Deng Yuwen on Xi Jinping's Totalitarianism

Deng Yuwen, “Xi Jinping’s Regime is the Twilight of Totalitarianism”[1]
 
Introduction and Translation by David Ownby
 
Now that you’ve clicked through, I should immediately note that Deng published his essay in June, 2022, on a website located in Paris.  So it is not a “scoop” and I don’t really know how much impact it had in China, or to what extent it reflects what Chinese establishment intellectuals are thinking.  Here’s why it’s worth reading anyway.
 
On October 12, 2022, CCP Watch contacted me—among other scholars—to ask for our thoughts on the eve of the opening of the 20th Party Congress, which was to start in a couple of days.  On the morning of the 13th, I spent a couple of hours with my WeChat feed and was surprised to find almost nothing about the Congress (I do not subscribe to the feeds of propaganda organs).
In my reply to CCP Watch, I noted: 

“So if my WeChat feed is not talking about the 20th Congress, what is it talking about?  Beijing Cultural Review/文化纵横 recycled a 2020 article on the dangers of ‘publish or perish’ in Chinese universities, and published a new piece on the rise of the extreme right in the U.S. and Europe and how they target China.  Open Times/开放时代 published another in a series of articles on rural revitalization, as well as a piece on how urban middle classes and migrant workers network to improve educational opportunities for children.  Protect Marxism/保马 published a review of a Chinese translation of a Japanese historian’s book of essays on China and the world in the Ming-Qing period, as well as a review of a Chinese translation of a new German work on Carl Schmitt.

The Observer/观察者网 published two articles on the war in Ukraine (one titled “Russia is spouting nonsense”) as well as a piece on the Zhengzhou high tech zone, where people are being required to do two covid tests a day (you can practically hear the author sigh).  They also republished a People’s Daily piece on why ‘lying flat’ is no way out of the pandemic.  Finance/财经 has a piece on ‘the world is crazy about Chinese ships!’ as well as something on how to revive China’s housing market.  Exploration and Free Views/探索与证明 published an article on ‘System Resiliency and Disciplinary Autonomy’ and another on the scientific and humanistic spirit in the digital age, which the author (a literature professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai) subsequently took down.  The historian Shi Zhan shared his reflections on Max Weber for a series in which he talks about authors that have influenced his work.

I did not read any of these carefully, so there may be references to Xi and the Congress somewhere in the dozens of texts I skimmed.  But the only thing I found that struck me as even slightly meaty was a piece by Beijing Cultural Review which seems to be sort of a retrospective on its mission, in which they note that it is crucial to ‘maintain the ability to think independently and think clearly,’ because ‘we feel that an era that can be truly called a “revival” should be an age that can stand up to scrutiny and examination.  It should be an era where we maintain universal concerns and ask real questions.’

I confess that I do not know what to make of this.  I generally consider it a good thing that a semblance of intellectual life continues under Xi Jinping, and I suppose that we should be encouraged that the journals that cater to this life have not been compelled to drop everything and join the propaganda chorus.  At the same time, is it not whistling past the graveyard to say nothing at all about a major moment in Chinese politics?  Presumably because they can’t?”

On reflection, it is not at all surprising that Chinese establishment intellectuals said nothing about the 20th Party Congress, because doing anything other than repeating the Party line would be dangerous and foolhardy.  In other words, they can write all they want to about how China’s rise will change world history and supplant American hegemony, but they cannot wonder out loud if the particular events occurring at the 20th Congress might not make one worry whether China’s rise to greatness is on the right path.  I know beyond the shadow of the doubt that many, many Chinese intellectuals are deeply worried about China’s current trajectory, which means that their silence speaks volume. 

At the very least, this silence reminds me of the limitations of my data.  I am always aware of them, but a hard, uncomfortable reminder is sometimes healthy.  I choose to see my authors as people continuing to fight the good fight in their own way, keeping ideas and possibilities alive for the day when change will be possible, but on many important issues, I really know next to nothing, because they can’t say anything, and since they can’t, they don’t.  One stop-gap “solution” for me is to pay attention to Chinese voices outside of China on important issues that intellectuals cannot address in China, especially those who are writing principally for Mainland readers.  Hence, today’s text.

Deng Yuwen (b. 1968) is a Chinese journalist, writer, and political commentator with the kind of critical voice that has almost completely disappeared in the Xi Jinping era.  He was a member of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Guomindang (the party that lost the war and ruled Taiwan for decades) yet served nonetheless as Assistant Editor of the Central Party School journal Study Times 学习时报 until 2013, when he was fired for publishing an article in the Financial Times (Chinese version) advocating that China abandon North Korea.  He left China for the UK at some point, and is now living in the US.

Surveying his other publications reminds us further of what was possible before Xi came to power; notably, Deng published a three-part article in Caijing 财经 in 2012, summarizing and criticizing the legacy of the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao period (2003-2013), straightforwardly emphasizing failures over successes.  He draws on this work in the text translated here.
 
