“We have achieved one great result after another by relying heavily on our people,” the Chinese party leader and president said in the Great Hall of the People on Sunday. There, Xi Jinping presented his new squad of top party leaders: the members of the new Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Those are the most powerful men in the land from now on.
The presentation brought an end to a week of meetings behind closed doors for the approximately 2,300 participants at the 20th Party Congress. Most notable about the entire congress was the sudden departure of former President Hu Jintao, Xi Jinping’s 79-year-old predecessor, this Saturday. Before Xi began a speech to close the congress yesterday, Hu was removed from the room, apparently against his will.
A first statement followed on Sunday. The Chinese state news agency Xinhua is said to have heard that Hu insisted on being at the closure, while he was actually still “recovering”. Which is not mentioned. When he didn’t feel well, his employees would have taken him to a room to rest there. “Now he is doing a lot better,” said Xinhua. There is no official announcement from the Chinese government yet.
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The statement that it is a health problem is internationally questioned. The move appears to be part of Xi’s efforts to gain even more control over the party. The new appointments to the top of the party also point in this direction: in almost all cases these are people who have close, personal ties with Xi.
In addition to the ‘puppets’, the party congress also revolved around the so-called work report of the CPC, in which the policy for the coming years is mapped out. At the beginning of the congress, Xi already read large parts of this. The text was formally approved this weekend. What is striking is the emphasis on stability, militancy and ideology. The text breathes a darker and more fearful picture of the future.
Xi notes that China must be “ready to withstand high winds, turbulent waters and even dangerous storms”
Xi notes that “uncertainty and unpredictable factors are increasing,” and that China must “be ready to withstand high winds, turbulent waters and even dangerous storms.” Professor Taisu Zhang of Yale University in the United States dug up which words were most frequently mentioned at the opening speech of the 18th Congress ten years ago, and which are now. Economy, market, reforms, opening up and peace were mentioned less than ten years agowhen Xi first came to power.
Despite the gloomy tone, the text also expresses great self-confidence. China has chosen the right development model, while the West is in irreversible decline. “We owe the success of our party (…) to the fact that Marxism works, especially when it is adapted to the Chinese context and the needs of our times,” the report said. In 2049, China will lead the world, it says. The report outlines exactly how China wants to achieve this in various chapters.
Economy: not an end in itself
Economic growth is no longer an end in itself, but a condition for guaranteeing the higher goal of stability and security. Significantly, no recent growth figures were presented at the conference. That is very unusual. China no longer focuses on high growth rates, but on ‘high-quality development’, with more emphasis on high-tech. An important pursuit of China, which has long lost faith that the US and Europe are willing to help with the technological rise of the country.
Economic growth is no longer an end in itself, but a precondition for guaranteeing the higher goal of stability and security
The report also emphasizes ‘shared wealth’. That concept has not been worked out clearly, but what it boils down to is that more wealth should reach the poor and the middle class through various forms of redistribution. The move comes with a warning: “We will protect legitimate income, adjust excessive income and prohibit illegal income.” In the past there was too much “worship of money, hedonism, selfishness and historical nihilism,” now the CPC wants to “take tougher action against monopolies . . . and encourage the healthy development of capital.” Rich private entrepreneurs will feel even more threatened as a result.
In addition, valuation for private companies in general is also declining further. This can also be seen from the participants in the congress itself. Only eighteen of the 2296 participants are still in leadership positions at private companies. In 2012, there were still 34, the Financial Times. It also no longer concerns important names of large companies, the participants all turn out to be unknown players in small and medium-sized companies.
Education: Virtue more important than professional knowledge
In the education of young Chinese, the emphasis is shifting further from skill to an emphasis on moral purity. “The most fundamental purpose of education is to cultivate virtue,” the report said. Marxism, adapted to present-day Chinese society, forms the basis for this: “Only by linking the basic elements of Marxism with the specific Chinese realities and refined traditional culture (…) can we provide the right answers to the great questions posed by the times. sets us.”
Art must also be ideologically pure, there is in principle no room for free art.
Covid policy: encouraging results
Hardly a word is spent on covid in the full report. China, with ongoing stringent measures and lockdowns, has severely curbed economic growth and appears to be one of the biggest impediments to both China’s reintegration into the world and economic recovery.
In the education of young Chinese, the emphasis is shifting further from skill to an emphasis on moral purity.
Yet the current super-tight policy is not being lifted, because: “By starting a people’s war on all fronts to stop the spread of the virus (…) we have achieved incredibly encouraging results in both the fight against the epidemic and in economic and social development.” According to the report, the policy has resulted in fewer deaths and less economic damage.
International: a different, Chinese world order
The report paints a picture of a threatening international situation: “The pandemic has had far-reaching consequences, there is a backlash against globalization (…), the recovery of the global economy is slow, there are many regional conflicts and disruptions and global problems are has become more urgent,” it reads. “The world has entered a new period of turbulence and change.”
Nowhere in the report are specific countries mentioned by name: it is not about the war in Ukraine, about the US or about Europe, nor about named developing countries. But it does contain veiled warnings: “Taiwan is the Taiwan of China. Resolving the Taiwan issue is a matter for the Chinese, which must be resolved by the Chinese.”
In Chinese eyes, the US is trying everywhere and in all areas to prevent China from playing its positive role in the world. And that while China stands for “a new kind of international relations” based on “equality, openness and cooperation, and on broadening shared interests with other countries”. Moreover, China wants to stick to ‘economic globalization’, where the US is rowing against time by further shielding markets.
The document no longer focuses on China’s initiative for the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative), the New Silk Road, but focuses more on the Global Initiative for Development (WIO), targeting poor countries, and the Global Initiative for Development. Security (WIV), a new Chinese-led security organization.