Chinese shadows on Xi

A leader with no scruples about coming to power, he has not had any scruples about staying in power either. Unlimited power for Xi in this China that looks more to Mao than to Deng. But the unexpected spectacle at the closing of the CP Congress is finally the revealing element that it is not all light. There are many shadows over China's and Xi's immediate future.

Not everything is bright under the spotlight of the massive gathering of communist cadres these days in Beijing. There are also shadows - the most important key to analysing the future - in the management and use of power by the man who has amassed the most power in the country's recent history, including Mao.

Corruption, repression, financial imbalances, real estate crisis, poor investment planning, international mistrust... are some of the black spots in the leader's career, who has broken with the mandate of the first leader of change, Deng Xiaoping, who set a maximum of ten years at the head of the party and the country's presidency. This was not his only break. It was also a break with the principles of open economy, liberal attitudes and criticism that favoured the beginning of Chinese developmentalism since the 1980s.

The hawks went to great lengths to weaken the Deng team that lost much of its power ten years ago when Hu Jintao, now publicly vilified, ceded the seat to Xi after a bruising power struggle. Xi managed to get rid - literally - of the favourite and top contender, Bo Xilai, leader of the most populous province of Chongqing, and still remains in prison after being accused, as usual, of corruption and even murder.

He has now got rid - by retirement - of the more pro-western Premier Li Keqiang, the right-hand man of former President Ha. As far as we know, the only people left around the leader who has skipped term limits are like-minded men of communist orthodoxy and suspicious of the open market and the West. Bad omens in the process of distrust of the globalised economy. After Brexit, Trump and Putin it is Xi's turn to make clear his opposition to open national borders and the market economy.

No one can hide the success story of Xi Jinping's decade at the helm of China's destiny. Unparalleled development in the history of the world, economic growth and the welfare of the population, and a progressive international recognition commensurate with its new dimension. Neither the leader of the operation nor the Party leadership want to leave such a succulent inheritance in the hands of someone else. Hence the five more years that Xi will remain in power. Under the spotlight of the pomp organised to inaugurate his unprecedented third term at the head of the Chinese Communist Party, not everything is light; there are also shadows cast over the Chinese leader whose power in terms of time and power is only comparable to that of Mao. This China is not that China. From the hardship that gave rise to the Proletarian Revolution, China has moved on to a developmentalism unparalleled in human history. This new China, unrecognisable from that of 1976, embraced by economic growth and new technologies, is the one that Xi and the party modelled in his own way want to maintain with a more orthodox line in terms of ideological control of the communist party at a difficult moment on the international map, and also in a well-hidden but growing malaise within the country.

In analysing the party conclave, we would see it as a mere personality cult of the leader reaffirmed in his command seat. The shy Xi, who worked his way up behind the scenes of the party, in the shadow of his father and the leading cadres in Shanghai, is comfortable with his role. He has risked a lot to get here. First, in the struggles that brought him to power, leaving political corpses and real dead in his wake.

1. Corruption is the mantra under which Xi has conducted the biggest clean-up among party and administration cadres. To be sure, control and limits to enrichment are difficult in the uniquely mixed formula of Chinese capitalist communism, which grants the management of state enterprises to managers who act as private entrepreneurs, but under control. Under the accusation of corruption, both the potentially corrupt and political enemies are removed.

Xi came to power by getting rid of his main challenger Bo Xilai, party secretary in China's most populous inland region, Chongqing. He and his wife were charged with all sorts of crimes and sentenced to prison. Xi and the Shanghai clan's access to power was thus cleared. He was not the only victim then, and there have been many more since. The degree of internal corruption among the country's ruling cadres is the other hidden face of the process.

2. The management of the pandemic. The weak health system, the lack of planning, the poor quality of the vaccines themselves and their implementation model, together with the initial concealment of the COVID problem and the lack of a rapid response ended up generating a solution whose results have been more than questionable. The attempt to eradicate covid through a policy of strict and repeated quarantines has not been a practical solution. It has not succeeded in eradication, has caused serious economic losses and above all has generated an effect not at all desired by the party: distrust and even growing disaffection of the population with the government. It is becoming common among citizens to hear strong criticism - hitherto unheard of because of the repression - of decisions considered erroneous, which some believe to be more related to the desire to silence any criticism before Xi's re-election for his third term in office.

