Oriental Despotism

Xi Jinping and the Perils of One-Person Rule in China
By Jiayang Fan

Xi Jinping’s particular asset—and what may sustain his support—is the deferred dream of true solidarity that Mao Zedong promised nearly seventy years ago and that generations have held onto.

Last year, during several trips in which I travelled across China by train, two things in particular caught my attention. 

First, the red hammer and sickle—the universal symbol of the Communist Party—seemed to be proliferating on posters in cities, towns, and villages with the kind of vigor that I hadn’t seen since my childhood, growing up in an army hospital in Chongqing. 

Second, the only image I saw more frequently—in elementary-school classrooms, in airports and shopping malls, on billboards on highways and in rice paddies—was the face of Xi Jinping. 

Each image was identical: the country’s supreme leader, with raven-black hair and a face fastidiously airbrushed to erase any hint of human blemish, smiling calmly, against a sky-blue background: an unimpeachable deity in an officially atheist state.
The announcement, made last Sunday, that the Party is proposing to abolish term limits for the Presidency further confirms the notion that Xi aims to be something other than just another leader in a parade of apparatchiks. 

In October, when he presided over the nineteenth Communist Party Congress, where his doctrines were enshrined in the constitution, I wrote that Xi’s status licensed him to “play an almost imperial role in shaping the fate of the nation.” 

Shortly after the term-limits announcement, a widely shared image of China’s last Emperor, Pu Yi, with the caption “Emperor calls: ‘Is my Qing Dynasty returning?,’ ” was banned on WeChat, China’s most popular messaging app.
The People’s Daily, however, noted of the move to abolish term limits that the “Party’s proposition is in accordance with the people’s will.” 

It is true that, while China’s liberal intelligentsia laments Xi’s increasingly repressive policies—which have curbed human rights and undermined the rule of law in the most severe crackdown on civil society in decades—the majority of Chinese people, who do not live in the élite coastal cities or have access to news beyond the Great Firewall, take comfort and pride in Xi’s projection of strength. Still, if Xi wants to extend his rule indefinitely, there are a few historic truths that he will need to confront.
The Communist People’s Republic of China was founded in a theatrical break with history. 

In 1949, Mao Zedong stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace and declared that the “Chinese people have finally stood up,” a slogan that became the origin story of the modern nation. 

Equating the people’s independence with the Communist takeover was imprinted in the minds of every man, woman, and child. 

To my mother’s and my grandmother’s generations, the Party is what saved the nation from existential peril. 

China’s current leaders, including Xi, remain the beneficiaries of that origin story.
Sun Yat-sen, the first President of the Republic of China, had laid the groundwork for it a couple of decades earlier, in his manifesto “The Three Principles of the People.” 

He wrote, “If we do not earnestly promote nationalism and weld together our four hundred million into a strong nation, we face a tragedy—the loss of our country and the destruction of our race.” 

`Xi echoed that conviction at last year’s Communist Party Congress, promising to “strive with endless energy” to restore China to its rightful superpower status by 2049, and invoking Sun’s principle of “national rejuvenation.” 

But Sun also highlighted the greatest challenge to that plan. 

“Despite four hundred million people gathered in one China, we are, in fact, but a sheet of loose sand,” he wrote. 

This is a point that Xi may do well to heed. 

He is stridently confident and has broad support among the population now, but, by attempting to concentrate political power in his own hands, in a nation of not four hundred million but 1.4 billion people, Xi is assigning himself the sole responsibility of protecting an origin story that has largely been a myth.
In the more than a century since Sun’s rule, China’s loose sand seems hardly to have settled into concrete. 

The market reforms that Deng Xiaoping introduced, in the late nineteen-seventies, ushered in a period of prosperity (there are now nearly six hundred billionaires in China), and Xi, with his immensely ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, clearly intends to go far beyond Deng’s goals and make China the economic engine of the world. 

But, despite the improvement in the average standard of living, China has gone from being a collectivist state that aspired to be egalitarian to being one of the most baldly unequal societies in the world. 

According to a report from Peking University, the poorest twenty-five per cent of households own just one per cent of the country’s total wealth, and the income gap is increasing. 