Deng’s argument in the text translated here is both sobering and optimistic.  He describes Xi Jinping’s regime as “responsive totalitarianism,” “totalitarian” because Xi’s one-man rule is backed up not only by Xi’s domination of the Party machine but also by high tech and Big Data, “responsive” because the regime responds to at least some popular concerns and ultimately does not ground its legitimacy in ideology.  Xi would of course like to see ideology take on a much bigger role, but as Deng adeptly points out:
 
“The political civilization of humanity took root during China’s forty years of reform and opening, which constitutes the biggest difference between Xi-style and Mao-style totalitarianism, and the fundamental reason why Xi-style totalitarianism cannot revert to Mao-style totalitarianism. Because even if people fear this totalitarianism, there will be no universal worship of the leader, although Xi Jinping would love for people to worship him. Quite the opposite—while many people will not openly oppose his rule for all sorts of reasons, including personal interests, they will never enjoy being forced to comply, and there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with him, including within the ruling group.”
 
I don’t know precisely what Deng means by “the political civilization of humanity,” but it does seem to me that after forty years of markets, entrepreneurship, and relative openness to the world, the genie is out of the bottle, and most of Chinese society functions according to the rhythms of globalized societies elsewhere, especially in China’s cities, where two thirds of Chinese now live.  Chinese politics has not evolved in the same direction as Chinese society, and Xi Jinping, Deng argues, is a throwback to an earlier era within an antiquated party.  He knows how the machine works, and has been clever enough to manipulate it to his own ends, but the regime’s legitimacy ultimately relies on performance, which the Chinese people have no difficulty evaluating on their own.  Attempts to revive the importance of ideology are like attempts to revive the Latin mass in the Catholic church, useless exercises in nostalgia.

Deng walks us through why and how Xi built a totalitarian regime.  “Why” was because he had watched Hu Jintao shuffle through ten years as a weak, passive leader, and was determined not to do the same thing.  “How” was relentlessly shaping internal party politics to his will, relying among other things on the endless campaign against corruption, which left cadres and Party officials cautious and afraid.  Deng is nonetheless optimistic that Chinese totalitarianism will go when Xi does, either because Xi will be forced into a miscalculation—imagine a war over Taiwan that China does not win—or because the Chinese people reject totalitarianism in one way or another (many of those who can are of course voting with their feet already).   
 
I will not comment on Deng’s long-term predictions, although I surely hope he is right.  In terms of short-term predictions about particular outcomes of the 20th Congress, I found one of Deng’s remarks particularly interesting. 

Most Western China watchers were stunned when Li Qiang, who oversaw the disastrous lockdown in Shanghai this spring, was not only named to the Standing Committee, but to the position of the number two man on the Standing Committee.  Writing in June, Deng said that if Xi was feeling weak, he would impose Li Qiang on the Party just to show them that he is the boss.  If he was feeling strong, he would sacrifice Li Qiang as a gesture to those who believe that a new covid policy is necessary.  Thinking more broadly, perhaps this means that Xi’s “running the table” in terms of personnel at the 20th Congress was a sign of weakness and fragility, and not of strength.  If you are really confident, you don’t surround yourself with yes-men, which is of course the best way to make the fatal error of believing you are always the smartest person in the room.
 
Translation
 
Why I Say that the Xi Jinping Regime is the Last Gasp of Totalitarianism
 
For the title of a book I published (in Chinese ) in New York in 2020, I selected The Last Totalitarian, a name I chose for two reasons.  The first is that, in the global context, no totalitarian country has emerged to threaten liberal democracy since the fall of the Soviet Union and since “history ended” with the Cold War.[2]  At the time, there was no Russian-Ukrainian war, and the Putin regime could not be called totalitarian because Russia still had opposition parties and not all media were under government control, although they were subject to government interference and repression. Despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its state power is such that it will have an impact on liberal democratic institutions in the short term, but not in a longer perspective. Therefore, only Xi Jinping’s China, with its size and surging ambition, stands as the last totalitarian regime in human history, following Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union, with the potential to do great damage to humanity.
 
Second, in the context of China and the Chinese Communist Party itself, Mao's totalitarian regime collapsed with Mao’s death, and Deng Xiaoping started China down a path somewhere between totalitarianism and authoritarianism—which, had things developed normally, should have led China out of authoritarianism and onto the path of democracy. At present, Xi Jinping has forcibly diverted the path of history in order to keep China Communist forever, but in so doing his has turned his back on human nature as well as the social climate resulting from the reforms of the past 40 years, which means that Xi’s regime will not survive him, and will ultimately be seen as a mere historical detour. 
 
Humanity has a long history of dictatorship, but totalitarianism is a recent creation. Ancient imperial democracies in both the East and West, examples of which include the tyranny of the first Qin emperor, the secret police of the first Ming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, and the brutality of Nero in Rome, were not totalitarian regimes, even if their oppression of the people sometimes exceeded that of totalitarian states. Totalitarian regimes are a product of the modern era, arising during the two world wars and the Cold War. The major difference between totalitarian and authoritarian regimes is that totalitarianism creates an ideological system to shape and control the people’s thoughts, so that they meekly follow the leader, obey his pronouncements, and lose all will to resist.  
 
