Tag Archives: Xi Jinping

China, Economic, Government, Politics, Society

Essay: The West can no longer be complacent with China

CHINA

WHEN Xi Jinping was a child, his father – then, a high-ranking government minister – fell out of favour with the founder of the People’s Republic, Chairman Mao.

As part of his family’s humiliation, Xi, as an eight-year-old, was paraded on a school stage in a metal dunce’s cap. The audience raised their arms and shouted, “Down with Xi Jinping!” Even Xi’s mother was forced to join in the chanting.

Later, Xi was sent to be “reformed” in an impoverished, rural commune.

Earlier this week, in an extraordinary reversal of fate, that humiliated schoolboy was affirmed as the most powerful man in China since Mao when the People’s Congress in Beijing rubber-stamped a constitutional amendment. In effect, it abolishes the legal limit of two terms on China’s presidency. Xi is now the country’s leader in perpetuity – or as some might have it, dictator.

With cunning ruthlessness, he worked his way through the ranks of the party that treated his family so abhorrently, from local to national politics, and saw off rivals while establishing political and popular support with his war on corruption. And as a former peasant who toiled hard labour in the fields, his “man of the people” credentials have done him no harm.

He has already decreed that his own name and ideas are written into the nation’s constitution, as “Xi Jinping Thought” – an honour he shares only with Mao. We in the complacent West would do well to wake up to the vaulting ambition of the leader of the world’s most populous state. The lingering question now is whether power will go to his head.

We have become used to expansionist threats and sabre-rattling from countries such as Russia and North Korea, but we don’t really expect it from China, which is traditionally insular and inward-looking. It is, after all, the country that built a Great Wall around its borders to keep out foreign influences.

Xi is intent, however, on reversing that centuries-old trend. China has established itself as a global player in trade, is massively expanding its military and now wants global political influence to match. In some ways, this can benefit the West. For example, Xi has put pressure on North Korea’s unstable leader, Kim Jong-un, to halt his erratic missile tests and even to roll back Pyongyang’s nuclear programme. Donald Trump’s boastful remarks recently of a diplomatic breakthrough (with arms talks to come), would have been impossible without Xi’s influence.

If the world becomes a safer place in the short-term as a result of this new willingness on China’s part to play the role of a global power-broker, we should all sigh a sense of huge relief. But as this week’s declaration reveals, Xi isn’t interested in the short-term. His plans are for the much longer-term. He certainly has had several opportunities to get the measure of Trump: First at a meeting last April in Florida at the President’s Mar-a-Lago resort, later at the G20 talks in Hamburg, and then again when the two met in Beijing last November. Whilst they did seem to hit it off on strategic issues, the relationship between them is a strange one. Neither will feel comfortable in a partnership of equals.

President Trump has already asserted his independence by announcing serious trade restrictions on Chinese steel and other imports. Yet, China is not only a major trading partner of the US, but a colossal underwriter of American debt. The government in Washington could not function without borrowing hundreds of billions, financed largely by Chinese loans. If China withdraws that support, in direct retribution for Trump’s trade blockade, what will happen to the US economy?

And, if Xi stops applying pressure on North Korea, what happens to Trump’s much vaunted peace talks? The Chinese President has manoeuvred himself, not just into one commanding position, but into a whole array of them.

It is not only America that is suddenly uncomfortably aware of Chinese strength. India, too, is eyeing its immense neighbour with unease after Xi sent China’s new navy into the Indian Ocean. This none-too-subtle display was prompted by a dispute over international policies concerning the Maldives. China, which has committed huge investment into developing its naval fleet, knows the world will take notice of a fleet of modern battleships. Meanwhile, across Eurasia, Xi has been the driving force for a new Silk Road linking China’s factories to Western Europe via Putin’s Russia, making Moscow the willing junior partner of Beijing.

All this confirms Xi Jinping as the most powerful and ambitious man in Chinese politics since the death of Chairman Mao more than 40 years ago – with one significant difference. Mao wanted to break completely with China’s cultural past – the hallmark of the bourgeoise – Xi has a different strategy and wants to celebrate it.

XI is determined to restore the country’s links to its heritage and arts by fostering a new creed of nationalism in place of Communism. Chinese artworks and treasures, which were scattered to the winds during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, are being brought back from the West by Chinese multimillionaires who see themselves as nationalist champions. Xi’s own wife, Peng Liyuan, a singer who entertained the troops after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, is at the forefront of this movement.

From the arts to geopolitics, trade wars to nuclear peace talks, Xi seems to have thought of everything. His carefully constructed powerbase may have one weak point: If he is president for life, then the ambitions of the country’s rising stars below him could be thwarted. That would risk political stagnation and infighting.

