Marion Gabriel, NYC Daily Post Contributor
On October 16, Xi officially secured another five years as leader of the CCP, a position likely to lead in even more confident foreign policy moves to reshape international politics and global governance. Seeking to favor China’s interests and extend communism, Xi Jinping’s ambitions already translate into aggressive foreign policy decisions unlikely to unleash tensions with the U.S amid war in Ukraine.
The Party Congress
Opening on October 16 in Beijing, the Party Congress celebrated the world’s largest political party, gathering over 96 million Chinese citizens. It also embarked Xi Jinping on his third term as general secretary of the Party. Still now, the congress performs a double function: it examines the party’s work over the past five years regarding the guiding ideologic line and selects the leadership team to set the agenda for the subsequent five years.
Xi’s re-election came as no surprise. While his predecessors stepped down after two five-year terms, the Chinese parliament received a proposal in March 2018 during Xi’s first term to remove the term limits on the presidency. The proposal was approved with 2958 votes in favor, two votes against and three abstentions, paving the way for Xi to rule indefinitely after the end of his second term.
The Party Congress was more a consolidation of Xi’s power than its reassessment. For 1 hour and 45 minutes, Xi reiterated his thoughts on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. Stressing the importance of rejuvenation and modernization to China’s role as leader of a new era, Xi summarized his 10 years of leadership while giving a blueprint of what is to come: the transformation of world order under Chinese global leadership.
A more intense Marxism and nationalism
Chinese-style modernization, the unification of vision within the party, has been China’s goal since the Opium wars. Since 1949 and the CCP’s rise to power, this modernization ideal has been emphasized in multiple instances. Xi’s predecessor, Deng Xiaoping, started the Four Modernizations- industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology in the late 1970s. This program shifted away from Mao Zedong’s emphasis on class struggle and aimed at modernizing the country.
But Xi’s unified vision announces a new era for Chinese politics. Insistence on the strengthening of the party, the push forward of collective socialist values, and the ridding of nonbelievers have all reached the ideological realm. Mao is the architect of a project to transform not only the nation but also international society. Through rejuvenation and reinvigoration of key socialist aspects of society, Xi walks in Mao’s footsteps. Descriptions of the Party’s leader, subject to propaganda, have defined him as the ‘Pilot of the Great Revival“, a direct reference to the Marxist revolutionary Mao Zedong. It is directly linked to the Chinese propaganda film Beginning of the Great Revival, relating the foundation of the People’s Republic of China by Mao.
Perhaps Mao’s preservation of Chinese communism and traditions and slow takeover of strategic industries and trade guarantee a socialist transition by peaceful means, contrary to Mao. But, after all, Xi shows that China’s history is one of socialist revolutions.
Xi’s Marxism is coupled with intense nationalism. China is still under strict COVID measures to slow the spread of the virus. The zero-Covid policy rapidly became a tool for continuous domestic pressure, and the exclusion of foreign nationals. Xi’s ideological fundamentalism has been felt throughout the country. China’s biggest cities have been put into lockdown, including the financial, manufacturing, and shipping hub of Shanghai. Chinese economic growth has slowed down, facing “policy stimulus and multiple growth headwinds including Covid restrictions, a property market downturn, and slowing exports,” Minyue Liu from BNP Paribas Asset Management told the BBC.
Political freedoms in Hong Kong have been repressed, too. A suffocating system of surveillance was imposed on its citizens, to ease the displacement of one million Uyghur Muslims in internment camps. Accused of committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, China’s aggressive policies worry some of its international partners.
An assertive approach to foreign policy by destabilizing US-China relations
China’s territorial claims on Taiwan have proven more confident. Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said the country’s military “definitely has its red line” when it comes to the island’s defense”. As Taiwan makes clear that countermeasures will be envisaged as soon as the red line is crossed, military pressure is on the verge of dramatic escalation, putting China high on the international policy agenda in Europe and America especially. Sending Chinese military flights and drones into Taiwan’s airspace in October this year, Beijing seeks to create conflict.
Claiming that he would never renounce the right to use force in Taiwan, Xi affirmed that China was “willing to work with the US to give mutual respect, coexist peacefully… (and) find ways to get along in the new era”. The escalation dimensions in case of attack on Taiwan are massive. According to some experts, a general war would unleash, with disastrous consequences on a global economy already weakened. “My judgement is that we’ve entered into the most destabilizing period in US-China relations in half a century”, summarized Kevin Rudd, Australia’s former Prime Minister.
Amid war in Ukraine, Beijing’s pro-Russia’ neutrality is also deeply worrying. Due to mutual interests against the West, Xi’s current stance is neutrality while maintaining close relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Protecting what he considers an ally, Putin has repeatedly warned the United States against meddling in China’s affairs while he has explicitly backed Xi over the fate of Taiwan lost in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.
Undoubtedly, China’s Twentieth Party Congress was more an occasion to reflect on China’s progress in its global social revolution than questioning Xi’s power. While Beijing grows more assertive in achieving its objectives through aggressive dealings with the United States, Xi’s leadership in the next five years is likely to determine China’s position in the world for the rest of the century.
Feature Image: Christian Lue, Unsplash.com
Edited by: Steven London