The rulers of authoritarian regimes would kill their subjects for affronting their authority or disagreeing with their political views, while the rulers of totalitarian regimes systematically killed in the name of ideology or revolution. This was common in Hitler's Nazi Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia, and perhaps Franco's Spain, and in all of these places terror defined the underlining character of the regime. Of course, times have progressed, and the totalitarian system now no longer kills people arbitrarily under the banner of "revolution," but the use of ideology to arbitrarily dispose of and punish disobedient people persists, and terror remains the basic instrument of rule.
 
Xi Jinping's totalitarian rule is an atavistic phenomenon, a final spurt of energy before an ultimate collapse.  As I said above, having lived through the terror of Mao's Cultural Revolution and after 30 years of reform and opening, China should have been done with Mao-style totalitarian rule.  But here it is again, and we need to understand why.   
 
In my opinion, apart from the fact that, in order to protect Mao’s image, China’s authorities never thoroughly purged the ideological and ideological vestiges of the Cultural Revolution, and even if reform and opening has created a series of new social problems, such as the increasing polarization between the rich and the poor, which has caused widespread discontent among the people, we can also identity a direct relationship with certain specific factors emerging during Hu Jintao's decade of rule, and it was these factors that laid the social foundation for Xi's totalitarian rule, directly contributing to his adoption of a totalitarian approach so as to ensure that the CCP would remain in power for ten thousand years.
 
These specific problems of the Hu era include: (1) a climate of “too many cooks spoil the broth”[3] at the top, which greatly weakened the authority of the General Secretary; (2) a situation of widespread and serious corruption of public power that threatened the security of the regime; (3) the fact that, in the face of the rebellious masses, an active civil society, intellectuals and public opinion clamoring for ever more freedom and openness, and the challenges of political opposition, the Party found itself lacking the power to fight, and wound up backing down on issue after issue, passively hanging on by its fingernails; (4) the fact that the Party's factional struggles intensified, with Party theorists and the premier advocating democracy, putting the Party in danger of splitting.
 
Xi had no intention of simply muddling through, handing over this power to the next guy after ten years and washing his hands of things.  Xi is a princeling who believes in state power, and his mission was to ensure that China not change color, which was the expectation that most other princelings had of him.  So he had no intention of playing musical chairs,[4] and even less of seeing the Party collapse on his watch.  
 
In Xi’s view, he would need to transform the CCP to redress the political and social climate of the Hu era, providing the Party with renewed fighting power and changing passive defense into active offense.  Totalitarian rule looked to be the obvious answer.  But Xi played a few tricks at the outset, so that people couldn’t see his true colors at the beginning of his mandate, which allowed people on both the left and the right to see him as the leader they needed.  This meant that they had expectations of him, and thus would support him, or at least not oppose him.  Otherwise, we cannot explain how Xi, who has no particular merit and at first glance appeared to have no ambition, quickly rose to become the most powerful leader of the CCP since Mao.
 
At the same time, looking more broadly, we note that Xi’s totalitarian rule is intrinsically linked to a certain collective return to authoritarian rule throughout the world during this same period, and thus qualifies as one form—and a serious deformation—of this authoritarianism.  One of the most obvious manifestations of the return of authoritarianism is the emergence of strongman politics. From East to West, countries have elected political strongmen as leaders, including in the U.S., where Trump also wanted to impose authoritarian rule.  It turned out that the system was too powerful and Trump could not pull it off,  but the damage he did to American democracy is plain for all to see.  
 
In other words, the emergence of strongman politics and the collective return of authoritarian rule need to be understood in the context of the third wave of democratization.  This wave began in 1974, more than forty years ago, when there were about thirty democracies worldwide, while there are more than one hundred today. But the third wave of democratization has encountered setbacks in the last two decades. According to the liberal Chinese political scientist Liu Yu 刘瑜 (b. 1975), more than half of third-wave democracies have established relatively stable democratic institutions, have not experienced an increase in violent large-scale social conflict, and have performed well in the medium to long term. 

At the same time, however, the other half of countries or regions experienced setbacks in the course of democratization, and the quality of their democracies is worrisome; between a third and a half experienced temporary economic declines after the transition, and  nearly one-fifth of the countries have experienced an increase in large-scale civil violence. More specifically, as of 2013, of the 92 third-wave countries having transitioned to democracy, 48 can be classified as solid democracies, 7 as having democracies that are regressing, 14 as failed democracies, 12 as “wavering” democracies, and 11 are in the "wait and see" category.  The overall trend in recent years has been a regression of democracy. 
 
