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Steve Estes's avatar

Great article, particularly all the cites. But a badly missed opportunity to use the phrase "Xi who must be obeyed" as a section header.

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Kedar Pandya's avatar

I think you have several good points on the shortcomings of Xi's management. However, one idea I push back on is that unifying the Party apparatus was a small task. Coercing or convincing 90 million people to act as a single political force is no small task, and took quite a bit of brute force, political maneuvering, and risk-taking to do. 12-15 years ago, the Party was beset by corruption, non-state sector capture, and serial policy failure. Moreover, Jiang's Three Represents formulation to let in "Advanced Productive Forces" (entrepreneurs) was necessary but insufficient, and it almost seemed like the Party was evolving into a factionally dominated force that primarily supported business interests.

Xi on the other hand, has managed to unify in a very small amount of time. Especially considering that when he came in, he was considered a benign compromise candidate who would act the behest of greater cliques. The relative success of unifying the party, and the effort it took should play into an evaluation of Xi.

I think it's hard to objectively evaluate whether Xi is incompetent, because it's very likely he values different things in his vision for China. His foremost task and purpose has been to unify the Party into a political tool that laterally crosses domains into the non-state sector (firms, NGOs, civil society, academia), and vertically integrates communities of people in a way not seen since the Revolutionary era. The Party can now engage in repression in Xinjiang, manage private sector firms through informal and formal mechanisms, coopt spaces for resistance, and do all at little cost in political capital. This is a very different state from where the Party was prior to Xi.

In response to your question on whether Xi steps down, I think two scenarios are possible.

1. He steps down and still plays an outsized shadow role if a successor is found

2. He is president for life, and a successor comes from young cadres who have found their path under his wing.

It is hard to predict. In 2018 analysts had a pretty solid list of people who had climbed the ladder with Xi, but it is becoming somewhat hard as some of them have recently only moved laterally or been investigated by the CCDI (such as the head of the CCDI). Something that may help is the effectiveness to which the Party performs "Common Prosperity" policies, which are likely now a marker for regime loyalty and competence intertwined. This will determine who gets moved up, down, and across at the upcoming Plenum.

Sources (I recommend reading the intro, then Naughton, Leutert and Eaton, Norris, and Kennedy's Conclusion)

https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/211007_Kennedy_Chinese_State_Capitalism.pdf?34C5XDb775Ws8W6TZ6oMGPlWhIY8Z.rf

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