Self Apotheosis

Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping’s relentless campaign of personal political aggrandizement was on display this week as the Chinese Communist Party’s 376-member Central Committee met for its Sixth Plenum. 

The result, as expected, was more official promotion of Xi’s status as an equal of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping within the historical pantheon of People’s Republic of China leaders.

Read more at “Self-apotheosis doesn’t make Xi a good leader”

Revolutionary Moments

This is the season to reread Edgar Snow’s “Red Star over China”, the classic work on the birth of the communist movement in China. Alongside John Reid’s “Ten Days that Shook the World”, the gripping eyewitness account of the Bolshevik Revolution, Snow’s book was compulsory reading in the first flush of revolutionary enthusiasm as university students. Then, inevitably, time took its toll.

There is a famous work titled The Anatomy of Revolution (1939) by the American historian of France Crane Brinton that outlines the uniformity of four major political revolutions – the English Revolution of the 1640s, the American, the French, and the 1917 Russian Revolution. Brinton concluded how revolutions followed a life cycle from the Old Order to a moderate regime to a radical regime, to Thermidorian reaction. 

He likened the dynamics of “revolutionary movements” to the progress of fever. Brinton’s book appeared a full decade before the Chinese Revolution. However, although much water has flowed down the Yangtze since the “Thermidorian reaction” set in, there is still keen delight in the precarious notions the Revolution left behind in China, which are both dramatic and didactic and inspire animated discussion. 

Without doubt, the Communist Party of China (CPC), whose centennial fell on July 1, has a great deal to celebrate. It took almost three decades after the Revolution of 1949 for the CPC to realize that development, not ideology, is the hard truth. 

In Deng Xiaoping’s words, “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice.” Those poignant words signaled that China was changing course and embarking on a radically new development path required to meet the country’s actual conditions at that point in time. Deng’s reform and opening up in 1978 unshackled China from the ideological straitjacket. 

Read more at China’s Communist Party has much to celebrate

Butcher of Beijing

Li declares martial law in a televised speech on May 19, 1989. Photo: Hong Kong ATV screen grab.

Former Chinese premier Li Peng, who was known as the “Butcher of Beijing” for his role in 1989’s notorious Tiananmen Square massacre, who had previously been treated for bladder cancer, died of an unspecified illness in Beijing aged 90, state media reported.

Li became a despised symbol of repression after gaining global notoriety for the role he played in the crackdown on mass pro-democracy demonstrations in the capital Beijing on June 4, 1989, and stayed at the top of the Communist regime hierarchy for more than a decade after the massacre.

File photo taken on June 4, 1989, shows an armored personnel carrier in flames as students set it on fire near Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Photo: AFP/Tommy Cheng

On May 19, 1989, then-Chinese Premier Li Peng, a newly-installed standing member of the Communist Party’s Politburo, declared in murderous tones a State Council curfew order, leading to the People’s Liberation Army’s brutal crackdown on student protesters in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Li proclaimed martial law on May 20, 1989, after massive crowds of students, workers and others camped for weeks in Tiananmen Square to demand reform. Two weeks later, in the early hours of June 4, the military put a bloody end to the demonstrations, murdering hundreds of unarmed civilians, by some estimates more than 1,000.

The decision to send in the troops was made collectively, but Li was widely held responsible for the atrocity. In the years that followed, Li often defended the decision to open fire on the protesters as a “necessary” step. “Without these measures China would have faced a situation worse than in the former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe,” he said on a tour of Austria in 1994.

As Li was dying in early June of 2019, on the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, authorities made extra efforts to make sure he would not take his last breath in that sensitive month. In China’s official obituary, issued a day after his death, he was hailed for his rock-ribbed “loyalty and decisive role” in quelling the 1989 student unrest.

“Under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, Comrade Li adopted resolute measures to end the anti-revolutionary riot and stabilized the situation, in his key role in quashing the unrest that determined the upshot of the entire struggle and the future of the party and the state,” read the obituary.

File photo dated April 22, 1989, shows students gesturing and shouting slogans as they pay their respects in Beijing to former Chinese Communist Party leader and liberal reformer Hu Yaobang as thousands of students gather near the monument to the People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square. Photo: AFP

The “Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China,” a political entity that hosts the annual “candle lit vigil” for the victims of Tiananmen, called Li a “sinner for a thousand years” in its statement.

Albert Ho, the alliance’s leader who is also a prominent pro-democracy politician in the city, said Li fed party patriarch Deng false information about the students’ “sit-in” at Tiananmen Square in his bid to wrestle more power in the party’s factional schism and ease out the party’s General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, who was sympathetic towards the students throughout the protests.

“Li maligned the students, who demanded rule of law, clean governance and democracy, as rioters and traitors of the state, inflaming Deng’s fear of losing his grip on the nation and ultimately leading to Deng’s edicts to send in troops to slay protesters and clear the square,” according to Ho.

Li Peng meets with student representatives in the Great Hall of the People in May 1989. Photo: China Central Television screen grab.

Other observers say Li can hardly absolve himself of the blame since he was more than a mere executor of Deng’s orders, as he was heavily involved in Deng’s strategizing for a sharp-elbow approach.

