The Political Thought of Xi Jinping
STEVE
TSANG AND OLIVIA CHEUNG
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2024
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Tsang, Steve Yui-Sang, 1959– editor. | Cheung, Olivia, editor.
Title: The political thought of Xi Jinping / [edited by] Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2024] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023027543 (print) | LCCN 2023027544 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197689363 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197689370 (epub) | ISBN 9780197689394
Subjects: LCSH: Xi, Jinping—Political and social views. | Economic development—China—History—21st century. | China—Social policty—21st century. | China—Foreign relations—21st century. | China—Politics and government—2002–Classification: LCC HC427.95 .P645 2023 (print) | LCC HC427.95 (ebook) | DDC 338.95100905—dc23/eng/20230724
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023027543
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023027544
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197689363.001.0001
ToallwhopromotetheunderstandingofChinaandits peopleforwhattheyare.
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Political Thought of Xi Jinping
2. Reinvigorating the Chinese Communist Party: Party Rectification and Anticorruption
3. The Party Leads Everything
4. Building a Moderately Well-Off Society Comprehensively: Antipov erty and an Upgraded De Facto Social Contract
5. Developing a Socialist Market Economy: Xi’s Three Economic Go als
6. Creating a Patriotic Chinese People: Party-Centric Nationalism
7. Building “the Common Destiny for Humankind” Conclusion: A Work in Progress
Notes
Bibliography
Index
2.1
3.1
5.1
Illustrations
Figure
Total number of persons sanctioned by the Central Commissio n for Discipline Inspection, 2012–21
Tables
Permanent central leading small groups of the Chinese Comm unist Party that were in operation under Xi as of 2021 Income categories in China in 2019
Acknowledgments
Although the intensive research for this project was conducted mostly in the last two years, basic conceptualization for it and the recognition of its importance took place over a longer period. Since 2017 when Xi Jinping Thought made its debut, students, academic colleagues, and contacts in governments, the corporate world, the media, think tanks, and civil society have raised searching questions about China’s direction of travel. Their interest underpins the value for understanding what Xi Jinping Thought is. Many of them shared insights based on their own study or experience working in China or conversations with Chinese colleagues. Discussing with them has helped to shape the thinking behind this project. As we engaged in intensive research and writing, we had the privilege of exchanging and debating some of our preliminary findings with many of them. Their criticisms and feedback have enriched the project greatly. To all who have engaged with us we owe an intellectual debt.
We thank the SOAS China Institute for its stimulating environment and its alumni for the financial support for this research project. Without the kindness of the alumni, which supported the fellowship for Olivia Cheung, the research could not have been completed in the intensive timeframe we set. The efficient administrative support that Li-Sa Whittington and Aki Elborzi have rendered at the Institute have also enabled us to focus on this project.
In conducting intensive research for this project we have received excellent research assistance. In this we are most grateful to Artie Lam, Justin Liu, Nicola Harvey Wood, and Zhifan Xu. We are also extremely grateful to Matthew Chitwood for sharing with us his firsthand experience of the antipoverty campaign in China, and to George Magnus for his thoughtful comments on one of the chapters.
Abbreviations
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
BRICS Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa
CCP Chinese Communist Party
EU European Union
GDP gross domestic product
MIC2025 Made in China 2025
PLA People’s Liberation Army
PRC People’s Republic of China
SOE state-owned enterprise
UN United Nations
Introduction
The 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held in October 2022 was a historic occasion. It marked the start of Xi Jinping’s third term as the top leader of China and ended the postMao convention that the top leader retires after serving two terms of five years each. For all intents and purposes, it was also the beginning of Xi’s time as leader for life, a development not supposed to recur after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. It was not meant to be historic in other ways. The meeting took place in Beijing, in line with long-standing practices, with all the post-Mao institutions and rules in place. It was reassuringly dull and predictable until the last day.
