Taiwan in the amendment
The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (NCCPC) established Xi Jinping's core position in the Party, the Central Committee and the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and it set the rejuvenation of China on "an irreversible historical course."
Xi’s role as the “core” of the party was reaffirmed in amendments to the party’s constitution approved by Congress on the closing day.
A resolution said that the “Two Establishes”, which define Xi as the “core leader” of the Party and his thoughts as the guiding principles of China’s future development, were the major political achievements of the Party.
This follows the introduction in 2021, into the constitution, of the "Two Establishes" idea, which confirmed Xi as the core of the Party and its Central Committee (CC), and the guiding force of “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era.”
To better reflect “new achievements” under Xi’s leadership, the delegates agreed to add “new developments” in the past five years to the section on “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”.
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| Xi Jinping after the Congress |
The Congress, which retained Xi as Party General Secretary and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, will also be etched in the annals of history forever, as it confirmed President Xi for an unprecedented third term.
The Party has now broken a rule established two decades ago by outgoing President Jiang Zemin: a retirement age of 68.
The foundations for Xi’s third term were laid in 2018 when the National People’s Congress voted to remove the two-term bar for presidents that had been introduced by Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader from 1978 to 1989.
Xi is only the third leader in modern China to have an ideology in his name after “Mao Zedong Thought” and “Deng Xiaoping Theory”.
The amendment of the constitution indicates Xi’s authority. At the last national congress in 2017, Xi’s eponymous ideology of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era was first enshrined in the party constitution, alongside the doctrines of Mao and Deng, elevating Xi to their level.
The post of Chairman, which Mao held, was abolished after he died in 1976. The system of the general secretary as head of state began with Jiang Zemin, who was general secretary from 1989 to 2002 becoming President in 1993.
Half the members of the 25-person Politburo, aged out under the retirement rule.
Four members of the Politburo Standing Committee retired: Premier Li Keqiang, 67; National People’s Congress chairman Li Zhanshu, 72; Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference chairman Wang Yang, 67; and Vice-Premier Han Zheng, 68.
They were replaced by Li Qiang, 63, Li Xi, 66, Ding Xuexiang 60, and Cai Qi, 66. Together with Wang Huning, 67, and anti-corruption chief Zhao Leji, 65, they form the new Politburo Standing Committee, led by Xi Jinping.
Li Keqiang, 67, the Premier, is not in the C C and will step down, according to the constitution, having completed two terms. The new PM will be Li Qiang, since he is the second in the hierarchy, after Xi.
Li Xi, 66, the Guangdong Party Chief is among the 133 new members of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and is the only member in the body who is on the 25-strong Politburo. He is on track to become the Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, replacing Zhao Leji.
A surprise exit from the Central Committee is, Chen Quanguo, 66, the former party chief of both Xinjiang and Tibet. He was promoted to the Politburo, the party’s highest policymaking body, five years ago. Transport Minister Li Xiaopeng, 63, the son of former National People’s Congress chairman and Chinese premier Li Peng, central bank governor Yi Gang, 64, and Guo Shuqing, 66, the head of China’s banking regulator have also exited from the C C.
Senior diplomat Yang Jiechi and Vice-Premier Liu He retired from the CC.
However, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, 69, is among the new Central Committee members. He took up the Politburo seat vacated by Yang Jiechi, who retired.
Once viewed as a top candidate for China’s uppermost echelon of leadership, Hu Chunhua, 59, Vice Premier, exited the Politburo. He has been an enforcer of Xi’s poverty alleviation project.
Breaking the age rule, General Zhang Youxia, 72, Vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, finds a place in the latest C C. to take up a superior position. But Vice-chairman General Xu Qiliang, Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe and Joint Staff Department chief General Li Zuocheng have all reached 68 and are absent from the new C C. General Miao Hua, chief of the CMC’s Political Work Department, and General Zhang Shengmin, head of military discipline, are still in the C C. Both are under 68.
Vice-premier Sun Chunlan, 72, the sole female Politburo member, retired without replacement. It is the first time in 25 years there has been no woman in the decision-making body.
Though age is still considered, cadres are evaluated according to a matrix of myriad factors including background and efficiency. One of the criteria for President Xi Jinping in picking his top team was the candidates’ ability to “struggle” with the West to circumvent sanctions and safeguard national security, according to state news agency Xinhua. “Party secretary Xi Jinping personally took charge of the planning and personally took charge of the gatekeeping,” the report said.
