upamfva
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Join Date: 6.11.2021
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Posted: 10.6.2022 7:11:46
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Decoding the 20th Party Congress
The 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will determine China’s leadership for the next five years, and be a defining moment for politics, policy, and the world. This website decodes the black box of Chinese politics, the Party Congress, and the domestic and foreign policy impacts through a groundbreaking visualization mapping Chinese institutions, key individuals, hidden personal connections, and informal networks of power that drive personnel and policy decisions under the surface.To get more news about the 20th CPC national congress, you can visit shine news official website.
Leadership of the 96 million-member Chinese Communist party (CCP) is concentrated in the 25-member Politburo, within which real power rests with the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC). In today’s China, however, supreme power indisputably lies with CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping.
Following his appointment as General Secretary at the 18th Party Congress in November 2012, and later simultaneous appointments as Chair of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and President of China in early 2013, Xi has rapidly concentrated power into his own hands. He has done so by having first purged many of his internal factional rivals through an early anti-corruption campaign and subsequent “party-rectification” campaigns, then by centralizing the decision-making structure of the Chinese system away from state institutions and into a number of small “leading groups” and committees, nearly all of which are staffed by his close supporters and chaired by himself. Xi has thus been dubbed the “Chairman of Everything.”
Since his rise to power, Xi has had himself declared China’s “Core Leader” and has succeeded in enshrining “Xi Jinping Thought” within the Chinese constitution, elevating himself to nearly the same level as Mao Zedong within the CCP’s ideology and history. All this has prompted accurate accusations that he has established a personality cult and effectively implemented one-man rule. Most crucially, in 2018 he succeeded in having the two-term limit for the presidency revoked. Originally chosen to serve two five-year terms, from 2013-2023, Xi now appears set for reappointment for at least one more term – and quite likely lifetime rule. Securing this reappointment is Xi’s overriding political goal for the 20th Party Congress of 2022, making it among the most consequential in recent Chinese history.
However, while Xi’s continuation in power is nearly certain, he also has broader – and more challenging – political objectives that he hopes to achieve. Namely, he wants to maneuver the appointment of as many of his factional supporters and close protégés into positions of power and influence (particularly onto the Politburo) as possible, paving his way to safely continue in office indefinitely. He may not be entirely as successful as he’d prefer, however, as opposing factions and networks continue to wield influence within the CCP despite Xi’s power. Among these are the “Shanghai Gang” of former leader Jiang Zemin and the faction associated with former leader Hu Jintao and the Communist Youth League (CYL), currently led by Premier Li Keqiang (#2 leader on the PBSC). Personnel selections made at the 20th Party Congress will therefore serve as a barometer for the continuing extent of Xi’s power within the Chinese system, as well as help foretell the future direction of Chinese politics and policy.
Predicting the composition of the CCP’s 20th Politburo and PBSC is made especially challenging by the uncertainty surrounding what the rules and norms for the selection of candidates actually are in the Xi Jinping era. In CCP politics, rules and norms have always been manipulated for the purposes of power, meaning the “rules of the game” have always been flexible at best. But under Xi adherence to fixed norms has been further reduced by his centralization of power.
For instance, even the number of seats on the Politburo and PBSC are open to change; the current total number of PBSC seats could be enlarged from seven to nine, reduced to five, or remain the same. The best predictor is likely not past precedent, but Xi’s political calculation regarding how disruptive he can be and whether it would be more advantageous to have more factional allies in positions of power or fewer potential future rivals. This analysis makes a conscious assumption that the size of the PBSC and Politburo probably will not change.
Another important norm that has traditionally been useful for determining composition of the leadership, but which is now open to change, is the CCP’s retirement age limit for Politburo members: the so called “7 up, 8 down” (????) rule, in which leaders who are age 67 or below at the time of the Party Congress are eligible for reappointment, while those older than 68 must retire. Xi is already set to break this rule, in that he is 69 years old, but intends to remain in office. But while this opens the door for him to make other exceptions, fully abandoning the norm would also eliminate a useful tool for Xi to remove older factional rivals and replace them with younger allies. We, therefore, expect this norm to largely be followed, with only a few isolated exceptions. In fact, it is even possible that the age limit could be lowered further.
Mostly absent from the selection of Politburo-level leaders is any substantial evaluation of policy or managerial expertise. This is not to say that it is entirely neglected; rather, expertise and merit comes to be mobilized as one of multiple bargaining chips in intense negotiations for positions, not only between but also within political factions. Similarly, disputes over differences in policy may play a role, if primarily for securing political advantage. Among these, policy disputes over China’s slowing economy, Xi’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic, and China’s increasingly tense foreign relations are the most prominent.
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