High drama unfolded at the closing ceremony. Xi’s predecessor as general secretary of the CCP, Hu Jintao, was escorted out of the meeting visibly against his wishes. This was captured on camera and broadcast live, but never shown again on Chinese media. The subsequent ban on the images and reporting suggests that Xi did not intend to humiliate Hu. It seemed like Xi wanted to preempt Hu from doing or saying something that could potentially embarrass him. Xi had his way, though the treatment of Hu almost certainly damaged the image of Xi and the CCP system more than whatever awkwardness Hu might have caused.
The images captured by foreign media survived and provoked speculations outside China as to what happened.1 From television footage, it was clear that Hu, not enjoying the best of health and seated in the front row next to Xi in line with protocol, tried to take a look at a red folder in front of him. This caused concern from his other neighbor, Politburo Standing Committee member Li Zhanshu. With a signal from Xi, the official assigned to attend to Hu’s needs took on a new and unexpected role. He escorted Hu out. Other top leaders at the event kept calm and carried on, as if the drama was
not happening. Even Premier Li Keqiang, a Hu protégé whose arm was touched by Hu as he left, merely made a slight and awkward acknowledgment. Li kept silent. The contents of the folder are not known. The best-educated guess is that it contains the list of membership of the new 7-strong Politburo Standing Committee, the usually 25-strong Politburo, and the 200-plus Central Committee. They are details to be released later.
The drama, it would seem, centered on the list of Politburo members. Instead of 25 names as expected, it included only 24. The one conspicuous in its absence is that of existing member Hu Chunhua. He is another protégé of Hu Jintao and a leading light of the Youth League Faction. He had previously been widely tipped as a potential successor to Xi. He adroitly avoided the wrath of Xi at the previous Party Congress, five years earlier. He indicated that he was happy to stay on as a member of the Politburo and did not wish to be promoted to the Politburo Standing Committee. Such a promotion would have encouraged speculation that he would be, or desired to be, a successor to Xi. The modesty of his ambition or his political astuteness saved him. It would seem that Xi had agreed that he could stay on in the Politburo prior to the 20th Congress but changed his mind in the course of it. Hence, the membership dropped by one. It was a decision apparently not shared with Hu Jintao, who reportedly lobbied for Hu Chunhua to be promoted. As Hu Jintao tried to read the membership list, the prospect of an embarrassing reaction from him loomed. This was apparently enough for Hu to be removed from the closing ceremony.
What this high drama reveals is how Chinese politics have transformed under Xi. Fundamental changes, in contrast to minor modifications, have not been made to the formal structure and institutions of the Communist Party or the Chinese Government. But the same cannot be said about how the system operates. In the language of the digital era, Xi has largely kept the hardware of the CCP system in place. He has replaced or substantially upgraded the operating system, however. Let us visualize the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 using terms of the digital age. The party-state system of the Mao era (1949–76)
operated under the first-generation operating system, with variations or minor updates introduced over a quarter of a century. This was replaced by Operating System 2 under Deng Xiaoping when he launched the era of reform and opening up in December 1978. Various updates were introduced under Deng, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao. Xi is not content with further updates. He replaced it by Operating System 3, which he brands “Xi Jinping Thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era.” With a replacement of the operating system, what could not happen previously, like publicly humiliating a retired top leader, took place unceremoniously.2 The public demonstration of the dominance of Xi and his “Thought” at the upper echelons of power made the 20th Party Congress truly historic.
“Xi Jinping Thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era” was of course introduced earlier, at the 19th Party Congress in 2017, and was duly added to the Constitution of the CCP. When this happened, many wondered about its significance. Was it just a vanity project? Did Xi merely try to outdo his two predecessors, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, in having his contribution formally described as “thought” rather than a long-winded and clunky theoretical addition that means little to most people? Having studied the changes Xi had made to how the Party governed China in his first five-year term, it was obvious to us that it was much more than a vanity project.
