Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives for the opening ceremony of the 20th National Congress of China's ruling Communist Party held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Oct. 16, 2022. (AP) Written by Hari Kumar
The party has begun in Beijing on Sunday, as 2,296 delegates representing over 90 million members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) assembled to vote on a leadership that will lead the country for the next five years.
Reams have been written about how the CCP will re-elect Xi Jinping as the general secretary for a third term, making him the most powerful Chinese president in history. As there is no sign of a successor being anointed, his reign will continue well into the next decade.
Still, it is wrong to perceive Xi would now rest contended. Rather, this should be seen as the beginning of his journey as the man who is destined to lead China back to the level they held a millennia ago.
His declared aims of Chinese rejuvenation and reestablishment of Communist ideals are clearly defined in “Xi Jinping Thoughts” that the CCP has accepted as its guiding light as they go forward. This has been reaffirmed in the work report Xi read out to the Congress on Sunday morning.
As a new administration under Xi gets ready to rule for the next five years, clues on how they will go ahead can be gleaned from the way Beijing handled Hong Kong protests and reacted to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
In Hong Kong’s case, Beijing has already discarded its 1997 promise to allow the city continue its status for 50 years and gone about stripping away its autonomy and judicial independence. All pro-democracy party leaders are in jail and the media neutered while the city’s government is run by so-called patriots, whose primary duty is to display loyalty to Beijing than safeguard the city’s interests.
In his report to the Congress, Xi claimed Hong Kong is now better place under the rule of patriots and has “achieved a major transition from chaos to order”. He also said after facing the turbulent situation in Hong Kong during the last five years, Beijing has effectively exercised the power of comprehensive governance over the city.
But his critics would point to the ground situation in Hong Kong where a combination of senseless Covid policies and drastic curtailing of freedoms is changing the city fundamentally. Professionals from almost every sector like health, accounting and media are deserting the city, while schools are seeing a steady exodus of students and teachers. The population of Hong Kong has recorded the sharpest annual drop as both local and expatriate families leave the city in droves.
The Quixotic Covid regulations are policies fashioned more to reflect the severe quarantine rules on mainland China rather than science or available data. With Singapore opening its borders and lifting all restrictions including mandatory masking, Hong Kong is losing out as finance conferences and major sporting events switch to the Lion City.
As expected, Xi also doubled down on his aim to bring democratically-run Taiwan under China, saying the party is determined on this.
“We will not renounce the use of force and will take all necessary measures to stop all separatist movements,” he said, as delegates welcomed his words with thunderous applause. He also warned against “external intervention” in a warning to Washington as the US has made it clear that it will protect Taiwan’s interests and the issue has become a major flashpoint between the two.
The unprecedented live fire military drills held as a reaction to Pelosi’s visit to Taipei showed China will not back down an inch though the Communist Party has never ruled the island and majority of the Taiwanese reject single party rule.
Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd – who is a Mandarin scholar and is the only world leader to have held one-to-one meeting with Xi without aides – recently said though tensions are high on the Taiwan straits, both China and the US wouldn’t want to see a war over the issue immediately as both fear the economic chaos it will bring.
But he told The Economist magazine that Xi would bide his time and predicted that China would be ready for a direct confrontation with the US by 2030s after shoring up its economy and military.
“There is a tactical short-term interest in stabilising this relationship, while China prepares long term for what they do see, in my judgement, to be an inevitable confrontation with the United States over Taiwan in the 2030s,” said Rudd.
While such warnings and news of constant forays into the Taiwanese territory by Chinese war planes and navy ships fill the airwaves, the people on the island seem to be less bothered about the political proceedings taking place in Beijing and are more engaged in news about local elections that is taking place in November.
But China’s belligerent attitude on this issue and its Wolf Warrior diplomacy globally has led to more foreign dignitaries, including Indian MP Sujeet Kumar, visiting Taiwan to establish relations with the island’s officials and organisations. China, as usual, issues rebukes every time a delegation visits the island and even in the last few days, its representatives in India and Canada were at it, reiterating Taiwan is a province of China.
After the Congress ends in a week, Xi will walk out triumphantly to present the new Politburo standing committee, which will steer the country for the next five years. The composition of the committee won’t have much influence on future China policies as Xi has signalled it will be a top down administration from now on.
In the report, Xi promised to present a China that is “credible, appealing and respectable” and that the country will not engage in expansionism. But if one goes by the pattern of Chinese behaviour in the last decade, Xi has to do a lot more to show that he means what he says.
The writer worked as a journalist in Hong Kong for over two decades