. Ten years after taking the reins of a party in disarray in November 2012, which feared to suffer the same fate as its big Soviet brother, the secretary general of the CCP can boast of having successfully completed his first mission. He tidied up the party, while managing to make China twice as rich in 2021 as it was in 2010.
On the strength of this record, Xi Jinping should take advantage of this congress to further strengthen his power by surrounding himself almost exclusively with loyal followers. Moreover, as his “thought” will most likely make its way into the CCP’s Constitution, his potential critics will no longer be political rivals but real traitors.
All of this does not bode well. Already, over the past decade, under Xi Jinping, the leadership of the party has shifted from a collegial leadership to an all-powerful leader and from a term-limited power to a lifetime presidency. Without being nationalized, the private sector, which is the basis of economic dynamism, is now more or less subject to the same rules as the public sector.
After three years of Covid-19, China’s openness to the world is giving way to a country closed in on itself for reasons that seem as ideological as they are health-related. Finally, the cooperation that had prevailed until then with the United States – to the point that some were worried about the emergence of a G2 – turned into a quasi-cold war, with China opting, de facto, for a anti-Western alliance with Russia.
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All this without real debate in China, including within a Communist Party whose leaders, panicked at the idea of bearing the brunt of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, swallowed all the snakes without saying a word. Including, in 2018, the end of the two five-year term limit imposed on the President of the Republic. Xi Jinping is sometimes referred to as “president of everything”. In fact, this follower of micromanagement seems to have an opinion on all subjects, except one: the organization of his succession. Does this 69-year-old man intend to stay in power for another five years, ten, fifteen? Nobody knows.
If this uncertainty allows Xi Jinping to neutralize his challengers, it is deeply unhealthy. China has to face up to major challenges – demographic, economic, ecological in particular – that a handful of males in their 60s or even in their 70s are probably not in a position to meet. Above all, the anti-Western orientation of Chinese foreign policy would also deserve to be debated. In private, some Chinese officials do not hide their fear of the rise of ambient nationalism, also imposed by the president.
If they believe that the election of Donald Trump to the White House validates the Chinese model of elite selection, the rivalry with Washington and the concentration of power in the hands of a single man in Beijing worry many Chinese. Ten years after his accession to power, Xi Jinping’s omnipotence has become a risk for China but also for the rest of the world.