The Chinese Communist Party is holding its 20th congress this week in Beijing to choose a new leadership and set out policy parameters for the next five years. Two thousand delegates representing some 100 million members will endorse Xi Jinping as general secretary and military leader, elect 200 members of the central committee and witness the selection of 25 politburo members and seven members of the party’s most powerful standing committee. A prime minister, government and president will be appointed next March.
An underlying theme is Xi Jinping’s enhanced role in China’s authoritarian, one-party system of government. He is being given a third term as party leader, breaking previous limits on its tenure, and thereby strengthening his political control through the incorporation of his policy platform in the constitution.
His speech to the congress was a checklist of achievements over the last five years and serves as a mandate for his next term. Yet this remains a collective leadership in which he is constrained by party dynamics, even though his growing dominance makes it substantially less open, critical and self-correcting than before.
These trends show up in the external and internal policy directions showcased in Xi’s speech. He highlighted China’s readiness to use force if needed in reunifying with Taiwan, hinting this will be a priority over the next five years after Hong Kong’s autonomy movement was repressed in his second term.
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This is one reason for the modernisation of China’s military, which he heralded. Without explicitly mentioning the United States, or the war in Ukraine, there is a clear warning to the US in his assertion that “hegemonism and power politics” should not interfere in this expression of Chinese nationalism.
The speech has a heavy emphasis on social security, order and stability, beginning with a strong defence of the zero-Covid policy measures which have minimised deaths but bolstered state surveillance of citizens and everyday life. The transition from “moderate prosperity” and the historic elimination of absolute poverty as part of a move towards a higher level of development is clearly identified. It will require more self-reliance, but China still needs international investment and markets and remains the world’s primary manufacturing centre for globalised industry.
Maintaining this difficult balance between growing geopolitical assertiveness, internal transformation and the continuing need for open access to the advanced and developing worlds is Xi’s greatest challenge as leader of China’s one-party state. Its capacity for innovation and flexibility is limited and not enhanced by the pronounced shift towards personal domination this congress signals.