The Men Behind The Masks: The New Leadership Of China And The World They Live In

Professor Kerry Brown is Executive Director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. He is also the author of the newly released The New Emperors – Power and The Princelings in China exploring how current China is now firmly under the control of a power-conscious Beijing elite, almost half of whose members are related directly to former senior Party leaders. At the centre of it all sits the latest Party Secretary, Xi Jinping – the son of a revolutionary, with links both to big business and to the People’s Liberation Army. To further discuss his work on China’s Communist Party leadership, Kerry Brown addressed The Sydney Institute on Wednesday 13 August 2014.

THE MEN BEHIND THE MASKS: THE NEW LEADERSHIP OF CHINA AND THE WORLD THEY LIVE IN

KERRY BROWN

A recent biography of President of China and leader of the ruling Communist Party Xi Jinping written by exiled writer Yu Jie issued in Chinese in Hong Kong in April 2014 takes no hostages. Yu, whose previous work on former Premier Wen Jiabao accusing him of hiding ruthlessness with a benign smile earned him a spell in detention before he left China, labels Xi “The Godfather”. The more toxic of his allegations however is not the comparison with a mafia boss; it is the direct parallel Yu draws between Xi and founding father of the current regime Mao Zedong. Making a statement like this within China is automatic entry to banned book status, usually followed by close and unwelcome attention by the security services.

Is Yu right in this description? For many observers, Xi Jinping acts, speaks and looks like a new strongman. This is in stark contrast to this low profile predecessor Hu Jintao who mastered the art of anonymity despite steering China into the global economic superpower slot. In the last few months, the world has had the chance to see more of Xi’s diplomacy and his view of the world. Within China, he has accrued a dazzling array of positions, from Chair of the newly formed National Security Commission to head of a similar body on cyber security and reform. Last year’s major statement on China’s macro economy issued in October at the Party annual meeting was prefaced by a long personal statement by Xi, raising speculation that he had started to move onto territory usually reserved by the Premier – currently Li Keqiang. Xi seems to be everywhere in China, doing everything.

The same story reigns outside China. Xi went to the US last summer and told President Obama to his face that the “Pacific is big enough for both of us” and that China was a “major power.” After asserting this parity, he then made the first ever visit by a Chinese head of state to the capital of the European Union (EU), and delivered a speech in which he conferred the title “civilizational partners” on the EU. Against the backdrop of increasingly assertive behaviour with Vietnam, Japan and other neighbouring countries, Xi’s recent trip to South Korea saw him lambast Japan over their response to war time responsibility, and propose a joint day of commemoration of Japanese aggression – a suggestion President Park politely declined.

Xi certainly has a more forceful speaking style, and more natural political persona, than Hu. But does that really mean that we are looking at a strongman, the first to have ruled China since the era of Deng Xiaoping three decades ago? It is important to be clear about this question of precisely how powerful Xi is, because if he is as strong as some believe then his vision will drive China, and a large part of the future direction of the world.

Labelling Xi as a modern Mao is vivid and provocative. Mao’s traces on the Chinese domestic political landscape remain profound. But it is hard in the modern era to see how someone could behave as Mao did. After all, he turned against the Communist Party itself in the Cultural Revolution from 1966, nearly decimating it with one of the most complete cults of personality the world has ever known. In a China saturated by the World Wide Web, private entrepreneurs, foreign capital, and students recently returned from study overseas, the public are more worldly wise than they were in the era of Maoist simplicity. Put simply, they are not as easily duped. Even if Xi nursed private ambitions to be a new Mao, the world in which he operates and has power now would make this impossible. The only Maoist thing about Xi is that he seems to understand the importance of symbolism and popular appeal. But unlike Mao, ironically, he is 100 per cent a child of the Party, loyal to the Party, and a servant of the Party.

And that gives us the biggest clue. Party loyalty is something this leadership stresses above all else. It is what lies behind the anti-corruption campaign waged over the last 18 months. Xi Jinping has demonstrated fidelity to a vision of the Party and its being central to the project of making China a modern, strong, rich, and powerful nation. He is a nationalistic leader, for sure, and here his world view might create problems for the outside world. But that is not the same thing as labelling him a despot.

We get closer to understanding Xi if we think of him as within a leadership very aware of the vast challenges their country faces in its transition to a middle income status country in the next decade. They have a high awareness of risk, and they have thought a lot about the collapse of the USSR and what happened after this – social anarchy and over a decade of poverty. For them, that is not an option. The tactical decision made when Xi became party leader in late 2012 therefore was that a leadership centred on one narrative, and one central figure was the best bet to navigate through this potentially treacherous period was the safest bet. Xi is part of a collective, the front man as it were. In this context, it is best to describe the outcome as strongmen politics – plural rather than singular. Its key figures sink or swim together. Just as with Hu, it remains all about the collective, and Maoist memories of power flowing into the hands of one person remain deeply fearsome.

Political power does strange things to people. Xi might well be tempted by the powers the Party has strung around him to become more powerful and domineering in the future. At the moment though, everything he has done can be seen as protective of the Party, and centring the Party as China’s best bet to become a globally important player, fulfilling its historic mission to regain the status it had two centuries before. Outside China, this is the political drive of the current leadership we need to think about and take a position on. Focussing simply on Xi and his personal role as some kind of modern Mao is over simplistic. The Communist Party is seeking to achieve something much more complicated. Xi is only one part of that story, and we forget that at our peril.