The West needs to better understand Xi Jinping Thought as China becomes more formidable
- Steve Tsang says the Chinese leader is no Maoist, but he sees no place for Deng Xiaoping’s style of political experimentation, either. In Xi’s China, citizens may enjoy freedom as consumers and investors, but not as participants in civil society
Five months after the constitutional change, the National People’s Congress abolished presidential term limits, meaning that, barring a political earthquake, Xi – who, at 65, remains healthy and vigorous – could remain president for perhaps another 20 years. His eponymous doctrine will therefore shape China’s development and global engagement for decades to come, and perhaps longer.
But, even if true, this does not mean that Xi is attempting to restore Maoist totalitarianism. While Xi has a much more positive view of China’s Maoist past than any other leader since Deng, he is no Maoist.
Unlike Mao, who found chaos exhilarating, Xi shares Liu’s longing for control through the party, which he expects to take the lead and apply Xi Jinping Thought to all policy areas: political, military, civilian and academic.
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Xi sees no place for political experimentation or liberal values in China, and regards democratisation, civil society and universal human rights as anathema.
Managing this tension between international openness and state control is vital to achieving another key goal of Xi’s doctrine: make China great again. On the one hand, this entails instilling a party-centric nationalism, so that citizens embrace the primacy of the party and of Xi himself.
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On the other hand, making China great again means projecting power and leadership on the world stage. After decades of following Deng’s injunction that China should hide its strength and bide its time, the time, Xi believes, has come.
One way Xi hopes to boost China’s global standing is by ensuring it is pushing the frontiers of technology. To that end, the state is supporting the creation of national champions in cutting-edge sectors, as stipulated in “Made in China 2025”, a strategy which competitors, especially the United States, decry as unfair.
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But the goal of Xi Jinping Thought is not to launch a cold war against the West, or to export China’s political model. Rather, Xi wants to shore up the authority of the party-state – and his own brand of authoritarianism – within China, including by shutting out liberal-democratic ideas. The world needs to understand this to engage effectively with an increasingly formidable China.
Steve Tsang is director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Copyright: Project Syndicate