And the wealth is accumulating among the coastal élites, while the economy in the remote rural regions, many of which are inhabited by minority populations, remains stagnant. 

China’s Han majority has always been culturally dominant, but the nation is home to fifty-five officially recognized ethnic minorities, and the culturally distinct and significantly poorer western borderlands of Tibet and Xinjiang are the scene of increasingly violent unrest.
One-person rule is also prone to the kind of excesses and paranoia that may not only alienate the citizenry but undermine the institutions that previously insured the country’s stability. 

The crackdown has affected not only pro-democracy activists but also Xi’s high-ranking opponents in the Party. 

The military, which Xi heads, has taken an aggressive stance in territorial disputes in both the East China Sea and the South China Sea. 

Internet censorship is increasingly absurd—this week saw the banning of not only Winnie-the-Pooh (because he has been compared to Xi) but, reportedly, the English letter “N” (because it may denote the number of terms Xi may want to remain in office), along with the words “shameless” and “disagreement.” 

The portraits of Xi that I saw all across China serve as a reminder that a government’s need for propaganda tends to be inversely proportional to the strength of its political mandate.
China’s slated return to a one-person autocracy is sobering but hardly exceptional, given the rise of populist strongmen around the world. 

Xi’s particular asset—and what may sustain his support—is the deferred dream of true solidarity that Mao promised the nation nearly seventy years ago and that generations have held onto. 

But then, as now, authoritarian command of the nation requires not that the Chinese people “stand up” but that they bow to authority.

Rogue Nation

Xi Jinping’s Strongman Rule Raises New Fears of Hostility and Repression
By JANE PERLEZ and JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ

Xi Jinping’s efforts to indefinitely extend his rule as China’s leader, announced on Sunday, raised fresh fears in China of a resurgence of strongman politics — and fears abroad of a new era of hostility and gridlock.
Xi, who has been president since 2013, has tried to cultivate an image as a benevolent father figure who is working to promote China’s peaceful rise.
But the ruling Communist Party’s decision to open a path to a third term for Xi heightened a sense of resentment in China among academics, lawyers, journalists and business executives. 

Many have watched warily as Xi has used his power to imprison scores of dissidents, stifle free speech and tighten oversight of the economy, the world’s second largest.
Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing, said the change to the Constitution would turn Xi into a “super-president.”
“He will have no limits on his power,” he said.
Government censors rushed to block criticism of the decision. 

Internet memes depicted Xi as an emperor with no regard for the rule of law and showed a portrait of Xi replacing Mao’s hallowed image in Tiananmen Square. 

Another repurposed an ad for Durex condoms, adding a tag line — “Twice is not enough” — to poke fun at the idea of Xi angling for a third term.
The party’s move comes as Xi has proclaimed an era of China’s greatness, when the country, he says, will take what he sees as its rightful place as a top global power. 

Already, it is establishing military bases in the Western Pacific and Africa, building infrastructure across Asia, parts of Europe and Africa, and running what Xi hopes will be the world’s No. 1 economy within two decades or sooner.
“China feels it is on the road to great power status and they want to perpetuate the trajectory they are on,” said David Finkelstein, director of China Studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Va.
Analysts outside China said they worried that allowing Xi one-man rule might worsen an increasingly tense relationship between the United States and China.
After years of efforts by the United States to engage China on issues from market reform to climate change to human rights, the Trump administration turned on Beijing last December and called China a strategic competitor in its first national security document.
Washington policymakers are preparing plans to impose tariffs on some Chinese imports, limit Chinese investments in the United States, particularly in technology, and spend more on the United States military to sustain its big advantage over the People’s Liberation Army.
In Congressional testimony earlier this month, the director of the F.B.I., Christopher Wray, described China as “not just a whole of government threat but a whole of society threat.”
Trump may well see Xi’s consolidation of power as part of a global trend toward increasingly influential leaders, in which he might include himself along with Xi and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian leader, said James Mann, the author of “The China Fantasy,” which contradicted the popular view that increasing prosperity would lead to political liberalization in China.
“I’m guessing he will not deplore the lack of democracy in China, because that’s the sort of thing he rarely if ever does,” Mr. Mann said of Trump.
Mr. Mann also said Trump might not have much problem with what Xi had accomplished.
“Over the past 14 months in office, Trump has almost never voiced the sort of support for our constitutional system that has been a staple in the statements of past presidents,” Mr. Mann said. 