When Xi first became the top leader in 2012, he lost no time in making it clear that he took on the leadership of the Party and of China to make changes, not to muddle through, as was becoming the case toward the end of the Hu Jintao decade. Xi is powerhungry, but he also wants to change the Party, the country, and the people. He intends the introduction of his “Thought” to make him at least comparable to Mao Zedong, the only leader with his name associated with Thought in the long ideological description, Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought. In 2017, we knew Xi saw himself as an agent of change and was ambitious, but we did not fully appreciate how ambitious he truly was.
What was clear then was that Xi Thought must be taken seriously, as Xi made it unmistakable that he intended to make himself the helmsman of China’s ship of state, along the line of the Maoist tradition of Mao being “the great helmsman.” This was in sharp contrast to the relatively modest and pragmatic approach of Deng Xiaoping, who merely advocated “crossing the river by feeling for stones” in his era of “reform and opening up.” Deng’s experimental approach required no master plan to guide China in its direction of travel, though he did set limits to what were allowed, codified in the four cardinal principles.3 In Mao’s case, the helmsman knew the navigational direction. The crew (or the Party) and the ship (or China collectively) only needed to embrace and follow the helmsmen, and he would deliver them to the promised land. In reviving this particular “revolutionary heritage,” Xi was going to make Xi Thought the self-updating navigational chart that would guide China’s ship of state to its destiny, encapsulated in “the China Dream.”
This recognition made the study of Xi Thought important, as it provides clear pointers to the direction of travel Xi sets for China. With Xi revealing his intention not to be bound by the customary rule of serving only 10 years at the top, the significance of understanding Xi Thought became compelling, at least to us.
Given the nature of China’s political system and Xi’s turn to a more personalized approach to leadership, it also became obvious that the establishment in China would systematically propagate Xi Thought in a hagiographic way. This makes an independent and critical analysis of Xi Thought even more valuable. Understanding Xi’s ambitions for China and how he intends to fulfill such ambitions will enable us to put into context and appreciate how China is changing, and what the implications are for the people of China as well as the rest of the world.
This book examines critically the key tenets of Xi Thought as a kind of political ideology or proto-ideology. It is not intended to be comprehensive, as a hagiographic approach adopted in China itself will amplify on Xi’s wisdom on every subject under the sun. Instead, we work to identify and reconstruct systematically and critically the
key tenets that Xi has put in place to direct politics, the people, society, the economy, and engagement with the rest of the world. This process does require deciding when and where to take what Xi and his support team have said or written at face value. We do so by contextualizing what was articulated against what was being done and the general pattern that could be discerned. This is not arithmetic with definitive answers. We acknowledge that the critical analysis that we present can be wrong. We welcome debates so that we will collectively better understand China’s direction of travel.
Some of the key findings in this book were not obvious to us when we started. For example, we did not set off seeing Xi Thought as committed to forging one strong country, one patriotic people, guided by one ideology and led by one party with one leader at the top. We reach this conclusion on the basis of evidence we have seen, though we are aware how controversial this may be.
We also pondered if politics in China under Xi have changed so much that the consultative Leninism framework that one of us (Tsang) devised when Jiang Zemin was in power still applies. We decided that to a very large extent it does, though significant modifications need to be made. Our research shows that the basic political system, or the hardware, has remained essentially unchanged. What has changed is how it operates, or the software. Hence, our starting point is that the party-state Xi inherited was consultative Leninist, but it has been “upgraded” or substantially modified to become “Sino-centric consultative Leninism.” The system as a whole operates differently but not unrecognizably.
This book was completed just before the 20th National Congress of the Party. This historic event has resulted in key tenets of Xi Thought being incorporated into the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party, the removal of nonloyalist leaders, including able technocrats from the top policymaking bodies, and a concentration of power in Xi’s hands unprecedented in the post-Mao era. But it has not yet resulted in Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era being formally shortened to Xi Jinping Thought or proclaimed the state ideology. Xi also did not provide any modification to the vision for China he had previously outlined.