Among these countries where democracy is regressing, collapsing, or wavering, as well as in the “wait and see” countries, political strongmen have capitalized on the situation to surge forth and reestablish authoritarian rule.  Putin is the most outstanding example of this, but the list also includes Modi in India, Erdoğan in Turkey, Orban in Hungary, Hun Sen in Cambodia, Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Trump to a certain extent. A few countries have also had military coups, are under military rule, or have governments that are in fact military governments, such as Thailand, Burma, and Egypt.  Setting aside the military governments, the strongmen in the other countries, with the exception of Brazil, remain quite popular, and Trump might make a comeback in 2024. Xi Jinping’s rise and his totalitarian rule are the product of these setbacks in the third wave of democratization, because while China was never a democracy, China is intrinsically linked to broader world trends.  
 
Comparatively speaking, of course, Xi has gone further than the others, and the authoritarian leaders of the other countries at least retain the form of democratic elections, where the popular vote still plays a role, even in the case of Putin or the military regimes. Xi, on the other hand, has taken the new tradition of relatively enlightened CCP rule launched by Deng and turned it completely upside down, returning to the one-man rule of the Mao era. In terms of the completeness of the regime form, the degree of oppression of the population, and especially the degree of suppression of free speech, the Xi regime is now the only truly totalitarian regime in the world, with the exception of North Korea, and it also has digital technological capabilities that totalitarian rule did not have in the past, thus posing a huge challenge to the free world.
 
Nonetheless, reality has a way of making itself known, and Russia's brazen invasion of Ukraine has awakened the Western world, reviving memories of the blood and tears that totalitarian regimes have visited on humanity throughout history. In the face of Western solidarity and their defense of democracy and freedom, non-Western authoritarian regimes and their political strongmen also have had to practice a certain amount of caution, and dare not slide from authoritarianism toward totalitarianism.
 
Xi has been in power for nearly ten years, and his totalitarian rule was not established overnight; there was a certain developmental process, and Xi’s authority has had its ups and downs. Broadly speaking, after becoming the core of the Party at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th CCP Central Committee in 2015, he began to set up the framework for totalitarian rule. In 2017, when the 19th CCP Central Committee amended the constitution to abolish presidential term limits, his totalitarian rule was complete, and his authority reached its peak when the Xi-led “Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party's Century-long Struggle” was adopted at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CCP Central Committee in 2021.
 
In the process, he also encountered two major crises of power, one at the beginning of the Wuhan epidemic outbreak in 2020, when his decision to seal off the city left Xi basically alone, and the second at the present moment, also due to the lockdown of Shanghai and the economic shock this caused, which has challenged his political authority from within the Party, from within the broader Chinese society, and from abroad. Xi originally intended to extend his totalitarian style and regime practices to authoritarian countries in the Third World, but it is becoming increasingly clear that developments in the internal and external situation now make the sustainability of Xi's regime and its global reproducibility largely impossible.
 
Globally, democracy has entered a period of renewal and some degree even of revival; for China, it may also usher in the best post-June 4 period in terms of the fall of the Communist Party. Once Xi is gone, whether or not China is still ruled by the CCP, it is unlikely that another leader with Xi’s power will emerge, and history will pick up where it left off and move forward. In this sense, the Xi regime is the last totalitarian regime in China, and the twilight of totalitarian rule in human history.
 
Evaluating the Nature of the Xi Jinping Regime
 
Since the Xi regime represents the twilight of the history of totalitarianism and the last totalitarian regime in human history, people naturally want to ask whether Xi will be re-elected at the upcoming 20th Communist Party Congress.
 
Observers' judgments on this question are sharply divided, with optimists believing that Xi is no longer completely certain of a successful re-election, based on current developments over the course of the year. Before answering this specific question, it will be useful to understand the nature of Xi's regime and the methods by which he rules, which may help us better judge whether he will be re-elected.
 
Unlike classical totalitarianism, Xi's rule functions in a context of openness, digital technology, and an emphasis on values such as the “modernization of state governance,” which lends it many different characteristics, which I have previously summarized as follows:   (1) practicing political closure and monopoly on the one hand, while allowing limited economic reform and free trade and opening on the other; (2) inflicting brutal suppression of political opposition one the one hand, while taking improving and raising the living standards of the people as the Party’s “original intention” and currying favor with the people in a Confucian style on the other; (3) using Marxism and communism as ideological slogans on the one hand, which exploiting nationalism and statism as tools to mobilize ideas and public opinion on the other; (4) advocating the “rule of law” on the one hand,  while instrumentalizing the law and practicing Legalism on the other; (5) not revealing strategic ambitions for foreign territorial expansion and exporting communism globally on the one hand, while offering the world Chinese solutions to global governance on the other.
 
The nature of the Xi regime is hidden in these five seemingly paradoxical features, making it a rare totalitarian regime in the history of humanity.  By "rare," I do not mean the intensity of its totalitarianism, in which it is no match for Mao’s or Stalin’s regimes—I refer instead to its effectiveness. Relying on high technology and digital control, it keeps the people under extremely tight surveillance, serving as an effective threat to forces that might seek to challenge it, including political opposition.  This became all the more apparent during the epidemic, when Xi's zero tolerance policy was implemented by taking full advantage of the technology of Big Data.  
 
