CHINA UNDER XI JINPING.

• Author: Li, Jenny

INTRODUCTION

The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which concluded in the fall of 2022, was a victory for Xi Jinping. Commonly known as the 20th Party Congress, the meeting cemented Xi's norm-breaking third term as both the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and President of the People's Republic of China (PRC). His loyalists also filled top positions left vacant by retired officials. (1) Inner-party factionalism, an informal mechanism that offered checks and balances within an otherwise authoritarian decision-making body, appears dead. Now, many argue that Xi has accumulated power of a degree not seen since Deng Xiaoping.

The centralization and personalization of power within Xi is a dangerous development. China's policies will increasingly reflect Xi's preferences for greater assertiveness both at home and abroad. Without dissenting voices among Beijing's top policymakers to offer alternative perspectives to Xi, the risk of miscalculation has risen substantially. Considering China's military power and numerous territorial disputes with other countries, a policy misstep could quickly escalate into all-out conflict. Xi's efforts to consolidate power, however, began long before the 20th Party Congress. This article examines how Xi accumulated power and analyzes the destabilizing effects of an increasingly authoritarian China to international security.

CONSOLIDATING POWER FROM WITHIN

Xi Jinping has sought to consolidate power since assuming leadership of the Chinese government in 2012. Just as the CCP constantly searches for ways to justify its control over the whole of China, so too Xi seeks legitimacy for his leadership amid factionalism within the party. To this end, he has gradually cracked down on dissenting voices and ideologies, shattering any hopes for liberal reform. In the words of Cai Xia, a former professor at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party who became disillusioned with the party, Xi's regime has "degenerated further into a political oligarchy bent on holding on to power through brutality and ruthlessness" and "grown even more repressive and dictatorial." (2) She added that "a personality cult now surrounds Xi, who has tightened the party's grip on ideology and eliminated what little space there was for political speech and civil society." (3) Cai was later expelled by the party for speaking out against it.

Xi's attempt to assert control within the CCP began with a large-scale anti-corruption campaign launched shortly after becoming the general secretary of the CCP. Many have suspected that Xi has used this campaign as a means to weaken his political rivals. In March 2018, under Xi's direction, the National People's Congress adopted the Supervision Law, which set out the operations for a newly created National Supervisory Commission. (4) Compared to anti-corruption procedures adopted prior to 2018, the Supervision Law granted greater authority to the commission than what was previously possible. For instance, it allowed the commission to supervise people and gave it broader powers like the power of detention. While the commission aimed to institutionalize anti-corruption proceedings and replace the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI)'s extralegal procedures, its accountability is questionable. The National Supervisory Commission is supervised by two parties: the public, which cannot enforce transparency laws applicable to the commission, and the people's congresses, which the commission monitors. And the man chosen to lead the commission was Yang Xiaodu, former Deputy Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and Xi's trusted ally. (5) Within five years since the beginning of the anti-corruption campaign, over 1.5 million Chinese officials, including senior army generals and high-profile figures like Ling Jihua, chief of staff to Hu Jintao, were prosecuted. (6)

The reorganization of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) was another consequential reform that consolidated Xi's power over the party. Between 2015 and 2016, Xi's military reforms created a system of joint theater commands and established new structures like the Strategic Support Force to facilitate joint operations and conduct informatized warfare. (7) The size of the PLA was reduced by 300,000, bringing the total personnel from 2.3 to 2 million in 2018. (8) Part of the reognization campaign also involved dissolving the general departments (i.e., the General Staff Department, General Political Department, General Logistics Department, and General Armament Department) because their independence had led to poor oversight and corruption. (9) Xi personally led these reforms, investing significant resources and political capital in the process. (10) He attended more military events than Hu Jintao to establish closer ties with new leaders and the services: Xi made 53 public appearances at military events between 2012 and 2015, while Hu made 36 appearances between 2004 and 2007." He also sought to increase ideological control over the PLA, underscoring the importance of "absolute obedience" to the party. (12) In April 2016, Xi appointed himself commander-in-chief of the CMC Joint Operations Centre. (13) Among other changes, these reforms helped transform the PLA into a modern military and strengthened Xi's status within and control over the military through his leadership of the Central Military Commission (CMC).

Xi has also used social stability to justify concentrating power within the CCP's elites. In November 2013, the CCP established the Central National Security Commission (CNSC) to coordinate national security matters. (14) The CNSC's inner workings remain a mystery to outside observers, but its objectives likely extend beyond the coordination of internal affairs to encompass external and transnational security issues. What's concerning is that the inherent vagueness of the concept of national security implies that anything that can be rationalized as a security concern could easily fall within the commission's purview. In other words, the chairman of the CNSC is...