Xi Jinping reveals cracks in China's governance model, experts say - ExBulletin

Source: ExBulletin

Hong Kong: During President Vladimir Putin's visit to China in mid-May, he said Russia and China were "jointly committed to promoting the establishment of a more democratic multipolar world order." For countries that consider themselves democratic, the notion of Putin was laughable, as China and Russia are ruled closely by autocratic leaders who have no intention of losing their grip on power.

Professor Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at SOAS University London, told ANI: "The biggest challenge China faces in terms of governance is the concentration of power in Xi's hands. "

Dr. Willy Wo-Lap Lam, senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation think tank in the United States, agrees: "Xi Jinping has eroded norms and distorted the distribution of power throughout his ten-year rule ..."

For example, the State Council is now a simple political executive body directly controlled by the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC), with reduced capacity to design policies. Dr. Lam further noted a shift in power in Beijing.

"The so-called Zhejiang faction - a reference to officials who worked with Xi when he was party chief of the coastal province from 2002 to 2007 - was once in an ascendant position. Now, the Fujian faction - those officials with whom the supreme leader built his career and reputation from 1985 to 2002 in the coastal province opposite Taiwan - has more weight. "The Hong Kong-born academic said the biggest beneficiary of the change has been fifth-ranked PBSC member Cai Qi. As head of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and director of the General Office of the Central Committee, he is responsible for state security and "party building", which involves monitoring officials to evaluate their loyalty to Xi.

Throughout his tenure, Xi regularly cited Chinese classics, particularly Confucian classics. Why is it? This is not necessarily because he is an expert on Confucianism, but Professor Anne Cheng, chair of Chinese intellectual history at the Collège de France, offered an explanation at a Brookings conference Institution given in Washington, DC, May 22.

"I think he is aware that the communist faith that animated generations of Chinese since 1949 has almost disappeared. It must therefore be replaced by a sort of national identity, a discourse, and Confucianism is of course the most obvious" thanks to its iconic status in China.

Unlike the young nation of the United States, the CCP likes to emphasize China's ancient history. Professor Cheng remarked: "This is a real paradox, because as far as I know... I always thought that the CCP was a revolutionary and Marxist-Leninist party. And when we see the same party claiming that we are the heirs of 5,000 years of continuous civilization, I am perplexed! "Communism considers itself revolutionary, and reactionary young adults set out to destroy Confucian ideologies during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution.

However, these same people are now in power and are restoring Confucianism to its importance! Confucianism is an ancient tradition associated with a highly hierarchical and historically immutable socio-political order. Professor Cheng said that "modern China's Confucian meritocrats are riding the wave of democratic recession across the world."

However, she called the approach of Chinese intellectuals and academics "insidious." "They claim to take the problem of democracy seriously and, in fact, the interesting thing is that they have no other choice. Otherwise, China would simply be excluded from the global community as a rogue state, like North Korea.

In China, however, the government sits at the top of the legal system and negotiates the rights of others. This is seen in the CCP's ability to change laws, as evidenced by Xi's removal of term limits for his own leaders. China also doesn't like the concept of one person, one vote, because it implies that people possess power and may distrust the government. CCP defenders also argue that it lacks effective mechanisms to accommodate the interests of non-voters such as future generations. He argues that a system based on Confucianism does not completely reject liberal democracy, but rather is seen as a development of it.

However, these Chinese defenders only justify autocracy, issuing countless criticisms of Western political systems but failing to elucidate the failures of their own. Professor Cheng concludes that "Chinese political thinkers have gained in confidence, even downright arrogance, to assert without any qualms the superiority of their model by covering an entire century of Chinese reflections on the democratic potential of their own intellectual tradition ".

Of course, its most powerful campaign is reserved for Taiwan, as it politically and militarily constrains this "thriving nation whose very existence refutes the CCP's claims that Chinese culture is incompatible with democracy," according to the French academic. . "What worries me in China today is that this total control of the minds of the people... is not conducive to the innovation and development that China really needs. "Ryan Hass, senior fellow and director of the John L Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, attended the same conference. He does not believe that China has the capacity to achieve hegemony with its political and military weight.

For example, it is surrounded by capable countries like India, Japan and South Korea, opposed to the idea of Beijing being a dominant player dictating outcomes in Asia. Hass further noted: "There are no people clamoring to enter their country by any means possible.