Ultimately, however, the political civilization of humanity took root during China’s forty years of reform and opening, which constitutes the biggest difference between Xi-style and Mao-style totalitarianism, and the fundamental reason why Xi-style totalitarianism cannot revert to Mao-style totalitarianism. Because even if people fear this totalitarianism, there will be no universal worship of the leader, although Xi Jinping would love for people to worship him. Quite the opposite—while many people will not openly oppose his rule for all sorts of reasons, including personal interests, they will never enjoy being forced to comply, and there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with him, including within the ruling group. This is fundamentally different from Maoist totalitarianism, of which few people were conscious at the time, and which they experienced as destabilizing. These are the conditions for future change.
 
Fifteen years ago, in a study of the Chinese Communist Party, the American scholar David Shambaugh (b. 1953) introduced the idea of "adaptation" and argued that the CCP has not completely lost its ability to learn.[5] Of course, he was referring to the CCP of the Jiang-Hu era, and he may no longer believe this.  Looking at the five paradoxes presented above, word "entangled 纠结" might be used to describe the complexity of the Xi regime. Although it appears to be very rigid and inflexible, my view is that it has still not completely lost its resilience, especially in the economic and social realms.  
 
Of course, this is first and foremost a result of outside pressure, but it also suggests that the regime will change certain policies and laws depending on how the outside environment behaves. Even on sensitive political issues, certain adjustments may be made in political-economic terms to respond to the outside world.
 
For example, although the China-EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment has been put on hold, the agreement itself not only requires China to open up its market, but also has strict requirements in terms of labor, environmental, and technical standards.  The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) even more stands as the gold standard in terms of conditions for investment and free trade, and China's application to join the CPTPP now has to meet these conditions before it can be approved by other member countries. This would require concessions and adjustments in certain sensitive areas, such as those touching on independent unions and forced labor. In this respect, severe deterioration in China's geopolitics means that the possibility still exists that opening to the outside world may compel political reform. 
 
In view of this and the adaptability it has shown in the non-political sphere, the Xi Jinping regime can be seen as a totalitarian regime with some flexibility or adaptability rather than as completely rigid.  I call it "responsive totalitarianism,"[6] by which I mean that in non-political areas, or even in certain politically sensitive areas, it will try to respond to and satisfy popular demands and interests, as long as it sees these as legitimate.  If these demands and interests are seriously infringed upon, whether by the government's mismanagement or by the actions of others, it will respond and make certain concessions under the pressure of public opinion in order to reduce popular dissatisfaction.

This can be seen in some incidents since the beginning of this year, such as the story of the woman found chained to a wall,[7] the recent Tangshan beating incident,[8] and stopping the practice of household disinfection in Shanghai during the lockdown,[9] and even if the response still falls short of society's expectations, the regime is still making an effort. Adjustments to the economy are even more common. In this sense, Xi's regime is a new form of totalitarianism that humanity has not previously known, created by the CCP in response to external containment and demands for change in the current environment of technology and openness, and might be said to be Xi Jinping’s and the CCP’s major invention and "contribution" to mankind’s history of totalitarianism.
 
So, how did Xi create his techniques of totalitarian rule? As noted earlier, one of the starting points for building his dictatorship was that Xi learned the lesson of Hu Jintao, in that he wanted to avoid becoming a weak ruler and thus needed to change the CCP's passive, defensive status in response to external challenges.  To this end he adopted what I call a strategy of “striking hard with both hands,”[10] with one hand aimed at the Party and at the officials, and the other aimed at society and the people at large. Under Hu Jintao, both hands were weak, but now Xi Jinping wanted to be hard, to strike out and take the initiative.
 
To put it simply, in terms of managing the Party and the officials, he has done four things: (1) set up new small groups within the Party, rule the country through these small groups, have the Party lead the government, strengthen centralized power, and on that basis achieve a personal dictatorship; (2) have the Party replace the government, and comprehensively strengthen the Party’s centralized leadership; (3) demand personal loyalty in the name of strengthening political construction, forging one Party, one leader and one ideology; (4) fight corruption with great force, terrorizing the officials.  

In terms of handling the people, his approach was to comprehensively suppress civil society and to impose the strictest controls on public opinion, especially the forces of popular opposition. On the economic front, he has emphasized “internal circulation 内循环,”[11] favored the state-owned economy over the private economy, establishing new state-owned enterprises, and advocating China’s policy of self-reliance 自力更生.   Xi took most of the these measures on his own initiative, but some, especially those having to do with the economy and technology, were also forced on him by the American policies of containment and technological decoupling.
 
Will Xi be Re-Elected at the 20th Congress?  
 
Now that we understand Xi’s regime, we can return to the question of whether he will be re-elected.  Had Xi’s totalitarian regime emerged in any other country, he surely would have been ousted long ago, and the idea of his re-election would be ludicrous. But the situation in China is always different. Xi has been ruling China through these totalitarian tactics for almost ten years now, and the result is that China has been surrounded by the United States and the West, determined to contain China. 
 
