As China’s ruling Communist Party prepares to celebrate its centenary on July 1, experts warn that President Xi Jinping’s stay in power, unlike his predecessors, could potentially lead to the absence of a future successor. can be “very unstable”. .
Ironically, in its 100th year, the Communist Party of China (CPC), as it is officially called, relies on Xi as much as its founding leader and ideological ideologue ‘President’ Mao Zedong , who held a vice like hold on China. After the founding of the party in 1921 till his death in 1976.
On the brink of collapse after disastrous ideological experiments such as the Great Leap Forward of 1958, the mass mobilization of labor to improve agricultural and industrial production, but ended with a string of poor harvests, resulting in famine and the ‘Cultural Revolution of 1966’ ‘ Hui, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1.5 million people, the party was revived by moderate paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.
Deng, who won a bitter power struggle against the ‘Gang of Four’ led by Mao’s widow Jiang Qing and guided the party until 1997, reversed Mao’s radical Marxism, calling it a pragmatic ideology of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Replaced with and reduced the damage caused by it. Mao helped unleash the potential of China, the world’s most populous country, to emerge as the second largest economy.
Deng’s other political invention of the collective leadership structure that kept the party intact after his death in 1997 to accommodate all groups and sections of the 90 million-member CPC went back to a leader party in 2012 with the rise of Xi. China approved the removal of the two-term limit on the presidency in 2018, effectively allowing 68-year-old Xi to remain in power for life.
While Xi’s supporters project his leadership as the need of the hour for China, which is facing global adversities, analysts warn that unlike predecessors, remaining in power after two terms is potentially unstable. Is going to do. It was common practice that the successor of the General Secretary of the CPC is named during the second term of the party leadership.
With no clear successor visible, observers expect Xi to remain as a paramount leader during the party’s governing body reshuffle as the two-party Congress next year will highlight how he will deal with the succession. And how do you plan to avoid the inner crisis? Party. Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post said in its report on Friday that this could prove to be their biggest challenge and will shape the party in the coming decades.
Xi has said that one way to evaluate the political system is to see whether the leadership is law-abiding and orderly in succession. But unlike his predecessors, Xi did not endorse a successor at the end of his first term in 2017, and observers do not expect a new leadership line-up to emerge next year either.
According to Steve Tsang, this could spell trouble for the party. When succession finally comes, it can potentially be very unstable if the structure and/or process is not clear and well-defined, Tsang told the Post.
His view was echoed by Niss Gruenberg, a senior analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies. Gruenberg said the boundary and succession criteria Xi gave himself more time to establish his vision of the party-state and his national project for China.
But they have also reintroduced enormous uncertainty into the leadership system, which could eventually destabilize the leadership system as soon as Xi has lost his irresistible powerhouse. According to a joint report by the Center for Strategic International Studies in the US and the Lowy Institute in Australia, bringing in new blood will be crucial to avoid a succession crisis, something that will have widespread implications, given China’s economic height.
The global impact of the 21st century succession crisis will be enormous, the think-tank said in an April report. But let’s also assume that Xi retires partially or completely in 2027 or 2032, this is because he will continue to wield enormous power, as Deng Xiaoping did after 1989. As a calm and fearless Vice President Xi has emerged as the most powerful leader under the previous regime led by Hu Jintao, the party has returned as a leader, discarding the collective leadership formula devised by Deng.
Xi has molded himself into Mao’s with a promise to lead the world and restore the Chinese dream to prevent a collapse like the Soviet Communist Party in 1992. Assuming power as leader of the CPC and head of the Central Military Commission, the overall high command of the Chinese military in addition to the Presidency, Xi, who launched the largest anti-corruption campaign to purge more than 1.5 million party officials, asserted himself. placed on top. The massive purge has also helped him emerge as the party’s main leader, a position only achieved by Mao, placing himself ahead of the rest of the senior leaders, including number two Premier Li Keqiang.
He also strengthened the People’s Liberation Army with massive modernization and reforms, setting a deadline of 2027 to emerge as the best army in the world at par with the US military. Before Shatabdi, which is set to complete its second five-year term next year, has already made a strong case for its continuation in dealing with the adversity facing China and the CPC due to the COVID-19 origins, Genocide charges against Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, the complete annexation of Hong Kong with a controversial national security law and their campaign to annex the self-administered island of Taiwan and integrate it with the mainland. In his speech to the party in January this year, Xi said time and speed were on China’s side while the world was facing unprecedented turmoil.
The world is in a turbulent time that is unprecedented in the last century. But time and speed are with us. This is where we show our determination and resilience, as well as our determination and confidence,” he said, adding that China has the coronavirus while the world is battling it. Western analysts compared his speech to that of French emperor Napoleon. With the declaration that the conditions are right to make the most of a world that was in flux.
Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London, said Xi is now cautiously very optimistic. He sees the general environment and development as positive and challenges for China to play a new historical role, but is confident that under him, China will be able to make the most of it. This is to explain Napoleon’s declaration that the conditions are right for an already sleeping lion to roar and he will see if it does, Tsang previously told the Post.
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