“He does not respect the dignity or integrity of political opponents. He does not express support for the independence of the courts or the freedom of the press.”
So if anything, he said, “I think Trump is probably jealous.”
From Clinton to Bush to Obama, the prevailing belief was engagement with China would make China more like the West.

Donald J. Trump and Xi Jinping walking off stage after a meeting with business leaders in Beijing last year. 

Instead, as Mr. Mann predicted, China has gone in the opposite direction.
Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said Xi likely did not care how the world would interpret his designation as a potential ruler in perpetuity.
With an unlimited term in office, Xi would almost certainly be in office beyond 2024, the year Trump would leave the White House if he won a second term.
“This objectively makes him stronger than Trump, who has no reason to like the change,” Mr. Shi said.
At home, Xi will likely have considerable support for a third term, the result of a yearslong campaign to sideline political rivals and limit dissent. 

And nationalists cheered the decision, describing Xi as a singular force who could restore the glory of the nation.
But as the news spread, readings of Hannah Arendt who wrote about the evils of totalitarian rule, and passages from George Washington, who retired after two terms as president, were discussed on social media in Chinese legal circles.
Douglas H. Paal, a China expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the sudden move, before Xi even starts his second term next month, suggested that things were not “normal” within the Communist Party.
“This looks like forced marching, not normal order, so something is going on,” Mr. Paal said. 

“Xi is winning, but it will take sleuthing to find out what. These are not ordinary times.”
A series of visits by senior Chinese officials to Washington in the past month to try and persuade the Trump administration to slow down plans to introduce punitive measures that could result in a trade war had failed, Mr. Paal said.
“This could get complicated when U.S. initiatives meet unconventional times in China,” he said.
Still, Xi is popular in many areas — his fans affectionately call him “Uncle Xi” — and his brand of folksy nationalism wins accolades, especially in rural areas. 

Experts said Xi would likely benefit from the perception in China that the rest of the world is chaotic.
“With a population amazed at the incompetent mess in much of the rest of the world, and intoxicated by nationalism, for Xi to effect this change will be seen as reasonable,” said Kerry Brown, a professor of Chinese politics at King’s College, London.
But Xi’s assumption of unfettered power may not work out the way he thinks, said Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and a former senior Australian defense official.
“The risks to his personal fortunes are huge,” he said. 

“What if the People’s Liberation Army decides he should be cut loose?”

And, he added, “What if growth slows more than expected?”
If Xi comes under pressure at home or abroad, he could become unpredictable, and even dangerous, Mr. Jennings said. 

The reach for more personal power could be the start of his downfall.
“The West can take no comfort in that because Xi’s situation means he may take more risks in the South China Sea or over Taiwan,” he said. 

“He has nothing to lose and everything to gain by engaging in more Putin-like brinkmanship.”
Moreover, he added, “Where does one ever see the ‘president for life’ model end well?”

The Great Dictator

Xi Jinping should heed the lessons from history, former official says
By Simon Denyer

Bao Tong, the most senior Communist party official to be jailed for sympathizing with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, at his apartment in Beijing. 

BEIJING — Twice Bao Tong rose within the Chinese Communist Party’s hierarchy, and twice he was dramatically cut down. 

He has endured long spells in jail and “re-education” for failing to fall into line behind the hard-liners holding power.
So it is perhaps no surprise that this 85-year-old views the Chinese president’s latest attempt to impose his dogma on the entire nation — under the banner of Xi Jinping Thought — with a considerable degree of skepticism.
“In China’s history of more than 3,000 years, there were other leaders who tried to use their own thoughts to regulate the thoughts of others,” he said in an interview in his modest Beijing apartment. “But none were successful. There were only failed attempts.”
Bao was the most senior Communist Party official to be incarcerated for sympathizing with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, thrown into jail May 28, a week before a military crackdown that left hundreds if not thousands dead.
He was to remain in solitary confinement for seven years, and even today lives under constant surveillance, with three agents following him on foot and others in a car whenever he leaves his home. 

