China’s communist leader, Xi Jinping, looks to have further strengthened his rule over the world’s second largest economy with the apparent confirmation that a new body of political theory bearing his name will be written into the party’s constitution.
On day two of a week-long political summit in Beijing marking the end of Xi’s first term, state media announced the creation of what it called Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.
“The Thought is … a historic contribution to the party’s development,” Zhang Dejiang, one of the seven members of China’s top ruling council, the politburo standing committee, told delegates at the 19th party congress, according to Beijing’s official news agency, Xinhua.
Liu Yunshan, another standing committee member, said the elevation of Xi’s Thought into the party’s list of “guiding principles” was of “great political, theoretical and practical significance”. “All members of the party should study hard Xi’s ‘new era’ thought,” he was quoted as saying.
Experts say the decision to grant Xi his own eponymous school of thought, while arcane-sounding, represents a momentous and highly symbolic occasion in the politics and history of the world’s most populous nation.
Only two previous leaders – Chairman Mao and Deng Xiaoping – have been honoured in such a way, with theories called Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory. The names of Xi’s immediate predecessors – Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin – were not attached to the political philosophies they bequeathed to the party.
The official inception of Xi Jinping Thought – which now seems certain to be formally added to the party’s charter next week – also reinforces suspicions that Xi will seek to stay in power beyond the end of his second term, in 2022.
“It is a huge deal,” said Orville Schell, a veteran China expert who has been studying Chinese politics since the late 1950s. “It is sort of like party skywriting. If you get your big think in the constitution it becomes immortal and Xi is seeking a certain kind of immortality.”
However, Schell, the head of the Asia Society’s Center on US-China Relations, said the decision to honour Xi was not only noteworthy “because it makes Xi Jinping look like a thought leader comparable to Chairman Mao. It also suggests that [China’s political system] Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is a viable counter-model to the presumption of western liberal democracy and capitalism. In a sense, what Xi is setting up here is not only a clash of civilisation and values, but one of political and economic systems.”
In an unexpectedly lengthy opening address to China’s 19th party congress on Wednesday, Xi offered a bold and assertive vision of his nation’s future, heralding the dawn of a “new era” of Chinese prosperity and power in which Beijing would move “closer to centre stage”. In one section Xi described China’s authoritarian one-party system as “a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence”.
Jeff Wasserstrom, a professor of modern Chinese history at the University of California, Irvine, said the move to honour China’s leader underlined the “radical shift” that had taken place in Chinese politics since a relatively unknown Xi took power in November 2012.
In the five years since, Xi has overseen a severe political chill and built a reputation as one of the country’s most dominant leaders since Mao.
Wasserstrom said western historians tended to refer to two major periods in China’s post-revolution history. “If I’m writing something, I’ll say: the Mao era (1949-1976). And then: the Reform era (1979-onwards). The question now is: does this mean we have reached another inflection point where we need to start thinking of this as the Xi Jinping era?”
Wasserstrom said he sensed that the answer was yes. China’s last two administrations were referred to by the names of both their top two leaders: Hu-Wen, in the case of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, and Jiang-Zhu in the case of Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji. Now it was “just Xi … Xi, Xi, Xi, Xi, Xi.”
Schell said the birth of Xi Jinping Thought was “a sign of enormous consolidation, of impressive amounts power in his hands”. “But it is also a curious recognition of weakness,” he added. “To need such power you have to assume they foresee some pretty daunting obstacles and impediments to China’s future progress.”
Xi’s way of thinking is not universally admired. In an audacious open letter, Yu Wensheng, an outspoken human rights lawyer, demanded his immediate dismissal.
“The Communist party of China claims to support freedom of speech, democracy, equality and the rule of law. But China has no such freedom, no democracy, no equality, no rule of law, only bigwigs and rampant corruption.” Xi’s China was “marching backwards … he is unfit for office,” Yu wrote.
On Thursday morning, security agents tasked with quelling dissent that might upset Xi’s congress appeared to have successfully silenced the attorney. “It’s not convenient to give any interviews,” Yu said in a brief text message.
Additional reporting by Wang Zhen
