Something has happened in China. That’s why the whole world is watching when the Chinese Party Congress opens in Beijing on Sunday 16 October. It may seem similar to the previous party congress five years ago. To the untrained eye, it can actually seem quite similar to the People’s Congress that is held every year. The place is the same, People’s Great Hall. Not all the people will be the same, but the new ones will look almost the same as the old ones. Mostly men, in not too expensive dark suits. Photo: Mark Schiefelbein / AP So what makes this party congress different from all the others? The answer: It will give Xi Jinping a third term as China’s leader. The coronavirus casts a shadow The president and party leader are thus setting aside established rules that a Chinese leader resigns after 2 x 5 years. But there is also something else that is not quite the same as before. In the years after Mao, the US and the West have assumed that there is an unwritten social contract between China’s citizens and the Communist Party. The leaders deliver increased growth and prosperity, and the party gets to continue ruling China. Economics comes before everything else. What if this no longer applies? There are indications that this is the case. China, as the only important country in the world, has continued with strict corona restrictions. Where Europe, the USA and the rest of Asia have decided to live with the virus, China practices zero tolerance for infection. It has consequences. The 2,300 hand-picked delegates came in for hot tea in their seats. Photo: THOMAS PETER / Reuters Slowing down China’s growth The cost is enormous. China’s growth in 2010 was over 10 per cent. In the years before the pandemic, it was a solid 5 to 6 percent. This year, it is likely to be 2.8 per cent. After the shutdown of Shanghai for 60 days this spring, growth for all of China in the second quarter was 0.4 percent. It could be that Xi puts people’s health first. In that case, it is good, but it could also be that you have been working for over a year to avoid a major outbreak of infection and unrest before the party congress. A major outbreak would at best reveal weaknesses in a healthcare system that has not improved as quickly as China has become richer. The delegates at the party congress wore masks. Photo: Mark Schiefelbein / AP Fatigue and increasing dissatisfaction with the coronary restrictions are more predictable and easier to manage. The calculation is cool and simple. Xi allows China to take an economic cost to secure its political project. The tech war In the trade and technology war with the United States, China is not solely to blame. It takes two to step on each other’s toes in a bad tango. American sanctions block the sale of so-called “chips”, semiconductors – electronic semiconductors in Norwegian – to Chinese companies. It is happening in a political landscape where mutual trust has plummeted. The US would not have blacklisted companies such as the world’s largest telecommunications technology company Huawei, if they did not perceive that China’s political course had changed radically in a negative direction. Xi’s diplomacy has not given the US any assurances it has been willing to believe. Instead, Xi has stepped up his anti-Western rhetoric. Breaking America’s global dominance has become a clearer goal for China, under Xi. The US-China tech war may have cost Chinese companies global positions. Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei warned in August in an internal memo that the next decade will be historically painful. The memo was leaked and received wide coverage in China and in the West. Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei’s warnings in an August memo were leaked. Photo: ALY SONG / Reuters Again, Xi may have let China take a financial cost to secure his political project. Ukraine causes headaches In the Ukraine war, Xi has maintained his friendship with Putin. For China, Russia is important as another large country with an alternative system of governance to liberal democracy. The values that the US tries to “push on the world”. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping met last September in Uzbekistan. Photo: SPUTNIK / Reuters Italy is a bigger economy than Russia. The EU is China’s largest market. There is little doubt that the West will reward a Chinese condemnation of Russia. But Xi is unsure of how big the gain is, and chooses not to. Once again, Xi is allowing China to take a cost to advance his political project. The question is: Why now? Why not just use time to help? Let China grow at a steady pace past the US economically, and take at least as strong a global position as the US? Maybe even do it with less animosity? There are two reasons: Xi Jinping. The times we live in. Xi is convinced that the United States will never let anyone – least of all China – break its dominance in the world. If China is to take its place as a superpower, they must claim it, is the assessment. Xi and his advisers believe the time is now. Under Trump, the US gave away positions in the Pacific region and cast doubt on the cohesion of Western allies and NATO. China has been rearming up militarily and particularly strengthening its navy. Under Xi’s interests linked, China’s arms industry will gain increased power. Photo: ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP Xi probably has no intention of waiting until Biden might be able to fix this. NATO’s efforts in the war in Ukraine and the political counter-offensive in the Pacific region – which culminated in Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan this summer – have given China something to think about. Xi’s window Something else at the time is domestic social challenges. China’s population is aging. They can get old before they get rich, it is often said. In 20-25 years, China’s young people may not be able to nurture a large majority of the elderly while at the same time winning on all global fronts. There are many indications that Xi and his most loyal circle think that China cannot wait. China’s window to overtake or take the US’s place is within the next 10-15 years. Jude Blanchette of the Center for Strategic Strategic and International Studies calls this Xi’s high stakes. Xi speaks at Tiananmen Square during the commemoration of the centenary of the Communist Party of China. Young Chinese march past a big screen. Photo: WANG ZHAO / AFP It links China’s political project and ambitions more closely to Xi’s person. One wonders if Xi himself thinks that he has been assigned a special role in China’s history. On July 1 last year, at the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi stood before a crowd of 70,000 people. In a simple gray but slightly shiny Mao suit, he stood out clearly among all of China’s top leaders, who all stood a step behind in dark suits or military uniforms. Li lost to Xi Xi allows a cult around his person which has essentially been banned after Mao’s death. He has moved the party away from top-down collective leadership to a leadership style where power is concentrated in his person. The man who in 2012 lost the battle to become China’s leader is called Li Keqiang. He has stood for a different policy. After nearly 10 years in the shadows as an unusually anonymous prime minister, Li allowed himself a jab at President Xi last winter. Unlike President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Li Keqiang (left) is clear that he is stepping down after two terms. Photo: NOEL CELIS / AFP In contrast to the president, he announced that he will comply with the rule that the country’s top leaders serve a maximum of two terms. – This is my last year as prime minister, said Li. Short, not particularly loud, but clear. In itself proof that it matters who leads China. And that it means a lot to the world that Xi now secures – at least – one more term as China’s supreme leader.
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