The Communist Party congress will highlight Xi

Jinping’s power
No one in the new Politburo will be a threat to the party chief
No other regular political event in China involves the mobilisation of people and resources on the
scale of a Communist Party congress. None other dominates the agenda of so many officials, for
so long. Never mind that the country is being battered by pandemic-related lockdowns—red
banners everywhere urge citizens to “joyously welcome” the gathering that will open on October
16th. As they do every five years when such events are held, the country’s eyes are turning to the
capital, Beijing, for the party’s big reveal, the tightly choreographed culmination of months of
secretive dealmaking.

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Party congresses are closely watched because they involve a huge turnover of the party’s senior
leadership and provide clues to its long-term priorities in domestic and foreign affairs. This one
will be striking. More than any other since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, it will showcase
the power and achievements of one man. In the build-up to this event, state media have been
filled with adulation for the “people’s leader”, the “helmsman”, the “navigator” whose wisdom
has steered China to within reach of a “great rejuvenation”. This torrent of praise is intended to
hint that only Mr Xi can enable China to attain that goal, and therefore—despite a convention
that party leaders serve a maximum of two five-year terms—he must remain the party’s boss.

In theory, the congress could boot him out. The most important duty of its nearly 2,300 delegates
is to cast ballots for the selection of a new Central Committee, a body comprising about 370
high-ranking officials and military commanders as well as bosses of large state-owned
enterprises and other grandees. The number of candidates is expected to exceed the number of
seats by more than 8%, so theoretically Mr Xi could fail to make the grade.

At the 15th congress in 1997, Mr Xi—then the deputy party chief of the province of Fujian—
only just squeaked into the Central Committee as a non-voting member. He had the lowest
number of votes. He has been elected as a full member at every congress since, and needs to
keep that position in order to remain in the Politburo.

In reality, there is no chance of humiliation this time. Last year the Central Committee
pronounced that establishing Mr Xi as the leadership’s “core”, and his political ideas as a guiding
ideology, reflected the party’s “deepest wishes”. The importance of upholding these “two
establishes” has been drilled into delegates at pre-congress training sessions. On the day after the
gathering the reshuffled Central Committee (more than half of its members will be new) will
meet to “elect” a new Politburo and Party Military Commission—ie, rubber-stamp decisions
already made. Mr Xi will undoubtedly be given new five-year terms as chiefs of both. At its
annual session next year, probably in March, the national legislature will give Mr Xi another five
years as state president, a title mostly used when dealing with foreigners.

The new Politburo, which currently has 25 members, is expected to include even more of his
protégés. It is unlikely that new members of its Standing Committee, now comprising seven
men, will include a younger politician who is clearly being groomed to take over from Mr Xi at
the next congress in 2027. “For the moment he is concentrating on further consolidating his own
power to ensure his lasting legacy,” writes Charles Parton in a report for the Council on
Geostrategy, a think-tank in London. “Sharing the limelight would be distracting for all.”

Many observers now believe that Mr Xi aims to serve for at least two more terms. In 2032 he
will turn 79, still younger than Mao was when he died (82) and Deng Xiaoping when he retired
(85). Deng remained hugely influential for another several years, with no party titles. Someone
of Mr Xi’s power—on a par with that of Deng and Mao—would be unlikely ever to step aside
completely unless forced to by ill health or an extremely determined rival.
It may be a measure of the discipline Mr Xi has imposed on the party that little has leaked about
the Politburo line-up. It remains a topic of wide-ranging speculation. Li Keqiang will give up his
job as head of government at next year’s meeting of the legislature. By convention he is young
enough, however, to retain his seat on the Politburo Standing Committee. He may become the
legislature’s new chief.

Who replaces him will be closely watched. The clue will be in the Standing Committee’s new
membership. One possibility is that Han Zheng, Mr Li’s most senior deputy, who is already a
member, will take the job. He is 68, which would normally mean he has to retire at this congress,
but it is not clear whether the unwritten age rules will apply this time (they will not for Mr Xi). If
he leaves, Hu Chunhua, another of Mr Li’s deputies, who is 59, may be promoted to the
committee and succeed Mr Li next year. There are other candidates, too, including Wang Yang,
a committee member who, at 67, is just young enough. Mr Wang and Mr Hu are not longtime
associates of Mr Xi, but neither is Mr Li. It may be that Mr Xi has sidelined the role of prime
minister to such an extent that he does not see a pressing need to give the job to someone very
close to him.

No one in the new Politburo will be a threat to Mr Xi. Anyone thinking of grumbling about his
rule will be reminded, during the congress, of the dangers of doing so. The party’s disciplinary
body will deliver a report at the event. It will describe its work in recent years, which has
involved both fighting corruption and ensuring loyalty to Mr Xi. The two tasks intertwine. The
report is likely to mention the recent jailing of several security chiefs. They were sentenced for
graft, but officials have described them as members of a “political clique” that threatened “party
unity”.

Here’s a thought
The congress will be peppered with signs of Mr Xi’s power and his determination to flaunt it.
These may be evident in tweaks to the party’s charter that delegates will endorse. Details of these
have not been revealed, but they may include the shortening of the umbrella term for his political
thinking from the wordy “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a
New Era” to the snappier “Xi Jinping Thought”. That would equate him with Mao.
It will certainly be evident in Mr Xi’s report, which he will read aloud on the first day from a
lectern in the Great Hall of the People. At the previous congress in 2017 this took more than
three hours. (So much for his demand, soon after taking power, that speeches be kept short.) The
report will be filled with praise for the party’s achievements during the past decade—that is,
under his rule. It will highlight the elimination of extreme poverty (defined as $2.30 a day at
2011 prices), which the party said it achieved last year. But it will skate over problems, including
sputtering economic growth, not least as a result of Mr Xi’s draconian “zero-covid policy”, as
well as a stockmarket slump and a shortage of affordable housing in cities (see charts).

The aim of the speech will be to distract those who worry about such matters with plenty of feel-
goodery. At the congress five years ago Mr Xi raised eyebrows in the West by talking of his
country “moving closer to centre stage” in global affairs. This time he will emphasise how much
this has happened, possibly with digs at what he and his officials often portray as Western
disarray. The zero-covid policy will be declared a great victory . There will be stern words about
Taiwan. Delegates will applaud as he explains the virtues of China’s political system. He will not
mention himself, but it will be all about him.■

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