SINOGRAPH Xi opens generation
gap By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - China, the world's number-two superpower,
last week presented to the country and the
world its chosen leaders and thus the people who
will contribute to global governance. The centerpiece
of this presentation was not the naming
of a new leader, Party General Secretary Xi Jinping
- though he'll have to cope with the leader of the
world's first power, US President Barack Obama -
but the political transition itself.
The
18th Party Congress ended by marking a significant
shift of power to the next generation. Unlike what
happened 10 years ago, when outgoing secretary
Jiang Zemin remained in charge of the powerful
Central Military Commission, this time outgoing
president Hu Jintao resigned from all positions.
The significance of this is that Xi should
be able to govern alone, out of the shadow of the
old generation of leaders. This was the
meaning underscored the
day after by an official Xinhua report, thanking
Hu for his selfless sense of duty.
This
shadow has been an important factor over the last
decade and possibly often made it too cumbersome
to make long-term decisions or to launch new,
necessary reforms. This new agility and enhanced
decision-making capacity is confirmed by the
narrowing of the summit of power, the Standing
Committee of the Politburo, which shrank from nine
to seven members.
This step had a
price: the five new members are all veterans of
the Politburo and older than Xi and his number-two,
Li Keqiang; they should retire in five years.
This will be an obstacle for Xi. Moreover,
according to rumors in Beijing, many of the five
could be loyal to Jiang, while the younger people
are loyal to Hu.
Yet looking at
the enlarged Politburo, there are many new faces.
Sun Zhengcai and Hu Chunhua, both born in 1963,
will likely take over the Chinese leadership in
2022. Then we can see a larger wave of renewal
by looking at the Central Committee, where 80%
of the 205 members were born after 1950 and nine
were born after 1960.
We see a chain of
transition of power where the new generation is
promoted but held back by elements of the past. We
have Xi but also Hu and Jiang’s men; there is
innovation and continuity with the past. This
should make the chain on transition strong and
without breaks of generations and interest groups.
A
spirit of "forward, but cautiously" is evident,
and that was also the spirit of Xi's inaugural
address. He thanked the journalists and said
that in the future it is important for China to
understand the world and for the world to
understand China. He stressed that China's
ambition is to have a better life, and therefore
it must not make war or get caught up in
international incidents.
The words,
although reassuring, did not contain a hint of the
conference's most anticipated theme: political
reform. This is the hot spot for possibly a
minority in China and likely a majority outside of
China.
The political process is still very
opaque. It is not known how the leadership was
actually chosen, and beyond the ceremonial vote at
the conference we don't know if there are grand
electors who vote directly or if leaders give
instructions to their followers. We do not know
how the vote occurs, who votes, or what is on the
ballot. There is talk of the lingering
influence of Jiang Zemin and the men of his
generation. The television showed the ancient Song
Ping, 95 years old and unique in the Congress
wearing his Mao jacket, but the future is not
clear. After the retirement of Hu, Jiang, and the
others, will they still have influence? And if so,
how much? In that case, will the system for
selecting leaders change?
These are all
unanswered questions that are on the minds of the
great American strategists. After the congress
however the papers showed only the picture of Hu
and Xi shaking hands.
Obama could redefine
America's policy toward China, speeding up or
slowing down the reorientation of political and
military priorities toward Asia. The process is
already under way, and an important element in the
assessment is the transparency of the Chinese
political system.
Can the carefully
cultivated system of imperial-Leninist secrets
resist the pressure of harmonization with global
politics?
In this situation, the careful
compromises form a chain from generation to
generation, and the current balance between
reformers and conservatives may break or strangle
growth in China. Perhaps this is the greatest
challenge for Xi.
Francesco
Sisci is a columnist for the Italian daily Il
Sole 24 Ore and can be reached at
fsisci@gmail.com
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