During Li’s premiership that ended in 1998, China’s nascent social movement and democratic reforms that emerged in the early 1980s were squelched, and he and then-president Jiang Zemin opted to spur economic development and market liberalization to put China on the mend.

Li made a bid to exonerate himself and sought to publish a “memoir” about the Tiananmen incident, only to be dissuaded by the party’s top leadership. His unpublished book hinted that it was the arbitrary Deng who mandated the killings and that he had clean hands throughout the matter.

Protesters set fire to a Li Peng effigy during a memorial service for Tiananmen victims. Photo: Twitter

Despite his notoriety, Li remained unchallenged as China’s number two leader through the 1990s and into the early 2000s, second only to then-president Jiang Zemin, as the ruling Communist Party tried to present a united front.

However, Li’s preference for state control over market forces in running the economy led to him losing influence as premier to his lieutenant Zhu Rongji, handpicked by Deng Xiaoping to revive stalled economic reforms and market liberalization.

After Li, who was trained as an engineer in the Soviet Union, had a heart attack in 1993, Zhu gradually assumed more responsibility for the country’s economic policies and eventually took over from Li as premier in 1998.

However, Li retained his number two rank within the party hierarchy, moving to the “National People’s Congress”, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, and presiding over the legislature until he retired in 2003.

Other than Tiananmen, Li is also known for his family’s wheeling and dealing with the nation’s power and electricity conglomerates, as well as the high-flying lifestyle of his scions.

Li, groomed in the Soviet Union and majored in hydro-power generation, bulldozed the Three Gorges project through the NPC to dam and harness the Yangtze River despite rare, widespread concerns among lawmakers and engineers about the project’s safety and environmental and social impact.

He is also accused of cronyism when appointing senior executives to major state-owned power generators in his capacity as electricity minister and then premier.

His son Li Xiaopeng was the general manager of the state-owned electricity utility enterprise “China Huaneng Group” and governor of the resource-rich central Shanxi province and is now China’s minister of transportation.

Li Peng’s daughter Li Xiaolin (right) dances on the sidelines of a Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference meeting in Beijing.

Li’s daughter Li Xiaolin, aka “China’s electricity queen,” who has a penchant for expensive fur coats, jewelry and handbags as well as dancing the “cha-cha-chá,” was also a talking point when she was at the helm of “China Power Investment Corp.”

Li Xiaolin, wearing a pink Gucci suit and Roger Vivier shoes, with Xi Jinping. Photos: Weibo

Li Xiaolin was demoted to another power company and offered to retire amid rumors that she opted to bow out of the electricity industry as Xi Jinping aimed to short-circuit an investigation and trial to nab “bigger tigers” in his graft-busting campaign.

Emperor For Life

Five years ago, Xi was basically unknown in Chinese politics. Now he has been lifted to the status of the hallowed Mao Zedong. What does this mean for Beijing and the world?

Walking through the streets and hutongs of China’s vast capital city Beijing, it does not take long to notice that two faces are virtually everywhere. They peer benevolently at shoppers from countless commemorative key chains and plates.

They look out at bustling streets from the covers of books, magazines and newspapers. They gaze with Mona Lisa smiles upon pedestrians from larger-than-life posters.

They are the faces of Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping. Mao was the founder of the People’s Republic of China who ruled the nation with an iron fist from 1949 until his death in 1976. Xi is the nation’s current leader.

The fact that Xi’s status is now equal to that of the legendary authoritarian Mao has sobering implications.

From Obscurity to Potency 

Five years ago, Xi Jinping was an obscure figure in Chinese politics. The public knew little about him except that his wife was a celebrity singer, and that his father had been a comrade to Chairman Mao. As Xi assumed the office of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in November 2012, many experts believed he would lead in the tradition of his most recent predecessors, unobtrusively and unambitiously maintaining the status quo. But Xi’s first five-year term confounded those early forecasts.

Instead of maintaining the “first among equals” style of leadership used by his recent predecessors, he adopted a strongman approach. He bypassed State Council authorities by forming policy making party groups, many of which he chairs himself. He took personal control of writing policy on everything from China’s economy and international relations to its environmental strategies and Internet regulations. He implemented painful military reforms that positioned him as unchallenged commander in chief of the enormous People’s Liberation Army. “He not only controls the military but also does it in an absolute manner,” said Shanghai-based military affairs commentator Ni Lexiong. And Xi has used his military power to assert China’s authority on the global stage.

Xi also waged an anti-corruption campaign resulting in the arrest or imprisonment of many CCP members and others being fired from important government positions and, in many cases, incarcerated.

These moves placed Xi at the center of what Time’s Hannah Beech called “a personality cult not seen in the People’s Republic since the days when frenzied Red Guards cheered Chairman Mao’s launch of the Cultural Revolution” (March 31, 2016).

Here is an important reminder: “Under Mao’s despotic reign, between 65 and 75 million people were starved, tortured, bullied to suicide, or executed as traitors.”

