China's Communist Party and its social contract under Xi Jinping

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China’s Communist Party and its social contract under Xi Jinping


WRITTEN BY AVINASH GODBOLE

24 September 2020

As the Communist Party of China (CPC) turns 100 on 1 July 2021, it will be on track to achieve the first of its two centennial goals: to transform China into a moderately prosperous society. The Party’s second goal is to “build a modern socialist country” by 2049 when the People’s Republic turns 100. However, there remain various doubts about the future of the Party and its relationship with the Chinese people. One of the fundamental questions facing the Party today is how it will retain its central authority and status in the lives of people even as its role in daily affairs continues to retreat — rapidly. The CPC is the only single-party regime in the world’s top-ten economies. Its ability, or lack thereof, to adapt to change will have a substantial impact on the world, in both political and economic terms.

The source of the Party’s authority

The basic framework of the Party’s social contract with the citizens of the People’s Republic has remained more or less the same since reforms began under Deng Xiaoping. The Party has focused on expanding employment opportunities and improving the standard of living. Citizens have seen their savings and investments return decent profits and a general sense of wellbeing and optimism has been maintained. While this was achieved on the back of jaw-dropping economic growth, it has been accompanied by problems like rising inequality, stagnation, pollution, corruption, and a politically-controlled judicial system.

The abolishment of term limits for the country’s Presidency in 2018 astounded China watchers. Similarly, the absence of the sixth-generation of leaders from the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) as designated successors has also raised many questions about the orderly succession model set under the supervision of Deng Xiaoping.

The new principal contradiction, as stated by Xi Jinping in his 2017 Party congress speech, essentially acknowledges that a new form of state-society relationship is required in China as the country is in the midst of one of the most significant transitions in its modern political history. Accordingly, accountability, quality of life issues, and optimal utilisation of public resources are the three key parameters on which to judge the Party’s governance success. However, the transition to such a strategy under conditions of authoritarianism and information control seems unlikely, and it will be interesting to observe how the Communist Party go about this process.

In essence, managing this principal contradiction requires a new social contract between the Party and the people. One of the first elements of this was the anti-corruption drive that Xi ran in his first tenure as General Secretary. It was to serve as a reminder to the cadre that the Party was about to lose track of what gave it legitimacy in the first place. This is also going to be its ultimate test — the extent to which people feel confident about the Party’s ability to better their lives enough from this point onwards. To that extent, China’s pointedly better record at handling the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the rest of the world in general (and the US in particular) stands as testimony to the ‘taskmaster’ persona of the Chinese state.

At the same time, China’s COVID-19 numbers continue to remain unbelievably low, raising questions about the reliability of Beijing’s data. For starters, while the world learnt from China’s example on social distancing, lockdown and masks, China had to learn and do these things on its own. In addition, the fact that the virus spread during the domestic tourism season and yet managed to affect so few people runs counter to reason. Another way to view this situation may be to attribute China’s success in tackling COVID-19 to its ubiquitous surveillance apparatus. Contact-tracing is just a nicer and more benign way of saying that the Party knows whom you met, when and for what purpose.

Is the Party changing its methods?

It is widely acknowledged that the two key elements underlying the CPC’s success so far have been ideology and organisation. The Party’s ideology seems to be on firm ground at the present moment with economic revival aiding nationalism, furthermore, homogenising projects in places like Hong Kong are now dispelling whatever doubts had been expressed about its organisational harmony.

Does an incident like the public exposé of Party’s shortcomings by someone like Cai Xia represent an existential challenge to either Xi Jinping or to the Party? The short answer is no. Since Cai is now in the US, her future influence will be limited, and should her popularity grow she is likely to be dismissed as an American agent. On the other hand, Professor Xu Zhangrun, who seems to be well supported by competing and powerful Party factions, may pose a bigger challenge to Xi. This may be why Xu was released from arrest in less than a week, unprecedented in China for critics of the Party.

The abolishment of term limits for the country’s Presidency in 2018 astounded China watchers. Similarly, the absence of the sixth-generation of leaders from the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) as designated successors has also raised many questions about the orderly succession model set under the supervision of Deng Xiaoping. However, the roots of that issue go back to the Bo Xilai crisis and how that came to be seen as an existential crisis as far as the Party was concerned. The Bo saga of authoritarianism, corruption, and political bargaining remains understudied and is reduced to sensationalism.

The second issue is that China faces a problem in having numerous leaders in the 58-68 age range. All of them belong to the post-Cultural Revolution generation and have come to Beijing with proven track records of provincial or ministerial performance. Some of them may be too big to ignore, therefore, this should be seen as yet another reason to ensure major bargains do not become public.

The roots of Xi’s mandate

While Xi’s ideas appear new, the foundations of his thought can be found in Hu Jintao’s scientific development concept. Xi laid out ambitious plans for economic reform in his first three years in office, notably at the third plenum of the 18th central committee. His ability to implement what was outlined in 2013, even by making a few compromises, (and whether he can implement them at all) will continue to matter in the coming years. Xi the reformer from Zhejiang or Shanghai has long been replaced by Xi, the chairman of everything.

The Party’s anxiety today stems from whether it can continue to create prosperity within China. In recent years work has been underway to redraw global investments strategies, as costs in China have continued to increase. In addition, the global trade-war and post COVID-19 economic slowdown will only serve to further harm exports. Beijing’s ‘wolf-warrior’ diplomacy has also damaged the country’s image. Recent announcements of control over the private sector are likely to cause increased screening of these companies abroad. Unfortunately, Xi’s current strategy appears to be counterintuitive, leaving the fate of the Party’s contract with the Chinese now people increasingly uncertain.  

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform. 

Author Biography

Dr Avinash Godbole is an Assistant Professor at the O.P. Jindal Global University. Previously, he was a Research Fellow with the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) and a Research Assistant with the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis (IDSA). His research focuses on China’s domestic politics and foreign policy. He is also a Visiting Faculty at the Naval War College, Goa. Image credit: Mussi Katz/Flickr.