China, Bradanini: “Discontent in the CCP, unpublished path for Xi and the country”

The future of Xi Jinping and China is not decided. There would be “discontent” within the Chinese Communist Party and the “concrete” risk of a “war for power” is not excluded. Alberto Bradanini, ambassador to China until 2015, reasons with Adnkronos in the aftermath of the adoption by the CCP of the “historic resolution” that consolidates the power of Xi Jinping. “There is still no final decision on extending Xi’s second term for another five years, on a third or even a fourth term,” he explains, thinking about the CCP Congress in the fall of next year. And there is the crux of the offices: general secretary of the CCP, president of the People’s Republic, president of the Central Military Commission. The sixth plenum of the 19th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, with the resolution on the “main goals and historical experience” of the 100 years of the CCP, “laid the foundations” for the years to come, but – Bradanini observes – it is not all discounted. The three offices could be “unpacked”, he explains, or Xi could keep the position of president of the Central Military Commission, that of general secretary of the party but not of president of the People’s Republic. Or, “as some say, to recall one office, that of party president, leaving vacant that of general secretary of the CCP, and keep one of the other two offices or both.” In this case, “it would mean” by Xi the identification of a successor, “leaving open a possibility of preordained succession.” rather concrete “according to Bradanini,” is that if the date of the handover from one generation of leaders to another is not certain, the war for power can be unleashed “, an” element of dangerous instability “for the Dragon” which it could also have repercussions on the rest of the world “. And we must look to the CCP. “It would seem there is a discontent within the party leaders which is expressed, according to Chinese tradition, through rituals that are difficult to understand for those who live in a more readable political world”, says the former ambassador. express themselves during the year that is missing from the formal decision “both” by containing the number of offices that Xi could hold at the end of the second term “and even, he continues, with” an expression of strength through the identification of personalities who could succeed Xi “. ‘Xi fascinated by cult personality, culturally very weak, did not add much to the path Mao and Deng’Bradanini speaks of” an unprecedented path for the People’s Republic “, of what” Deng Xiaoping had tried to avoid “for the future of China, or the “senescence of the ruling class”, a “leadership that leaves power only with death and loses contact with the evolution of the times, unleashing around itself the struggle for power “. Xi, 68, remains at the helm,” fascinated in his own way, because times have changed, by the cult of personality “, but at the same time without” the figure of the great military leader who was Mao Zedong “, Bradanini observes , which speaks of a “culturally very weak man, with a very modest philosophical thought”, who “is not considered a great figure within the ideological apparatuses of the party”. “After Mao’s political independence and economic independence ‘of Deng, two profiles necessary to effectively fight against colonialism and dependence on the great powers, Xi has not added much along this path “, concludes the former ambassador, author’ China. Nenni’s gaze and today’s challenges ‘(Antaeus) which will be followed at the end of the year by’ China. The irresistible rise ‘(Sandro Teti Editore).