Yet he still manages an occasional interview with the foreign media, his manner affable, his opinions trenchant, and with a cigarette never far from his lips.
In the late 1980s, Bao had worked as a top aide to Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, helping push China in a more liberal, reformist direction — until the June 4 crackdown ended that dream. 

Zhao was demoted, purged and placed under house arrest for expressing sympathy for the students’ demands and opposing Deng Xiaoping’s decision to send in the troops.
Bao was thrown into Beijing’s maximum-security Qincheng Prison, a destination for many of the nation’s most important political prisoners.
Today, a photograph of Zhao sits proudly on a shelf in his apartment, and he talks affectionately of a man who “treated everyone as equals” and wanted to turn over decision-making power from the party to the people.
There is no such affection in his comments about Xi Jinping, whom he describes as a “hard-liner” and a throwback to Mao Zedong.
Last month, the Communist Party enshrined Xi’s name in its constitution as it granted him five more years in power: Xi Jinping Thought now sits alongside Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory in the party’s ideological canon.
“It is called Xi Jinping Thought, the new thought, but they are just old ideas, not new ideas,” said Bao. 

“Ideas like ‘the party leads everything’ — they are exact quotes from Mao Zedong. Why call them new ideas?”
Bao knows only too well the madness that can be unleashed when one man rises to absolute power over the Chinese people, and when officials are too scared to tell him when he is wrong.
“The mistakes Mao made were all huge,” he said. 

“Mao didn’t recognize his mistake when the Great Leap Forward led to a famine that caused millions of deaths; he didn’t recognize his mistake in the Cultural Revolution in which tens of millions were purged.”
In 1966, only days after the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Bao, who was working as a bureaucrat, was denounced as a “capitalist roader.”
Barred from his office, he spent a year cleaning toilets, another year doing hard labor in a re-education camp and the better part of a decade working the fields of rural China. 

He was only rehabilitated, like millions of others, after Mao’s death in 1976.
“There was only one slogan at that time — ‘Down with anyone who opposes Chairman Mao,’ ” he said. 

“But in the end Mao failed, too. He failed so badly his wife was labeled a counterrevolutionary, and so he himself became part of a counterrevolutionary family.”
Mao’s widow Jiang Qing was arrested after his death for her role in the Cultural Revolution and sentenced to life imprisonment, finally committing suicide in 1991.
Bao also draws lessons from much further back in his nation’s history to warn of the dangers of unchecked power, starting with King Li of the Zhou dynasty, who ruled in the 9th century B.C. 

The General History of China, an 18th-century text by French Jesuit historian Jean-Baptiste Du Halde, describes Li as proud, conceited and cruel.
Indeed, so conscious was he of how much he was hated, he forbade his subjects “on pain of death to converse together, or even whisper to one another,” Du Halde wrote, so that people could be seen walking the streets with downcast eyes, “in mournful silence.”
Eventually, peasants and soldiers rose up against Li, and he died in exile.
Emperor Qin Shi Huang is remembered as the first ruler of a united China in the 3rd century B.C., and for his mausoleum guarded by the Terracotta Army, but he also banned and burned books, and executed scholars.
The Hongwu Emperor, who established the Ming dynasty in the 14th century, expected total obedience from his subjects, inflicting torture and death on those who opposed him, including, it is said, some of his own advisers.
But in the end, Bao said, these rulers’ dynasties foundered and were overthrown.
“If you want to imitate Chairman Mao, that’s okay, but the problem is whether you will succeed,” Bao said, referring to Xi. 

“I can’t say whether his attempt will succeed or not. Only time will tell.”
Bao blames Deng for ending the dream of political change in China, and for instigating an era of corruption and growing economic inequality that “broke” Chinese society.
But he has no faith in Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, which the government says has led to some form of punishment for more than a million officials.
“It’s a selective anti-corruption campaign. Its nature is the selective protection of corruption,” he said. 

“When you purge some corrupt officials, you are protecting the others. You protect the corrupt system, and you protect corrupt people who support you.”
Bao was one of the first signatories of Charter 08, a manifesto for democratic changes issued in late 2008. 

The only way to fight corruption properly, he says, is for independent supervision of the effort.
“Power tends to corrupt,” he said, quoting Britain’s Lord Acton, “and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”