Instead, he underlined the importance of holding fast to the Party’s mission, strengthening the leadership of the Party, and following the Leader. In other words, Xi reaffirmed the central importance of Xi Thought as a guide for China to fulfill the China Dream of national rejuvenation. The premises, analysis, and conclusions presented in this book do not need to be changed following the 20th Party Congress.
State of Scholarship on the Xi Leadership
Before the 19th Party Congress in October 2017, the main debate among China scholars studying the Xi regime was whether it would be ushering in, as Willy Lam put it, “renaissance, reform, or retrogression” for China. Lam’s answer was “Chinese who do not belong to the ‘red aristocracy’ see no cause for optimism.”4 He argued that Xi, a “crypto-Maoist,” had “adulterated Deng Xiaoping’s legacy” to the detriment of the CCP, which had become “narrowminded” and made the country “inward-looking.” Xi had, according to Lam, put himself above institutions, crushed rival political factions, undermined market-oriented reforms, revived Maoist political campaigns, and required the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to reaffirm its historical role as “the Party’s military” that answers only to the top party leadership.5
Lam was not alone in this verdict.6 However, there were those who felt that the jury was out on whether Xi would change China for better or for worse, given that it was still in its early years. Among this group were David Shambaugh, one of us (Tsang), and Honghua Men. Shambaugh predicted that “chances of a return [from Hard Authoritarianism] to Soft Authoritarianism will rise” after the 19th Party Congress. He expected a large number of the members of the Politburo and its standing committee to retire because of age requirements, and that it would “open the door to a political reform faction to return to power.”7 If this does not happen—it did not—he warned, “secular stagnation will continue, the reforms will continue to stall, and the CCP will gradually lose its grip on power.”8
Tsang and Men predicted “three megatrends” by the end of Xi’s second five-year term in 2022. These were, first, “reinforcing the consultative Leninist system” (we will discuss the meaning and implications of this system in Chapter 1), second, “a more balanced approach to deepening reform,” and third, “a more assertive China in the international community.” These three trends were said to be “all about taking calculated risks to deepen reform significantly and to play a more proactive role in world affairs.”9
These calculated risks, however, exacerbated the Xi regime’s contradictions. Robert Ross and Jo Bekkevold maintained that the “most fundamental contradiction” in Xi’s domestic politics and foreign policies is “between the interests of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese state.”10 They argued that the Party’s survival had rested heavily on nationalism, which tended to produce confrontational foreign policies, and the suppression of dissent. In their view, both of these governance tools could undermine the interest of the Chinese state, as the success of its economic balancing program depended on international cooperation and looser social control. They concluded that China would face “increasingly uncertain prospects” if Xi tightens the Party’s grip over society, gives priority to China’s great power status, and prioritizes personal power maximization over pragmatic policymaking.11
Cheng Li also observed multiple contradictions in Xi’s policy agenda. For example, Li wrote, Xi promoted the development of an innovation-driven market economy but discriminated against foreign technology firms, and while he underlined the importance of the “rule of law,” he systematically persecuted human rights lawyers. While Ross and Bekkevold perceived these contradictions in a negative light, Li viewed that Xi was “wise to strike a delicate balance between various constituencies and socioeconomic forces,” and that it testified to the “flexibility and adaptiveness” of his leadership. Li concluded, “It is arguably Xi’s contradictions that make him a well-rounded and effective leader.”12
After the 19th Party Congress, the explorative tone in the scholarship gave way to a new consensus: Xi had become a