Appointments to central government positions will be finalized in March during the annual session of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament. Xi will assume another term of presidency then.
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| The new PB standing committee |
Xi would, upon completion of this extended tenure of five years, have ruled over China for longer than any leader barring Mao, who held power for 33 years.
Xi's appointment as Shanghai’s top official 15 years ago at the age of 53, set him up for a seat on the PSC at the party congress held in 2007. He and Li Keqiang jumped two spots to reach the Standing Committee, then, which is rare.
Held every five years, the Congress has three main tasks: to endorse leadership transitions; to approve changes to the party constitution, and to deliberate on policy issues. In all, 2,338 delegates represented almost 97 million Communist Party members.
While Jiang Zemin, 96 and Zhu Rongji, 93, could not attend the Congress, Song Ping, 105, the most senior retired Politburo Standing Committee member was present.
In the Party hierarchy, the most important bodies are the NCCPC and the C C. The NCCPC elects the CC, while the general secretary, politburo, and Politburo Standing Committees are elected at the first plenum of the Central Committee held after the NCCPC.
Nested within the 25-member top body, Politburo is the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee (PSC). New PSC members replace those who retire according to a convention, qishang baxia, or “seven up, eight down”. The age of retirement is 68 years, and the oldest new entrant can be 67.
The changes this time resulted in a more homogeneous CC than ever in terms of age and experience. Members in their mid-50s and 60s occupy most of the seats in CC.
Blueprint for modernization
During these momentous changes, Xi gave China’s foreign policy a new direction than ever before. He also sought to increase Beijing’s global reach through his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Xi set priorities in a landmark 2013 speech to prevent China from meeting the same fate as the Soviet Union. Since rising to the top in 2012, Xi has cracked down on corruption in the CCP and introduced several new bodies in the party. As chair of China’s Central Military Commission, Xi controls the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Following the Party’s 18th National Congress, Xi, as general secretary, set forth a series of original strategies for governance, and China’s economic development became much more balanced and sustainable.
Xi's view that China faces a deteriorating external situation in its relations with the United States also set the scene.
China’s emergence as the second-largest economy with military might, over the last two decades, made the happenings at the Congress of compelling interest to the rest of the world. The Congress promised continuity, reorientation, and a paradigm shift in policy and governance.
The signals for changes to the long-term structural policy are in line with the major elements of Xi's thoughts in the 14th Five-Year Plan. Released in early 2021, it includes long-term objectives through 2035.
Hence, in his work report to the Congress, Xi said that the effort will be “to realize the Second Centenary Goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and to advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization."
Xi observed that the next five years will be crucial for ensuring that the efforts to build a modern socialist country in all respects get off to a good start.
It is because China is now following a zero Covid policy. China set a modest growth target of 5.5 per cent this year, but the World Bank said last month it would be just 2.8 per cent, much lower than the 5.3 per cent for “developing East Asia and the Pacific outside of China”.
Add to it, there are also concerns about a global recession, which has been reflected in China’s real estate sector, which constitutes 30 per cent of the country’s GDP, and commercial banks are exposed to it.
Though Congress has not put forth macroeconomic policy solutions, it reiterated “Common Prosperity,” the slogan that Mao gave during China’s years of great impoverishment, Deng resurrected to justify the economic reforms of the 1980s, and Xi promoted. In Xi’s view, “Common Prosperity” will be achieved only by closing out inequalities.
Gradually, Mao’s dream is getting fulfilled. At the eighth Congress in May 1958, he envisaged an industrialized nation, which he summarized by the slogan, “Three Red Banners,’ ie, “go all out, aim high, and build socialism with greater, faster, better and more economical results.”
Taiwan and strategic deterrence
At the close of the Congress, the Party added, “fully, faithfully, and resolutely implementing the policy of One Country, Two Systems; resolutely opposing and deterring separatists seeking Taiwan independence" to its constitution, the first time such an explicit reference has been included in the document to address tensions around the island.
Hinting at the amendment, in his report to the Congress, Xi favoured a hardline approach to relations with the West, particularly over Taiwan.
On Taiwan, Xi reiterated striving for complete reunification in a peaceful way, but said "we will never promise to renounce the use of force". Resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China's complete reunification is, for the Party, “a historic mission and an unshakable commitment”, he said.