Lifted to Mao’s Level

During his first term, Xi accumulated more power than any Chinese leader since Mao. But that was not the end of his rise. About the time that his first term ended in October, the CCP held its 19th National Congress. And as powerful as Xi was when this once-every-five-years meeting began, he emerged from it considerably more so.

At the Congress, Xi unveiled the new lineup in China’s top decision-making bodies, the 25-member Politburo and seven-member Politburo Standing Committee. Both are now heavily stacked with Xi loyalists. These individuals are unlikely to challenge Xi in any meaningful way, thus greatly strengthening his grip on the most important levers of government.

Another momentous outcome from the Congress was Xi’s break from the convention of naming a successor. Precedent stipulates that after a president completes his first term, he and the CCP name his successor during the National Congress. Five years later, after the president finishes his second term, the named successor becomes the new president. Xi’s decision not to name a successor at the 19th Congress strongly indicates that he has no plans to relinquish power at the 20th Congress in 2022. This would give him an unprecedented third term and position him to rule China for the rest of his life.

Also notable was that none of the new Standing Committee members are younger than 60. This is the pool from which the next president is selected. And since committee members serve two five-year terms, and since CCP guidelines say Chinese politicians should retire at age 68, none of these men would be eligible to serve for two terms as Xi’s successor.

Even more astonishing about the 19th Congress was the CCP’s decision to etch Xi Jinping’s name and personal ideology into the Party Constitution.

This is the rarest of honors. Both of Xi’s most recent predecessors, presidents Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, made contributions to the Constitution, but neither was named in the document. Even the contributions of the revered Deng Xiaoping were never named after him while he led China. Only after Deng’s death in 1997 was his name added alongside his contributions.

The only other sitting ruler to have his name and ideology written into the Constitution was Chairman Mao. This essentially equates “Xi Thought” with “Mao Thought,” lifting the president’s status to the level as that of the near-mythical and notoriously despotic Mao.

The message this sends to Xi’s potential rivals is that to defy him at this point would be ideological heresy. It makes any challenge to his power equal to an assault on the CCP itself. “I think it’s intended to give Xi an ideological status that can’t be challenged, like Mao in that sense,” said Beijing-based analyst Wu Qiang.

Asian affairs analyst Chris Buckley said this also means “Xi Thought” will now permeate all aspects of China. “While there may be no ‘Little Red Book’ of quotations for mass consumption like in the bygone Mao era, Mr. Xi’s thinking will now infuse every aspect of party ideology in schools, the media and government agencies” (New York Times, Oct. 24, 2017).

Preparing for a Turbulent Era 

It would be easy to view Xi’s rise as the result of an ambitious individual maneuvering to make himself an authoritarian. But his rapid ascent could not have happened without the full consent and assistance of the upper echelons of the CCP.

The Chinese elite see that the global order is unraveling. They see American power declining and leadership vacuums opening up. They see that the international stage is primed for conflict, that there is a chance for China to take advantage of the volatility and to emerge as a superpower.

There is clear recognition in the highest echelons of Chinese power that, in order to attain superpower status, China’s 1.4 billion people will need a ruler whose hands are not bound by red tape and who is not limited by checks and balances. They need a strongman at the helm who is free of political encumbrances and capable of streamlined decision-making. They need a new Mao.

It was based on these sentiments that the CCP elite created room for Xi’s political star to rise so rapidly and so high. Now he is the man who will guide China into the turbulent new era.

The fact that Xi’s face in China is now as ubiquitous as Mao’s is deeply significant. His ongoing rise and increasing control over China’s military and foreign policy is vital to watch, as it indicates how the Chinese president could fall in line with his fellow strongman in Russia, and how China will be brought onto its collision course with Europe. It also indicates how near this future clash could be.

Vladimir Putin is Russia’s most powerful leader since Joseph Stalin. Some of his countrymen consider him Russia’s 21st-century czar.

Xi Jinping is China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. During the 19th Party Congress in October, Xi formalized his total control over the Communist Party, which controls all of China. He is now poised to rule “China for life.”

The ideology that is now certain to infuse so much of Chinese culture is officially called “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism With Chinese Characteristics in a New Era.” Unwieldy as it may be, that phrase is saturated with significance.

“Xi Jinping thought” consists of 14 key principles. They include handing “absolute authority” of the military to the CCP; reforming the rule of law; closely following socialism with Chinese characteristics; and pursuing environmental conservation.

Its foundational message is that China must continue its rise to become the primary world power. During Xi’s first five years in office, this ambition had already prompted him to focus his attention on muzzling domestic dissent, boosting China’s military power, and earning Beijing a larger role in international affairs. With Xi’s eponymous ideas enshrined in the Constitution, the president will now be able to push toward these goals with redoubled intensity.

Also included in the constitutional revision were the formalization of several of Xi’s core policy initiatives, including his “One Belt, One Road” plan to build infrastructure linking China to the West, and his desire to boost the government’s role in China’s economy.

The most important phrase of the “Xi Thought” expression is “new era.” Xi breaks China’s modern history down into three main epochs: Chairman Mao “liberated” the nation; Deng Xiaoping made it “wealthier;” now in this “new era,” Xi is making it “strong.”

Has Xi Jinping Become “Emperor for Life”?
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