THE ONLY DIRECTION FOR XI´S DICTATORSHIP / PROJECT SYNDICATE

The Only Direction for Xi’s Dictatorship

Over the past decade, Chinese President Xi Jinping has exploited Communist Party leaders’ fear of losing control to increase his own power to levels unseen since Mao Zedong. Party members preparing to hand Xi a third term this month are ignoring their country’s own recent cautionary tale about the dangers of one-man rule.

Chris Patten

LONDON – After a decade in power, Xi Jinping is all but certain to be confirmed as China’s first three-term president at the Communist Party of China’s 20th National Congress this week. 

But before they make Xi a potential dictator for life, the party faithful should bear in mind that dictatorships never end well. 

Despite his iron grip on power, Xi’s is no different.

To see where Xi’s autocracy might lead, CPC members need only look to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s extraordinary recklessness. 

Alternatively, they may want to examine their own history and recall the murderous mayhem and infighting that characterized the Cultural Revolution during Mao Zedong’s last decade.

Mao’s brutal one-man rule prompted his adroit and wily successor, Deng Xiaoping, to introduce the two-term limit that Xi later pushed to abolish. 

To prevent a single individual from amassing so much power, Deng devised a system in which the top leader would have to operate under party elders’ guidance and in consultation with a small group of senior advisers and powerbrokers – a cabinet of sorts. 

But Xi chucked this model and in 2018 had Chinese lawmakers amend the country’s constitution to clear the way for his third term.

But how will Xi rule once his leadership has been cemented? 

His slow-but-steady rise through the CPC ranks may be instructive. 

The son of a senior party official imprisoned by Mao as an alleged rightist, the 15-year-old Xi was sent to the countryside for “re-education” during the Cultural Revolution. 

Under Deng, the family’s fortunes improved; Xi’s father re-emerged as a reforming provincial boss. 

Xi himself became a political adviser to the military, then a party apparatchik. 

While he did not stand out for his political or intellectual prowess, he continued to ascend the party ladder. 

His status as a princeling played a large part: because his father was an economic reformer, people assumed that Xi would be one, too.

Though it is difficult to pinpoint the exact causes of Xi’s political rise, it is clear that several enabling trends predated his presidency. 

For example, the CPC had already begun consolidating power by the time Xi became its top leader. 

Under Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, party leaders worried they were losing their grip on the economy and attempted to reassert government control over the private sector.

Moreover, the notion that the CPC must engage in an “intense struggle” against Western values – the subject of the now-infamous “Document No. 9” that was widely circulated among party members in 2013 – was likely agreed upon before Xi came to power. 

To be sure, once installed, Xi threw himself into the struggle with gusto.

Similarly, party leaders had been spooked by an alleged attempt by two prominent political figures – Bo Xilai, the then-party chief of Chongqing, and Zhou Yongkang, the party’s former security chief – to seize power in 2012. 

At the same time, the rise of Big Tech, together with the splintering effects of globalization and urbanization, had made the CPC’s top brass increasingly nervous. 

So, when Xi insisted on being given greater powers than his predecessors before taking over, they did not put up much of a fight.

Once in power, Xi proved adept at exploiting this growing nervousness to strengthen his control over the party, the government, and the country. 

His desire to maintain the CPC’s authority over every aspect of life in China has fueled a growing cult of personality that places Xi’s “Chinese Dream” at the heart of the Communist creed.

Increasingly convinced that Western democracies – namely, the United States – are in decline and that the future lies with his model of authoritarian governance, Xi has also overseen a shift in Chinese foreign policy toward grievance-based nationalism. 

Asserting control over Taiwan is central to this agenda. 

So is dismantling existing global-governance institutions, which, according to Xi, were founded by Western democracies to protect their own interests.

The many victims of Xi’s quest for Mao-like powers include Muslims in Xinjiang, the citizens of Hong Kong, China’s bullied neighbors, religious groups, and China’s civil society. 

And now, China’s economic boom seems like another potential casualty of his unchecked rule.

Beset by fundamental weaknesses and crippled by Xi’s zero-COVID policy, economic growth is expected to slow to about 2.8% this year. 

A possible recession would likely increase record-high youth unemployment even further. 

Moreover, China’s debt is nearly 300% of GDP, owing to unproductive investments and subsidies for state-owned enterprises. 

And the country’s real-estate sector, which accounts for about one-fourth of its economic growth, now looks like a giant Ponzi scheme.

But instead of changing course and focusing on restoring economic growth, Xi has doubled down on centralization at the expense of the private sector. 

Xi’s draconian approach to the pandemic enhanced the surveillance state’s control over its citizens, but Xi continues to reject more effective imported vaccines, implying that brutal lockdowns will continue to cripple the economy. 

With no one to question his policies, he seems to borrow elements from Maoist economics. 

Until relatively recently, China’s economy was expected to overtake the US economy by 2030; now, some believe it may have peaked.

It remains to be seen how Xi will tackle these problems. 

But a post-peak China led by an all-powerful ruler will almost certainly aggravate global uncertainty and instability. 

If Xi’s first two terms are any indication, we should all prepare ourselves accordingly.

Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a former EU commissioner for external affairs, is Chancellor of the University of Oxford and the author of The Hong Kong Diaries (Allen Lane, 2022).