strongman. It means Xi had greatly undermined the Party’s norms of leadership succession and collective decision-making Deng put in place in the 1980s. This process was consolidated, arguably even institutionalized, under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, who were, respectively, general party secretaries from 1989 to 2002 and 2002 to 2012. The scholarship on the Xi regime has gradually shifted from its previous focus on whether Xi was good for China to questioning the legitimacy and implications of his sweeping powers. Carl Minzner argued that “what kept China stable during the reform era can be summed up in a single phrase: partial political institutionalization.”13 However, under Xi, “China is now steadily cannibalizing its own prior political institutionalization.”14 Outside China, this view has been reinforced and mainstreamed pursuant to the passage of the thirdever historical resolution in the Party’s 100 years of history in November 2021. This is not about resolving any historical quandary but about reaffirming Xi’s supremacy.15 According to Joseph Fewsmith, Leninist regimes tend to concentrate power in the hands of a single leader and are thus by nature against institutionalization. He concluded that China’s pre-Xi political system was never institutionalized, i.e., there were never binding rules that could effectively constrain the exercise of political power. Although he rejected the use of the term “institutionalization” to describe China’s post-Mao and pre-Xi politics, he shared the widely held view that Xi has systematically weakened the checks and balances at the leadership level. “The thrust of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms and the trend toward intraparty democracy” have been reversed under Xi “in favor of a more personalized and centralized system.”16
There is no doubt that Xi has centralized powers to an extent unseen since Chairman Mao. In the West, Xi is increasingly seen as a ruthless “emperor or dictator” whose power knows no bounds in China. This view encapsulates an important aspect of Xi’s power, but it can miss the nuanced dynamics of the way Xi’s power is exercised. Kerry Brown points out that “a huge amount” of Xi’s power derives from representing the “body” that is the CCP. Brown stresses that Xi is not only the leader of this body, but also its “servant.”17 Alfred
Chan circumscribes Xi’s power differently. He argues that, at least as of 2018, the power distribution at the national leadership is best conceptualized as ‘first among equals’ ” because Xi had to “rely [sic] on his colleagues, loyalists or not, for decision-making assistance and policy implementation.” He further writes, “Xi did insert supporters into the party-state bureaucracy as well as into the PLA [People’s Liberation Army], but that required a consensus in the Politburo.”18 It is true that Xi had to work through the party-state institutions, or to use our earlier analogy, the “hardware,” to rule, especially before he breached the post-Mao convention of serving only two terms as top leader in 2020. However, these views must be balanced by the fact that Xi has substantially altered the software, or how institutions work in practice. The “software upgrade” has turned the Party from a vehicle that restrains his power to one that perpetuates it, at least in the foreseeable future.
Elizabeth Economy explained that “Xi’s centralization of power and growing control over information mean it is difficult to assess the degree of real consensus within China over the leaders’ policy direction.”19 However, she noticed that there was no shortage of examples revealing discontent over Xi and his policies in the Chinese political, business, and intellectual circles. This led her to predict that the “bold” or even “extreme” nature of Xi’s initiatives might “over time produce an equally strong opposition coalition within China calling for a moderation of his policies.”20 Public resentment in Shanghai and other Chinese cities against the draconian and stateimposed lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19 in spring 2022 counts as the strongest public expression of criticisms against the Xi leadership. However, there has been no sight of an opposition coalition from within the regime emerging, although some technocrats in the system have politely questioned the sustainability and effectiveness of Xi’s “dynamic zero COVID” policy in public.21 While Xi’s economic policies, suppression of minorities and civil society, and approach to management of China–US relations have certainly generated discontent from within the regime and society,22
their dissatisfaction comes nowhere close to regime-threatening dissent and Xi has been unscathed.
Despite the proliferation of publications on Xi, Xi Thought has received neither systematic nor serious attention in the scholarship. The supreme status of Xi Thought and Xi’s crackdown on freedom of expression in China is such that the books and journal articles about Xi Thought in the Chinese language, which are mainly produced in China, generally parrot the party line.
While Xi Thought is off limits for dispassionate analysis in China, China experts in the West tend not to see the value in researching it, and it is mentioned only in passing in the books surveyed above.