But for now, the West cannot risk complacency, especially now that China is controlled by the Thoughts of President Xi. If Mao gave China independence, and former leader Deng Xiaoping rebuilt the economy, then Xi is dedicated to making it a force to be reckoned with once more.

 

Standard
China, Government, History, Politics, Society

China’s leader told he can rule for life

CHINA

PRESIDENT Xi Jinping has been given the go-ahead to rule China for the rest of his life.

The country’s parliament voted overwhelmingly earlier this week to abolish the 35-year-old law limiting leaders to two consecutive terms in power.

The decision marks a leap back in time, reversing the system of “collective leadership”. And it elevates Mr Xi to the same supreme position enjoyed by Mao Zedong, the dictator who ruled China from 1949 to his death in 1976.

The National People’s Congress backed the constitutional amendment by voting 2,958 in favour – with only two voting against and three abstaining.

Once the parliamentary ballot had been cast, to polite applause, the announcer declared: “The constitutional amendment item has passed.” Mr Xi, who would have had to step down in 2023, showed little emotion. The slide towards one-man rule will fuel concerns about a return to the excesses of autocratic leadership and the possible economic consequences.

Mr Xi’s confident leadership style and tough attitude towards corruption has won him popular support.

Now 64, the unchallenged leader of the world’s most populous nation worked his way up from the poverty of a rural commune. Mr Xi – married to soprano Peng Liyuan, 55, with whom he has one daughter – was appointed leader of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012 and has moved to concentrate power in his own hands. He has appointed himself to bodies that oversee security, finance and economic reform.

Critics fear the lessons of history are being forgotten. Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based political commentator, said: “This marks the biggest regression in China’s legal system since the reform and opening-up era of the 1980s. I’m afraid that this will all be written into our history in the future.”

In a sign of the issue’s sensitivity, government censors have aggressively cleared social media of expressions ranging from “I disagree” to “Xi Zedong”.

Mr Xi’s control has crushed hopes for reform among China’s embattled liberal scholars and activists, who now fear even greater repression. China allows no political opposition and has relentlessly persecuted groups seeking greater civic participation.

The country’s growing economic power also means world leaders are unlikely to make too much of the developments.

Only last month Theresa May visited China in what was seen as the first step towards a post-Brexit trade deal with the country. Commercial deals worth a total of £9billion were said to have been signed during the trip.

Most powerful man since Mao

The vote makes Xi Jinping China’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong.

It also undoes the system of “collective leadership” introduced to avoid a repeat of Chairman Mao’s long and bloody reign.

The founding father of the People’s Republic of China, Mao ruled from when he seized power in 1949 to his death in 1976.

He introduced dramatic and disastrous reforms as he established his own brand of Communism.

The Great Leap Forward – a mass mobilisation of labour to improve production and output – resulted in famine and the deaths of millions.

In 1966 Mao launched the Cultural Revolution to purge the country of opponents. It crippled the economy and thrust China into ten years of turmoil, bloodshed and hunger. It also saw the imprisonment of a huge number of citizens.

His final years saw attempts to build bridges with the US, Japan and Europe, but his reputation could never be restored.

Such was Mao’s devastating impact that in 1982 a law was passed limiting presidents to two terms.

Its reversal will raise fears of a return to the horrors of Mao’s reign.

 

Standard
China, Europe, Politics, Russia, United States

The strengthening partnership between Russia and China?

GEOPOLITICS

Intro: Relations between China and Russia have been growing closer since the end of the cold war. But while the crisis in Ukraine has drawn Russia closer to China, the relationship is far from equal

The commemorations in Moscow to celebrate the capitulation of Nazi Germany 70 years ago speak volumes about today’s geopolitics. On May 9th, Western leaders stayed away in protest against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, an important proclamation as this was the first annexation of sovereign territory in Europe since the second world war. China’s president, Xi Jinping, was the guest of honour of his friend, Vladimir Putin. Western sanctions over Ukraine, and what looks set to be a long-term chilling of relations with America and Europe, has given Russia no other option than to embrace China as tightly as it can.

In the coming days, in a further symbol of the growing strategic partnership between the two countries, up to four Chinese and six Russian naval vessels will rendezvous to conduct live-firing drills in the eastern Mediterranean. The exercise, which follows several similar ones in 2013, is aimed at sending a clear message to America and its allies. For Russia the manoeuvres send a strong signal that it has a powerful friend and a bonding military relationship with a country that has growing geographic reach and influence. For China, such an exercise of this kind speaks of increasing global ambition that is line with Mr Xi’s slogan about a ‘Chinese dream’, one which he says includes a ‘dream of a strong armed-forces’. In taking part, China is sending its ships from anti-piracy duty in the Gulf of Aden.

