‘Emperors are not always forever’

Deng Xiaoping was the real architect of the economic reforms that propelled the economic miracle of modern China. The Communist Party has long been the final decision maker in all aspects of Chinese society. However, after Mao Zedong died, Deng and his immediate successors built some checks and balance mechanisms in the Party. They were hoping to avoid a repeat of Mao’s one-man autocratic rule that led to turbulence during the time of the so-called Cultural Revolution.

Deng’s system was to have the Communist Party and the government systems work as partners. The Party leaders would set broad policy agendas. Government ministries would refine and implement these policies which would be monitored by the Party leaders.

Xi Jinping has changed this power of the government agencies to take the initiative. Instead, he has drastically expanded the power of the Communist Party to the extent that some government agencies have even been absorbed by the Communist Party.

The role of private companies in China made them the drivers of China’s economic miracle. It was the private sector that created jobs and paid a large share of the nation’s taxes. Xi has changed all of that with the message that businesses must necessarily follow the Party’s agenda and policies.

One example was what happened to Jack Ma and his corporate giant Alibaba. The Communist Party must have felt that Jack Ma was getting too popular and was working outside the Party structure while propagating his own personal views on how to strengthen the Chinese economy. Ma’s company was fined billions of dollars for violating anti-monopoly laws and Ma was forced to step down as head of Alibaba.

Private companies have been required to install and expand Communist Party groups inside their organizations. This gives political leaders even more control, even over business decisions.

Xi Jinping has elevated the use of modern technology to operate a surveillance system inside China. People can be watched on the streets and even inside buildings and workplaces. There are stories that this surveillance system is so sophisticated it can watch people online and even abroad. In this way, Xi Jinping and his leaders have power not only over the Party and the government, but also over everyday folks.

There was a time when it was possible for China to take a different direction from the one it is presently on. From the mid 1960s, Mao had absolute control over all the power groups in China. However, when Deng Xiaoping became China’s de facto leader in 1978, he tried to change Mao’s one-man lifelong dictatorship.

Deng restricted China’s presidency to two five-year terms and established a form of collective leadership. Although he remained as the power behind the throne, other officials served as the head of the Communist Party. There was Hu Yaobang and then, Zhao Ziyang. In 1987, the process changed for selecting members of the Central Committee, the party’s nominal overseer and the body from which Politburo members were chosen.

For the first time, the party proposed more candidates than there were seats. It should be noted that in the 1997 election, Xi barely won and had the fewest votes of those elected to the Politburo. It was said by some observers that this was because there was a general distaste within the Party for “princelings.” These were the descendants of top Communist Party leaders who rose due to nepotism rather than merit.

Deng Xiaoping also sought to prevent any leader from forming a personality cult similar to the one created by Mao. In 1982, there was a ban on personality cults which was written into the Communist Party constitution.

When Hu Jintao became the president in 2002, China moved even further toward collective leadership. When Xi Jinping first became president, many observers outside China thought that he would continue loosening the state’s grip on the economy and democratizing the political system.

In hindsight, we now realize that that was a major misreading of Xi Jinping. It turns out that he was an ardent student of Mao Zedong and was also eager to establish absolute power. He used several methods to achieve his aim.

Cai Xia, a former professor at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party, wrote about some of these methods in “Foreign Affairs.” According to him, Xi said that the internet was an existential threat to the Communist Party. Xi therefore cracked down on bloggers and online activities, censored dissent and straightened China’s “Great Firewall” to restrict access to foreign websites. Xia said, “The effect was to strangle a nascent civil society and eliminate public opinion as a check on Xi.”

Another method was to launch an anti-corruption campaign which Xi was able to use as an excuse for a political purge. This purge involved some of the most powerful officials that Xi deemed as threats.

In any political system, absolute and unchecked power is dangerous. Free from the constraint of consensus, a dictator is free to implement policies that may be unwise or unpopular. For example, the introduction of market reforms under Deng Xiaoping was one of the Communist Party’s major achievements which allowed hundreds of millions of Chinese to escape poverty.

Xi Jinping seems to see the private sector as a potential threat to his absolute rule. The current slowdown of the Chinese economy is a potential threat to Xi’s absolute power. If Xi decides to revive the economy without empowering the private sector, he may make unwise decisions like strengthening the centralization of the Chinese economy. This could lead to a long period of political upheaval.

There is an old Chinese saying: “Emperors are not always forever.”

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