China has never been so isolated, which is especially true during the three-year epidemic, which has effectively closed China off from the world. Not only has Xi himself not left the country on foreign visits, officials are not allowed to leave the country, and the people are asked to reduce foreign travel.  All of China is like a big prison or an iron cage. So people’s hopes for the 20th Congress are that the opposition within the CCP will pull Xi down. How likely does that seem now that we are halfway through 2022?
 
In my view, Xi's re-election at the 20th National Congress depends on whether the three major difficulties of the moment will worsen in the coming months and how Xi handles them, as well as whether the opposition forces in society, especially within the Party, can truly unite and adopt the right action strategy. The three major difficulties are stabilizing the economy, stabilizing the Taiwan Straits, and stabilizing the Party. Now that the Shanghai lockdown is over, the pandemic does not seem to be too serious an issue. 
 
Although China's economy picked up slightly in May, it is still relatively flat.[12] Keeping the economy stable and avoiding major slides in the second half of the year, so that China maintains at least three percent annual growth rate is Xi's biggest challenge.
 
While the return of the epidemic and Shanghai's lockdown were important elements in China's economic paralysis in the first half of 2022,  an even more basic factor is the authorities' hostility to capital in recent years and their crackdown on various platforms and the education and training industry, as well as their tightening of regulations, all of which have undermined capital rights and severely dampened private investment. The pandemic simply poured salt on this wound.  
 
But Xi knows very well that he cannot ignore the economy, and to be more specific, he has to achieve a certain growth rate.  This is because once the CCP's ideology no longer appealed to the people, the authorities built the legitimacy of their rule on economic development.  China’s rapid economic growth over the past thirty years and the improvements in income and welfare experienced throughout China earned the Party the support of many people.  Nonetheless, China is far from being a rich country, and even if there are a lot of rich people, there are more poor people.  The solution to many social problems, including the common prosperity Xi talks about, lies in continued economic development and making the cake bigger. 
 
But a series of serious consequences of the sinking economy have already emerged: GDP growth did not hit the target in the first quarter and will be even lower in the second, government finances are generally tight everywhere, civil servants' salaries have been cut sharply, unemployment is surging, especially among young people, where the unemployment rate has reached more than 20 percent, and investment and foreign trade in Shanghai fell drastically in April and May. The people have never lost confidence in the future as they have today, and complaints about and dissatisfaction with the Xi regime rapidly ferment online and spread to the off-line world as well, as we saw in the university student agitations in Beijing, Tianjin, and other big cities. Whether the public will mutiny in the coming months depends on whether the economy can be stabilized. Although the authorities began to adjust economic policies and loosen certain regulations on capital at the end of April, the restoration of capitalists' confidence cannot be accomplished overnight, and it is not clear whether this is a mere stopgap measure by the authorities.
 
In addition to an ugly economy, China's external environment continues to deteriorate. In the coming period, the Biden administration is likely to increase its manipulation of the Taiwan issue in the hopes that Xi will lose his composure, thus hastening a U.S.-China showdown. The current domestic situation is not favorable to the ruling Democratic Party, and in the absence of something unexpected, the Democrats are likely to lose in the mid-term elections at the end of the year, the question being whether they lose only the House of Representatives or both houses, turning the Biden administration into a lame duck, for which the party will blame him.
 
Efforts to turn things around and win the 2024 presidential election, or even to ensure that Democrats don’t lose the midterms, might turn on making things difficult for China through the Taiwan issue.  Opposition to China is a central tenet for both the Democrats and the Republicans, and were Biden to stir up trouble in the Taiwan Straits, neither party could oppose him, and would have to follow along, thus embellishing Biden's and the Democrats' image of defending U.S. interests. And given that Taiwan is the most sensitive issue in China, provoking authorities on this issue is the easiest way to go, if also the most dangerous. 
 
For this reason, Xi will face his toughest test on Taiwan over the next two and a half years.  He will make keeping the Taiwan issue under control a top diplomatic priority before the 20th Congress, trying to avoid a situation in the Taiwan Strait that gets out of hand and affects the 20th Congress, and unless extreme circumstances occur, the Beijing authorities will talk a tough game but show restraint in practice, postponing the confrontation between the two sides until after the 20th Congress. However, if Biden puts Taiwan in play because of the elections, Xi will have to respond in kind, and should that happen it will be a challenge for Xi to deal with possible military confrontations or other chain reactions.
 
The economic recession and the intensification of the U.S.-China-Taiwan competition, coupled with the occasional disruptions caused by the epidemic, have mutually influenced and reinforced each other, making everything worse.  This has inevitably provoked discontent with Xi within Chinese society, and especially within the Party, making it possible for various anti-Communist and anti-Xi forces to merge to some extent. For anti-Communist and especially anti-Xi forces, this is a rare moment to overthrow Xi, as public opinion and the general environment are not favorable to him, so they must prevent him from being re-elected before the Congress convenes, which is the last window of opportunity left for them. In Xi’s eyes, this is an undercurrent of opposition to him, and whether he can stymy it and reverse the unfavorable public opinion of him has become his third key moment.
 