He was obviously referring to the visit to Taiwan by the U S Speaker Nancy Pelosi in August which prompted China to launch military exercises around the island.
He pointed out that “resolving the Taiwan issue is a matter for Chinese people themselves, and must be resolved by Chinese people alone.”
Xi has said in the past that "reunification" with Taiwan "must be fulfilled" by 2049, the centenary of the People's Republic. A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would shatter US power in the western Pacific Ocean and beyond. Taiwan is part of the so-called "first island chain", which has been allied with the US for decades.
But, while the Congress was on, Taiwan signed a $77.8 million service contract with the U.S. to maintain the performance of its Patriot air-defence systems in intercepting missiles. Under the five-year contract, which will expire at the end of 2027, the U.S. will send experts to Taiwan.
On Hong Kong and Macao, Xi said, China will implement the policy of One Country, Two Systems, under which the people of Hong Kong administer Hong Kong and the people of Macao administer Macao. He warned that “we will crack down hard on anti-China elements who attempt to create chaos in Hong Kong and Macao”.
Beijing imposed an all-out national security law in Hong Kong after the turmoil in 2019.
China also has territorial claims in the South China Sea. Its “nine-dash line” laying claim was ruled unlawful by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in 2016, but Beijing has refused to recognise the decision.
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| The new PB standing committee members |
At the Congress, without naming the U.S., Xi remarked: "China... resolutely opposes all forms of hegemony and power politics, opposes the Cold War mentality, opposes interfering in other countries domestic politics, opposes double standards," and "will never seek hegemony and will never engage in expansion".
Just ahead of Congress, the American national security strategy issued by the Joe Biden Administration (US NSS) affirmed that China remains its greatest threat. In his foreword to the NSS, Biden says “Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown.” He names China, on the other hand, as “the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective”.
It means the Biden Administration now sees the Indo-Pacific as the principal strategic theatre.
On security, Xi said in his report: “We will establish a strong system of strategic deterrence, increase the proportion of new-domain forces with new combat capabilities, and speed up the development of unmanned, intelligent combat capabilities.”
The country’s 14th five-year plan report released last year emphasised the need to “build a high-standard strategic deterrence”.
Strategic deterrence is the will and ability to wield military power to prevent the use of force by another state and to dissuade adversaries from launching a nuclear attack.
And, China had become a nuclear power, exactly 58 years ago, on October 16, 1964.
The U.S. tried to show the crudest form of hegemony towards China by imposing tough export regulations targeting China’s semiconductor industry, just before the Party Congress. It was a gesture designed to humiliate China. The sweeping new export controls are aimed at cutting off China from obtaining chips used in supercomputers. The sanctions prevent the sales and service by US businesses to Chinese chip manufacturers. Aware of this, Beijing has made contingency plans to deflect the U.S. action. The U.S. is concerned that Chinese chip manufacturers were rather closer to attaining parity with US technologies than previously thought.
The Netherlands’ AMSL is the world’s biggest supplier of advanced chipmaking gear, and Washington is threatening the company with exclusion from the US market unless it bans sales to China.
The West is also peeved by other strategies led by China. The leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at the recent summit at Samarkand chalked out a road map to conduct bilateral trade and investment and issue bonds in local and national currencies instead of US dollars and UK Pounds or Euros, seeking an end to the dollar hegemony.
Former US President Donald Trump had deeply weaponised the dollar during Covid and trade with China was labelled a ‘war’. There have been unilateral sanctions placed on perceived threats and ‘enemy' countries. Countries like China, at the receiving end, have been preparing to hit back, and now it has become a reality.
The U.S. has a lot to worry about since it is the world's largest debtor nation, with an accumulated federal debt now topping $28 trillion. China holds $980.8 billion of U.S. Treasurys—3.2% of the total U.S. debt.
But, China is reducing its share in U.S. treasury bonds and preparing for currency swap facilities as part of the BRI and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership with South-East Asian countries. Most of the ASEAN countries are ready for this.
China is already a heavyweight, with its $19 trillion economy. For more than a century, no U.S. adversary or coalition of adversaries had reached 60 per cent of the US GDP. And yet, China reached this milestone quietly in 2014. When one adjusts for the relative price of goods, China’s economy is already 25 per cent larger than the U.S. It is clear, then, that China is the most belligerent competitor that the U. S. has ever faced.