3. Abuses of power. The closed system of the single Party unceremoniously allows abuses of power, putting in and taking out cadres and leaders at will, discounting direct and unchecked judicial intervention in the lives of citizens. It not only affects the system of political organisation, but extends indiscriminately to the citizenry at large. It has been demonstrated at the territorial level in Hong Kong and with the Igurs, and in general it has been accentuated during the quarantines that are trying the patience of the citizens. With the bloody repression of Tiananmen, any hint of freedom of expression has since been stamped out. In those days of brutal eradication of protest, one of the entertainers for the troops sent to suppress the demonstrators was the patriotic ballad singer and current wife of the Chinese leader, Peng Liyuan. The repression has extended especially to the digital media to the point of creating their own social networks to avoid contamination from the outside and ensure control. The incident of former president Hu's forced departure from the party's congress hall has not appeared on these networks.

4. Business distrust. The openness to the entry of foreign capital, technology and products that provided the biggest boost to China's economy since Mao's death has begun to be curtailed. Foreign companies are finding it increasingly difficult to operate in China at all levels, whether in the market, financing or bilateral agreements. In this latest phase, Xi has imposed tight controls on companies, returning them to progressive state ownership and tight control by single-party leaders. International investment has begun to suffer. China will gradually lose its attractiveness as a market, which has started to show signs of slowing growth. The release of the less-than-hopeful official growth data has been delayed pending the conclusion of the party's conclave. Some of the big Chinese entrepreneurs who have emerged in the last decade are under such pressure that they have even opted to disappear from the public eye, such as the founder of the giant Alibaba. A return to a state-run economy. A harbinger of economic stagnation. Youth employment is also declining (by twenty percent) & no doubt related to controls on digital development companies. The problem of credit and home values remains a latent and unresolved problem.

5. The new generation. The generation that had liberalised the country's economy is in retirement. Officially, they are too old and are being retired.  New cadres will take over in the new year. Those trained in American and British universities hold in their hands the key to whether China's future will be more open-minded and democratic or whether Xi's leftist radicalism will return the country to a level of communist orthodoxy that will prevent reforms, democratic airs and progress.

Those now ousted are former technocrats who laid the real foundations for economic take-off. They are now replaced by provincial Party leaders with less economic and business knowledge.

The impression is that the hardliners, the Shanghai families who control the party and want to extend their shadow over major companies, will emerge from the five-yearly meeting strengthened. But the puppies of the system will either be a hope for some or a future headache for the current nomenklatura. The law of the pendulum could swing back when the economy takes a negative turn.

6. Bad international investments. The world has been amazed at the extent of China's reach. It controls everything from power plants in Africa to port facilities in Latin America. The expansion marked by the New Silk Road plan has been vast. But it is also full of black holes. The case of Sri Lanka has been the most notorious. Investment without the usual controls set by the World Bank or the Monetary Fund, which China has disowned, has finally led to the discovery of bad financial planning, which has led some countries to ruin, and Beijing to miss out on the expected financial return. Beijing's economic hubris in these deals has led to gross mistakes and losses in the millions. It will have no choice but to return to the fold of agreements with international financial institutions with greater surveillance and control capacity to avoid or solve problems. Also key is the situation of American sovereign debt in Chinese hands. There is no chance of a bad relationship between the two giants, because the collapse would be mutual.

7. Technological dependence. Xi's obsession is technological development. He knows that despite the country's great progress, its dependence on the United States and Europe is very high. In the fields of chips and aerospace, the country cannot function without the help of Western companies. But the aim is to continue to develop its own products. Beijing's progress in closing practical economic doors is leading to a dead end. It will not improve its technological independence. In that sense, the relationship with Russia would be no solution at all - it is a pariah that would not solve any of China's problems. This is a big test for the future of a more independent China and for Xi's power. Without his own development in this field, he will not have achieved the expected national success.

8. Global imbalance. The situation created by Russia's invasion of Ukraine has placed Xi in the camp of verbal support for Putin, although China's diplomacy seeks to preserve its independence and international balance. Will inter-communist solidarity or the West's need for trade and technology outweigh the need? Xi and his new team will have to dance on the fine wire of a world on the verge of breaking. Beyond the communist bond, Russia and China have never been a perfect dance partner. No one expects it now either. When Mao found himself on his last legs and the economy collapsing, he turned to Washington. The new Mao will not have easy solutions.

In conclusion, the ideological indicators paint a very pessimistic picture. A Xi in a controlling drift, with an extremist communism that is suspicious of the outside world, and no doubt also of his own. If the economic data starts to go down as all forecasts indicate, the shadows over Xi and his future will soon grow. An underground power struggle will ensue as soon as the population resents the loss of purchasing power, the rise in prices and the fall in employment ..... And the visible corruption among the leadership that the powers-that-be claim to be countering. China is entering into controlled territory, but on shifting sands.  Mao ended up ruining the pias and calling Nixon and Kissinger's America to his aid. We shall see how the new chapter in China's history ends under the radical Xi Jinping.