Over the past decade, Xi's anti-corruption campaign, his purges of political opponents, and his rectification of the Party have destroyed or at least shaken up the old power structure within the Party, with a number of old powerbrokers falling from power or stepping aside and new powerbrokers taking over the reins, which did not represent progress for the CCP and instead created a lot of opponents to and enemies of Xi Jinping among elite groups. In addition, Xi's crackdown on rights groups, dissidents, and the popular political opposition, and his suppression of interest groups connected with big capital, have also created a large number of opponents and enemies for him outside the Party. The main goal of these two forces is to oust Xi from power. For Xi's political enemies within the Party, Xi's exit would allow them to take control of the Communist Party.   
 
In the past, however, given how tightly the authorities monitor things, it has proven difficult for the opposition within the Party to congeal as a force, in part because the opponents themselves have a poor moral image and have difficulty getting traction with the people.  Opposition to Xi is underground.  No one dares openly brandish the anti-Xi banner, to say nothing of there being an iconic figure who might inspire people to act.  In addition, the anti-Xi people all have their own ulterior motives and are in competition with one another. So as long as Xi raises the Party banner and gives orders in the Party's name, the anti-Xi activists will meekly fall into line and be easily defeated. The various anti-Xi forces in the private sector have been bested by the authorities and do not have a hand to play.
 
If not for the immense uproar provoked by Xi’s covid policy, it would seem that things would continue this way.  However, the authorities' zero-tolerance policy, and especially the chaos of the Shanghai lockdown, has burned away all the capital Xi had accumulated earlier by his handling of the pandemic, and with the economy in freefall, the decline of Xi’s ruling ability is exposed for all to see, and even some of the “Little Pinks”[13] who used to support him have now cottoned on.  All sorts of discontent are focused on Xi, leading anti-Xi forces inside and outside the Party see light at the end of the tunnel and believe that the opportunity to overthrow him is at hand.
 
Although the outside world has not yet seen any officials raise the anti-Xi banner, dissatisfaction with Xi within the Party has already surfaced, and social discontent could add fuel to the flames. Overseas opposition to Xi is using the occasion to stir up public opinion, championing Li Keqiang, praising Li and criticizing Xi, in the hopes of causing conflict between the two. Because the anti-Xi people know well that in order to overthrow Xi, they need to put forward a model figure from within the Party, and Li's role and status as the premier of the State Council, where he is in charge of the economy, as well as his relatively open-minded image, make it most likely that pushing Li instead of Xi will resonate with the whole Party and society given China's current economic difficulties.
 
Objectively speaking, Xi has reached a low point, but we should at the same time note that despite the economic downturn, the U.S. strategic pressure, and the many grievances within the Party and society, his grip on the CCP has not been substantially shaken and power remains firmly in his hands, even if his authority has been seriously damaged. Official opinion has continued to trumpet his wise leadership, there have been no changes in the powerful ministries and the military, the many personnel transfers occurring before the 20th National Congress are still under his control, and local Party congresses and bigwigs are fawning on him and proclaiming their loyalty as usual.  Nor do opposition forces within the Party have any effective means to oppose him at the moment.
 
According to the assessment of China's economy by some authoritative overseas economic research institutes, China is still very likely to maintain an economic growth rate of more than 3% for the 2022 year. Judging from [former Chinese Foreign Minister] Yang Jiechi 杨洁篪 (b. 1950) and [U.S. National Security Advisor ]Jake Sullivan's exchanges, Biden is unlikely to make mischief for China before the 20th Congress.  Problems are more likely after the mid-term election, but that’s for next year. Xi will not automatically give up power at the 20th Congress. Totalitarian leaders are usually power-hungry and put up a desperate fight in the face of internal and external pressures. There will be some battles within the CCP in the coming months, but Xi's re-election at the 20th National Congress will not be a big problem. Hopes among the Chinese people in China and abroad to see Xi replaced are probably just noise. 
 
Of course, this does not mean that Xi does not have a sense of crisis, even less that he can do anything he wants.  At present he has to watch every step he takes, to avoid stepping on a minefield.  In my view, what we can expect from Xi in terms of domestic and foreign policies can be viewed as divided into two periods, before and after the 20th National Congress.  Before the congress, his main focus will be on stability—economic stability, social stability, and diplomatic stability—all based on the principle that the congress should go smoothly, and he will ask the authorities to loosen control in the economy and increase stimulus, so that the economy will recover over the second half of the year; in terms of diplomacy, he will do his utmost to avoid direct conflict with the United States, and will focus on managing China’s relations with neighboring countries and the developing world, maintaining stability in the regions close to China. 
 
