Xi Jinping obtains full powers to confront the West – Le Monde

Former Chinese President Hu Jintao, escorted out of the 20th party congress, on October 22, 2022, in Beijing. ANDY WONG / AP At the age when his predecessors were wisely retiring, Xi Jinping obtained unprecedented powers from the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which ended on Saturday October 22. After Mao’s death and the massacre of students in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, Deng Xiaoping tried to rebuild the legitimacy of the party on two pillars: the enrichment of the population through the development of the private sector and the establishment of rules of succession within a leading team which, moreover, took into account the various existing factions. By ending the limit of two presidential terms, by multiplying the exceptions to the rule of retirement at 68 and by strengthening the role of the party within the private sector, Xi Jinping is taking the opposite view of this strategy. Never has a general secretary of the CCP had such a homogeneous management team as Xi Jinping, at the dawn of this third five-year term. Leaving the two “moderates” of the Politburo Standing Committee, aged only 67, Prime Minister Li Keqiang and Chairman of the Chinese People’s Advisory Commission, Wang Yang, and taking advantage of the departure of two other more Elderly, Xi Jinping, 69, has been able to keep two followers with him: Zhao Leji, the dreaded head of the discipline, and Wang Huning, the intellectual who, for thirty years, has been theorizing about American decline. Above all, he was able to bring up four relatives: Li Xi, party secretary in Guangdong, Cai Qi, party secretary in Beijing, Ding Xuexiang who is his right arm both as President of the Republic and as party leader and especially Li Qiang, the party secretary in Shanghai. Read also the editorial of “Le Monde”: Adapting to the hardening of Chinese power For many Chinese, the catastrophic management of Covid-19 and the two months of confinement imposed on 25 million Shanghainese should have put an end to political ambitions by Li Qiang. But either because Xi appreciated his steadfastness or because Li’s loyalty to him prevails, the Chinese leader not only promoted him to Beijing but designated him number two in the party hierarchy. Li Qiang will most likely be the future prime minister. Li Qiang, in Beijing, October 23, 2022. NG HAN GUAN / AP Xi Jinping therefore now has full powers. “The party runs everything, and Xi runs the Party”, summarizes researcher Chloé Froissart in the next issue of the journal Esprit (November 2022), titled “China: totalitarian tension”. The humiliating ousting of former President Hu Jintao in the middle of a congress on Saturday by two men who forced him to leave the official platform and leave the room under the gaze of cameras from all over the world – with the notorious exception Chinese cameras – is a clear warning. No one can oppose Xi. Hu Jintao’s ideas for “intra-party democracy” no longer have a place in the “new era”. You have 69.02% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.