François Bougon’s Inside the Mind of Xi Jinping, which analyzes selected excerpts of Xi’s texts, first published in French, then translated into English, is to date the only critical, book-length treatment of Xi Thought. This book adopts Xi Thought as an analytical angle to explore Xi’s persona (“renaissance man,” “antiGorbachev,” and “son of the yellow earth”) and how he was “taking advantage of the economic and ideological weaknesses of Western democracies to carry forward China as the second-largest world power.”23 Besides Bougon’s book, some of Xi’s best-known political ideas, especially “the China Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” had received coverage in the scholarship on Xi’s legitimation strategies and/or foreign policies.24
Structure of the Book
This book is organized to reflect the structure of Xi Thought. It begins with Xi’s thinking on the Party and ends with foreign policy because Xi believes that restoring China’s ancient glory in the world starts from reinvigorating the Party. We devote five chapters to domestic governance and economic management and one to foreign policy because Xi has expounded on his thoughts on the former much more extensively than on the latter.
Chapter 1 examines the evolution of Xi Thought, its key tenets, and its developments. Its focus is on what Xi Thought is and what it
is not. We describe it as a proto-ideology, a body of thought in the process of being installed as China’s ideology, benchmarked against Mao Zedong Thought. But unlike Mao, who Sinified MarxismLeninism by adapting the latter to suit China’s predominantly agrarian context, Xi provides a Sino-centric interpretation of Marxism. This chapter further explains our methodology.
Chapter 2 lays out the Xi approach to party rectification-cumanticorruption. It is a combination of the approach advocated by the Party’s ultimate Leninist, Liu Shaoqi, to building the CCP with Mao’s instinct to rule as a strongman. Under Xi Thought, reinvigorating the Party as a Leninist instrument and establishing Xi’s paramountcy as the Party’s “core” are two sides of the same coin. The Xi approach to carrying out rectification and anticorruption strengthens the party hierarchy and consolidates Xi’s power simultaneously. Its key contents are: purging rivalrous factions, ideological indoctrination, and centralizing the disciplinary regime.
The heart of Chapter 3 is Xi Thought on consolidating the Party’s status as the Leninist vanguard of the Chinese party-state. Structurally, it manifests in the reorganization of the Party, the formal transfer of important state powers to the Party, and the penetration of party cells at the grassroots level. Ideologically, it manifests in the ban on Western or liberal political ideas. Importantly, Xi also resorts to lofty ancient Chinese governance ideals to Sinify Marxism-Leninism, so as to cultivate national “cultural self-confidence” in the leadership of the CCP. As he does so, he has made Marxism-Leninism Sino-centric rather than adapt to the conditions of China, despite rhetorical pretension otherwise.
Chapter 4 introduces the framework of a new or upgraded de facto social contract to conceptualize the Party’s relationship with the people under Xi Thought. In this social contract, the Party promises to meet public demands more effectively. It does so mainly by reinvigorating the mass line to guide public opinion proactively. In exchange, the people are required to step up to defend regime security. We focus on Xi’s campaign to “eliminate” rural absolute poverty to study how the de facto social contract was put into practice for, respectively, ethnic minorities and the Han majority in
China. The campaign is important for understanding Xi Thought also because it lies at the heart of Xi’s conception of “building a moderately well-off society comprehensively.” He hailed its completion to be the accomplishment of the First Centenary Goal of “the China Dream” at the centenary of the founding of the CCP in 2021.
Chapter 5 focuses on the economy. Xi has set his three most important economic goals and ranked them. His top goal is for China to acquire economic strength by developing independent innovation ability that will allow it to lead the making of new global economic rules. His second goal is to enhance the order and security for the domestic market. This requires market discipline to be tightened and selective economic and technological decoupling between China and the outside world. His third goal is to deliver “common prosperity,” which means increasing wealth distribution for the poor. Xi’s setting and prioritizing of these three goals reveal that he melds partycentric nationalism and socialism to govern the economy, with the former given greater importance.
Chapter 6 investigates Xi Thought on creating one patriotic people out of the diverse population of China. To this end, Xi launched a patriotic education campaign to mobilize the people in China and the Chinese diaspora to embrace “the China Dream.” Being a proud Chinese or a Chinese citizen who does not embrace Xi’s brand of party-centric nationalism is not permissible under Xi Thought. It requires everyone to profess loyalty to the Party, to be willing to endure hardship for the nation, and to internalize a party-serving narrative of history. To promote a Sino-centric vision of socialism, the education system at all levels is being revamped, and popular culture is being rectified to embed “core socialist values.”