After the 20th Congress, Xi will seek a breakthrough which will allow him to transform the current unfavorable situation for the Party and for himself. The breakthrough in terms of domestic politics will be in three areas: first, repositioning the economy as the center of the Party's work, allowing the economy to return to life and build up strength and reducing disruptions; second, intensifying the propaganda campaign for full-process democracy,[14] claiming that the CCP is ruling democratically and that China is a democratic country, competing with the West for bragging rights in terms of democratic discourse; and third, slacking off on anti-corruption efforts so that officials can work together and concentrate on construction.
 
The diplomatic breakout will be on two fronts: first, to change from defense to offense on the Taiwan issue by proposing a new strategy for Taiwan, formulating a one-country-two-systems program for Taiwan, and strengthening preparations and measures for the reunification of Taiwan; second, to strengthen ties with Russia to counteract the advance of the United States and the West on the China front. 
 
What should be pointed out is that while the probability of anti-Xi forces within the Party succeeding in preventing Xi's re-election in the 20th Congress is not high, Shanghai Party Secretary Li Qiang 李强 (b. 1959) is an indicator worth observing. Given the consequences of the lockdown in Shanghai, Li Qiang should not be on the Politburo Standing Committee, even though he is a close friend of Xi’s. Xi's political opponents will try to make political hay out of this, and will oppose Li's inclusion in the Standing Committee. The outcome will depend on how Xi assesses the situation. If he thinks the Party’s being against Li means the Party is against him, he will not back down and will force Li’s way onto the Standing Committee. If he thinks that not making Li a member of the Standing Committee can calm the Party's discontent to a certain extent, he will sacrifice Li and make him a scapegoat for his mistakes in fighting the epidemic.[15] However, regardless of what happens with Li, Xi is likely to allocate more Politburo seats to other factions at the 20th National Congress in order to strike a new balance of power within the Party.
 
Finally, to borrow an image from Liu Cixin's novel The Three Body Problem, we should be psychologically prepared for Xi's totalitarian rule to enter a dark forest. Xi will rule China for at least another five years. But we should not be too pessimistic. No matter how long Xi stays in power, as I argued above, it is unlikely that another Xi Jinping will emerge after Xi steps down. The good news is that the hassle of fighting the pandemic with the zero-tolerance policy has awakened even more people. When social discontent reaches a tipping point and everyone believes in regime change, then change will come soon.

Notes

[1]邓聿文, “习近平政权是人类极权统治的黄昏,” published online on June 19, 2022, on the Paris-based site, China:  History and Future.

[2]Translator’s note:  This is a clear reference to Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 volume, The End of History and the Last Man.

[3]Translator’s note:  The phrase Deng uses is 九龙治水/jiulong zhishui—“nine dragons rule the water”—which refers to fragmented authority.

[4]Translator’s note:  The expression Deng uses is 击鼓传花/jigu chuanhua, which is a well known party game--and apparently a Party game as well--in China in which, while one person beats a drum, the others pass a flower from one person to another, and the one who winds up with the flower when the drum stops is punished in one way or another—having to sing a song, or having to take a drink of liquor.  I don’t know whether Deng uses the image to refer to the rowdy hubbub the game inspires (see a video here), or to the fear of being punished if one is stuck with the flower.  The game is like musical chairs or passing the hot potato, but my impression is that no one is eliminated and there is no winner.

[5]Translator’s note:  The reference is to Shambaugh’s China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation (2008).

[6]Translator’s note:  The political scientist Wang Shaoguang has frequently described China as a “responsive democracy,” which is substantive democracy, in contrast to Western representative democracy, which he sees as merely formal democracy. See here for an example.

[7]Translator’s note:  See here for details.

[8]Translator’s note:  See here for details.

[9]Translator’s note:  See here for details.

[10]Translator’s note:  The phrase in Chinese is 两手出击，两手都要硬/liangshou chuji, liangshou dou yao ying, literally, “strike out with both hands, and both hands must be hard.”  This is adopted from a similar Deng Xiaoping strategy, often referred to as the “two-pronged strategy,” in Chinese 两手抓、两手都要硬/liangshou zhua, liangshou dou yao ying, meaning literally “grasp with two hands, and both hands must be hard.”  For Deng, this meant proceding simultaneously with reform and opening and material improvements and spiritual efforts to build socialist civilization.

[11]Translator’s note:  “Internal circulation” means developing China’s internal markets and consumption, as opposed to “dual circulation” which stresses China’s links with the outside world.

[12]Translator’s note:  Deng actually says 接近躺平/jiejin tangping, which means “close to lying flat.”  “Lying flat” refers to the attitudes of Chinese young people who decide to “drop out” because life in China is too hard.  See here for details.

[13]Translator’s note:  “Little Pinks” is the usual translation for 小粉红/xiaofenhong, the online nationalists who defend China’s image on the Internet, often picking fights with other cyber-groups in China and elsewhere.  See here for details. 

[14]Translator’s note:  See here for details.

[15]Translator’s note:  Li Qiang was named to the number two spot on the Standing Committee.