President Biden's absurd declaration that Covid is over, makes it clear that the U. S. economy is sick.
Xiaokang-China shows the way
Contrary to the expectations of western analysts, Xi reiterated at the Congress that economic development is the Communist Party’s “top priority,” signalling that Beijing will continue to emphasize growth. “Development is the party’s top priority in governance,” he said.
Since Xi has been highlighting the need to balance security concerns with economic growth since 2020, Western analysts prophesied that Xi would drop the development-first focus.
But in his report to Congress, Xi stuck to the party’s goal for per-capita GDP to reach the level of a moderately developed country by 2035. At the same time, he mentioned the need to “balance development with security."
He said that China has entered a period of development in which strategic opportunities, risks and challenges are concurrent and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising.
Warning of various unpredictable dangerous events ("black swans") and foreseeable but unaddressed dangers ("grey rhinos") that may occur at any time, he urged Party members to be more mindful of potential dangers, be prepared to deal with worst-case scenarios, and be ready to "withstand high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms".
Xi repeated the party’s key economic policies, including “dual circulation.” Dual circulation involves expanding domestic demand, focusing on the domestic market, improving the country's capacity for innovation, reducing dependence on foreign markets, and at the same time remaining open to the outside world.
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| Xi and Li Qiang after the Congress |
Hard work brought dividends. China's GDP in 1952 was 67.9 billion yuan with per capita GDP at 119 yuan, while in 1978, the GDP increased to 367.9 billion yuan and the per capita GDP in that year was 385 yuan, according to a white paper on China's xiaokang issued in 2021.
At the same time, China's list of trading partners, which numbered in the 40s in 1978, grew to 231 economies in 2017. In 2010, China's per capita GDP tripled from India's $1,358.
Impact on Covid policy
At a recent Politburo meeting, Xi said the issue should be viewed as long-term and systematic and, from a political perspective, in terms of the relationship between pandemic control and economic development.
Congress didn't offer any policy changes like an easing of regulations and further cyclical stimulus. It was because the NCCPC is a forum for long-term structural policy, rather than short-term cyclical policy.
Alleviation of poverty
While the West waited for China’s impoverishment, the country took the lead in alleviating poverty. There was a feeling of contentment in the Congress, because the World Bank’s latest report, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022, recognised China to have reduced poverty at historically unprecedented levels.
Intending to provide lessons to other developing countries, the World Bank and China’s Ministry of Finance undertook a study in 2019 to understand how China did it and the study was published earlier this year.
The World Bank found that during 1978 - 2019, China’s poverty headcount dropped from 770 million to 5.5 million people. China lifted 765 million people from extreme poverty in the past four decades.
It means, on average, every year China pulled 19 million poor people out of extreme poverty. In doing so, China accounted for almost 75 per cent of the global reduction in extreme poverty.
In 2021, China declared that it has eradicated extreme poverty.
Taken together, improvements in health, education, and income during this period are reflected in China’s rising position on the Human Development Index from 106 (out of 144 countries) in 1990 to 85 (out of 189 countries) in 2019.
It is a lesson for global policymakers, especially for India, because China is comparable to India in terms of population size. Perhaps, China’s achievement was churning the mind of Dattatreya Hosabale, general secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), when he lamented thus, recently: “Over 20 crore (200 million) people who live here (in India) are below the below poverty line. Around 23 crores (230 million) people are having (just) an income of Rs 375 ($4.5) per day. The unemployment rate is also very distressing at 7.6 per cent. There is poverty, and unemployment in the country but we also need to discuss the rising inequality.”
The RSS is the Hindu nationalist organization that moulded the character of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
To add to India’s woes, the latest edition of the Global Hunger Index report, released by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, based in Germany, ranked India 107th out of 121 countries that could be ranked and 136 countries that were assessed. The Indian government responded by summarily dismissing the report, going so far as to claim that it was done to “taint India’s image”.
Against this backdrop, the 20th Party Congress was held on a strong foundation of scintillating achievements, and the march ahead for China will continue. Whether the West likes it or not, a $ 19.91 trillion economy and an assertive military will continue to make China, a formidable engine of growth and a compelling influencer of global happenings.
The US-led West is in terminal decline and the space for global leadership has opened up for an Eastern coalition led by China. As Mao said, “the east wind is now prevailing over the west wind.”
© Ramachandran