Chapter 7 unpacks Xi’s approach to the world. It is encapsulated in his tianxia vision of a Sino-centric world order. Tianxia is the system of inter-state relations in premodern East Asia. Despite its regional application, the ancient Chinse Empire considered it to be universal in application. It was not unreasonable because Chinese supremacy was acknowledged by “the rest of the world” as far as premodern communication, management, and logistical capabilities
allowed. Xi’s top foreign policy goal is to “re-create” his romanticized reconstruction of tianxia in the present day. The Xi approach prioritizes regime and leadership security, doubles down on partycentric nationalism, pursues narrow-minded Sino-centrism, claims global leadership, and vindicates the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Based on the findings of the preceding chapters, the Conclusion distills the vision of Xi Thought into two core elements or ambitions. The first is to create “one state, one people, one ideology, one party, and one leader.” The second is to make China great again and better than any other country in the world. Moreover, this chapter demonstrates that China’s political system is being transformed from consultative Leninism to Sino-centric consultative Leninism under Xi Thought. It ends with a discussion of China’s direction of travel under Xi and its implications for China and the world.
Political Thought of Xi Jinping
The relative neglect of Xi Jinping Thought outside China is due to two main reasons. First, many think that the decisions and behavior of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Government can tell us more about Xi and his intentions than his public discourse. This approach applied well in the Deng Xiaoping era, including the reigns of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. In line with Deng’s pragmatism, cadres had considerable leeway to do whatever they thought could promote growth and stability, as long as they did not breach the bottom line. But Xi’s politics have rendered Dengist pragmatism a relic of history. Since Xi Thought is now the highest guide for policymaking, it is important to take what Xi says into account seriously. In an important way, Xi has repoliticized post-Mao policymaking by subordinating technocratic expertise to ideological correctness. Like Mao, Xi puts ideology and politics ahead of policies. This means that the design, implementation, and evaluation of policies is premised on Xi Thought, which must be considered before policies are made. This ideology-first approach contrasts with Deng’s pragmatic approach, by which policies were made first and then the ideology interpreted to uphold them. Thus, to understand what China is becoming, why, and where it is heading, it is crucial to study how Xi conceptualizes China, its way forward, and its place in the world.
Second, many argue that Xi’s real intentions cannot be reliably ascertained from his public discourse, which serves propaganda purpose but not factual communication. Some even dismiss Xi Thought as shameless, self-aggrandizing propaganda glorifying Xi and the CCP, mainly produced by party “theoreticians” and
propagandists.1 To a certain extent, this can be said of all political speeches, and it arguably applies more to autocrats and populist leaders. These limitations notwithstanding, dismissing Xi Thought as the product of a writing team overlooks the reality that Xi approves what is said in his name. In a Leninist system like that in China, where target-setting matters, its top leader uses public statements to communicate with the over 95 million strong Communist Party, its 1.4 billion people, and the rest of the world. Publicly set goals do matter. The fact is that even though Xi’s public utterances have an element of propaganda, their value in revealing his intentions remains very high. For example, he said China and developing countries are “natural allies in international relations.”2 This is propaganda but it also reflects his strategic ambition, which has been implemented as policies (see Chapter 7). There is no doubt that Xi intends his Thought to guide the Party in steering the country.
Xi Thought articulates the self-identity, outlook, intentions, and strategies of China’s strongman leader. It is something the whole leadership is required to embrace and follow, with the rest of the country being asked to follow suit. With Xi having ended term limits for himself, he can be expected to stay in power for the rest of his life. Barring events or death that may end Xi’s leadership earlier, at age 69 in 2022, Xi will guide China for the coming two decades, if not longer. The best way to know where China is heading is to understand and contextualize Xi Thought.