But this also provides an opportunity for China to display its Type 054A guided-missile frigate, which it would like to sell to the Russians. It also brings with it operational experience in an unstable region in which it has an expanding economic presence. In 2011, China organised the evacuation of more than 38,000 Chinese from Libya during that country’s upheaval. And just last month its navy disembarked several hundred of its citizens out of Yemen, which is being torn apart by civil war. There are believed to be at least 40,000 Chinese working in Algeria and more than 1m across Africa.

Relations between China and Russia have been growing closer since the end of the cold war. For different reasons both countries resent America’s ‘hegemony’ and share a desire for a more multipolar world order. Russia, for all its bravado, is a declining great power, and is looking for ways to recover at least some of its lost status; whereas China, a rising power on the world stage, bridles at what it perceives as American attempts to constrain it. As fellow permanent members of the UN Security Council, both with autocratic governments, Russia and China find common cause in expressing grievance at Western liberal interventionism. The two countries settled all of their long-standing border disputes in 2008, just prior to the Russian-choreographed war in Georgia. This provided the onset for Russia in concentrating more of its military forces in the west as a deterrent against the further expansion of NATO.

Despite the strengthening partnership there have been the occasional tensions. For example, Russia played a key role during the 1990s in helping China to reform and modernise its military forces. Russia was able to preserve a defence-industrial base that would otherwise have withered from lack of domestic orders. But since the middle of the last decade, irked by China’s pilferage of its military technology and its consequent emergence as a rival in the arms market, Russia’s weapons sales to its neighbour have slowed.

Moscow’s wariness of becoming little more than a supplier of natural resources to China’s industrial machine speaks volumes of Russia’s humiliating position that until recently saw China as backward. As long as Russia could sell to Europe all the gas required to keep the Russian economy growing, it could arbitrarily put deals with China on hold. These included plans for two gas pipelines from Siberia into China that were announced in 2006 and then quietly dropped as the two sides argued and bickered over prices.

All that has changed. The continuing crisis in Ukraine has forced Russia to ‘pivot’ its economy towards Asia in an effort to lessen the impact of Western sanctions by finding alternative markets and new sources of capital. For China it is a golden opportunity to gain greater access to Russia’s natural resources, at favourable prices, as well as being in a better position to secure access to big infrastructure contracts that might have gone to Western competitors and to provide financing for projects that will directly benefit Chinese firms.

Russia’s incursions into Ukraine and its seizure of Crimea violated two of China’s most consistently held foreign-policy tenets: non-interference in other states and separatism of any kind. Yet, while China abstained from voting on the UN Security Council resolutions condemning Russia (with the Chinese media giving Russia strong support) it has quietly welcomed a new cold war in Europe that might distract America from its declared ‘rebalancing’ towards Asia.

Additional and striking new evidence of the new closeness between China and Russia was a $400 billion gas deal signed in May last year under which Russia will supply China with 38 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas annually from 2018 for 30 years. China has insisted that the gas comes from new fields in eastern Siberia by passing through as yet an unbuilt pipeline, a plan that will ensure supplies are not diverted elsewhere. Other deals have followed too. The biggest was a preliminary agreement signed in November for Russia to sell an additional 30 bcm a year through a proposed pipeline from Western Siberia. In every such new instance it is probable that China was able to drive a hard bargain on price.

Other clear signs of Russia’s weakness have also become clear. Its recent decision to resume high-tech arms exports to China most noticeable. In April it agreed to sell China an air-defence system, the S-400, for around $3 billion. This will help give China air dominance over Taiwan and the Senkaku islands (Diaoyu to the Chinese), who dispute Japan’s claim to them. In November, too, Russia said it was prepared to sell China its latest Sukhoi-35S combat aircraft. Initially it had refused to sell any fewer than 48, in order to make up for losses it suffered as a result of China’s purloining of the designs. Now it has agreed to sell only 24.

Looking ahead problems seem discernibly clear. One is that both countries are competing for influence in Central Asia, once Russia’s backyard. Mr Putin wants to establish his Eurasian Economic Union partly to counter growing economic power in Central Asia, through which China wants to develop what it calls a Silk Road Economic Belt. China is using the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), of which Russia and Central Asian nations are also members, to boost its security ties in the region as well. Another difficulty is Russia’s military and energy links with countries such as India and Vietnam, both of which are rivals of China. But the biggest problem of all seems likely to be Russia’s irritation with being forced into an increasingly subservient role in its relations with China.

Standard