Robust scrutiny of Xi Thought should enable us to see the trajectory of China’s domestic politics and foreign policies to 2050, when it is meant to have achieved national rejuvenation. This would be the year after the centenary of the establishment of the PRC in 1949. It is also the time frame for Xi Thought, as Xi has not outlined what comes after the fulfillment of the China Dream. China may or may not develop as Xi would like it to, but his ideas and ambitions are encapsulated in his Thought. If China develops a grand strategy, its main thrust will be based on it, too.
The “Political Thought of Xi Jinping,” or “Xi Thought” for short, not the official description “Xi Jinping Thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era,” is used as the title of this book for two reasons. First, we are inspired by Stuart Schram’s seminal work, The PoliticalThought ofMao Tse-tung. Schram argued persuasively that Mao “conceived of his own thought as an instrument for the transformation of society,” and hence it is important to “treat his thought as a key to understanding his acts and intentions.”3 We approach Xi’s thinking in the same spirit. Second, being clearly distinct from the official term is meant to indicate that we examine Xi’s thinking critically, and independently from the party line.
What Is Xi Thought?
Since 2017, Xi Thought has defined the canon of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” the “guiding thought” of the Party. Xi and the CCP have left it vague whether Xi Thought is the latest rendition of the state ideology, though it has already been described as an “ideology” in the West.4 We prefer a tighter and more deliberate understanding of what it is. The academic definition of “ideology” is a coherent set of worldviews and a system of meanings that explain social phenomena.5 As it stands in 2022, Xi Thought is, in substance, at most a proto-ideology rather than an ideology. It has not yet fully developed into a coherent body of ideas that defines clearly what it is, how to realize the China Dream, and how realizing the China Dream will bring China to “communism,” the “ultimate goal” specified in the CCP Constitution. Up to now, Xi Thought is meant to guide China to achieve the China Dream, with what comes afterward unsaid. Xi Thought primarily articulates the vision of a strongman and the Chinese leadership’s self-identity, outlook, intentions, strategies, and their painstaking attempt to provide an exhaustive justification and appraisal of all these things. It is not yet China’s state ideology but is getting close to it.
We conceptualize Xi Thought as a strategic thought that presents Xi’s definition of the problems undermining the Party and China, why
they emerge, and how to fix them. For all the problems he has elaborated in his many speeches and writings, Xi tends to blame them not only on the West but also on the reform and opening up. It was the explosion of economic opportunities unleashed by the reform and opening up that has exacerbated the centrifugal tendencies in Chinese politics. Xi sees them as contributing to widespread corruption and power abuse, leading to the “admiration of the West” by cadres and the public, eroding the Party’s control over the economy and society, and producing a foreign policy that prioritizes good relations with the West over defending China’s interest. Xi Thought is Xi’s guide on how to reshape the reform and opening up, so that China can profit from it and strengthen regime security and party supremacy simultaneously.
Benchmarked against Mao Zedong Thought
Xi Thought is presented as surpassing the status of all other strategic thoughts in the post-Mao period. The ideological contributions of Jiang Zemin’s “Important Thought of the Three Represents” and Hu Jintao’s “Scientific Outlook on Development” are now deemed little more than ideological embellishments. Xi Thought’s standing relative to Mao Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory is open to interpretation.6 While Deng’s theory underpinned the introduction of a new paradigm for the CCP to operate in the reform and opening up era, it was about justifying pragmatism, not laying claim to exclusivity. Mao Thought did. So does Xi Thought. Mao Thought was officially extolled for its originality, mainly seen in its idea of launching the socialist revolution in the countryside, rather than in factories in cities, in contrast to what Marx had prescribed.7 In parallel to Mao Thought’s being hailed as the only correct path to save China, Xi Thought is presented as the only true path for national rejuvenation.8 Mao Thought and Xi Thought are also the only ideological contributions of Chinese leaders incorporated into the party and state constitutions as “thoughts” while their titular progenitors hold office. While Xi has not yet so proclaimed, there is
