CHINA
PORTAL G1. 18/10/2017. Congresso do Partido Comunista Chinês tem importância mundial; entenda. Evento deve renovar mandato de 5 anos do presidente Xi Jinping. Programa com novas políticas para o governo chinês será divulgado.
Começou nesta quarta-feira (18) um dos eventos políticos mais importantes para os próximos cinco anos: o Congresso do Partido Comunista da China. O evento é central da vida política do país mas também pode ter consequências para todo o mundo, já que definirá o programa que vai estabelecer as novas políticas do governo da segunda maior economia do planeta.
O evento reúne um total de 2.287 delegados - o "maior partido do mundo" tem 89 milhões de membros - e deverá ser concluído no dia 24 de outubro.
Veja a seguir os principais impactos que o congresso pode ter no cenário internacional:
Na política
Xi Jinping, de 64 anos, deve obter no congresso um segundo mandato de cinco anos à frente do partido e, portanto, do país.
Alguns analistas acreditam que o líder, chamado de “o homem mais poderoso do mundo” pela revista “The Economist”, também poderia aproveitar a reunião para preparar o terreno a um terceiro mandato, o que o levaria a comandar o PCC até 2027. Mas neste caso a Constituição o obrigaria a abandonar a presidência.
Rana Mitter, professor de História Chinesa Moderna, disse ao jornal “The Washington Post” que Jinping busca um estilo personalista de governar, à maneira de Vladimir Putin, da Rússia. “O que ele quer é criar um estilo muito personalizado de liderança em que pareça que não há alternativa para levar o país adiante. O ponto de comparação é Vladimir Putin, que também tem um estilo de governo muito personalizado”, disse o especialista.
Para conseguir um terceiro mandato no partido, Xi precisa conseguir a aprovação do fim do limite de idade, uma norma não escrita que proíbe a eleição ou reeleição de pessoas com mais de 68 anos para o gabinete político. O presidente chinês terá 69 anos no congresso de 2022.
Observadores internacionais também citam a possibilidade de que Jinping indique um sucessor para a presidência após o seu segundo mandato. Assim, poderia dar lugar a um líder mais jovem enquanto manteria o controle final nos bastidores.
Na influência regional
Jinping tenta constantemente canalizar o nacionalismo e o orgulho chinês ao aumentar o papel do Partido Comunista na vida chinesa e na presença de seu país na Ásia e no mundo. Essa abordagem deve se tornar ainda mais forte no país após o congresso, segundo análise da agência Associated Press.
O presidente tentará expandir gradualmente a influência do país regional e internacionalmente, alavancando sua crescente economia. O objetivo é restaurar o papel tradicional da China como líder da Ásia Oriental.
Pequim poderá, por exemplo, expandir seu papel em organismos internacionais e se tornar mais assertivo em pontos críticos regionais, como nos mares do Sul e do Leste da China e na sua fronteira com a Índia, que é motivo de discussões desde a década de 1980.
Na economia
Na abertura do Congresso, Xi Jinping disse que o país vai aprofundar reformas econômicas e financeiras e prometeu abrir a economia chinesa e respeitar os interesses das empresas estrangeiras no país. Ele disse que o mercado poderá desempenhar um papel decisivo na alocação de recursos.
"A abertura traz progresso para nós, enquanto o isolamento nos deixa atrasados. A China não fechará suas portas para o mundo, estaremos cada vez mais abertos", disse Xi, que defendeu a proteção "dos direitos legítimos e interesses dos investidores estrangeiros".
Entretanto, ao mesmo tempo em que demonstrou suporte à reforma do mercado e a empresas privadas, Xi também falou em empresas estatais mais fortes e maiores.
As declarações de Xi reiteram uma antiga promessa de líderes do partido de dar maior importância a forças do mercado livre para melhorar a eficiência e colocar a economia em uma trajetória de crescimento mais sustentável.
A declaração de Jinping pode ser uma boa notícia para empresas estrangeiras se queixam das discriminações drásticas que sofrem em certos setores.
No entanto, de acordo com a Reuters, executivos estrangeiros e analistas acreditam cada vez mais que a liberalização do mercado é vista como secundária em sua abordagem centrada no Estado para a política econômica e seu foco na estabilidade.
REUTERS. 18 DE OUTUBRO DE 2017. Presidente diz que China continuará a abrir sua economia e aprofundar reformas financeiras
PEQUIM (Reuters) - A China vai aprofundar as reformas econômicas e financeiras e abrir mais seus mercados para investidores estrangeiros conforme busca alcançar um crescimento de alta qualidade em vez de alta velocidade, afirmou nesta quarta-feira o presidente do país, Xi Jinping.
A China avançará com as reformas orientadas pelo mercado de sua taxa de câmbio e do sistema financeiro, e deixará o mercado ter um papel decisivo na alocação de recursos, disse Xi na abertura do Congresso do Partido Comunista.
“A porta aberta da China não será fechada, ela será aberta ainda mais”, disse Xi.
O governo irá “limpar as regras e práticas que impedem um mercado unificado e a competição justa, sustentam o desenvolvimento de empresas privadas e estimulam a vitalidade de todos os tipos de entidades do mercado”, disse Xi, prometendo abrir mais o setor de serviços da China para os investidores estrangeiros.
Entretanto, ao mesmo tempo em que demonstrou suporte à reforma do mercado e à empresas privadas, Xi também falou em empresas estatais mais fortes e maiores.
O governo irá “promover o fortalecimento, melhora e expansão do capital estatal, e impedir efetivamente a perda de ativos estatais, aprofundar as reformas das empresas estatais, o desenvolvimento da economia mista e cultivar empresas competitivas globalmente”, disse Xi.
As declarações de Xi reiteram uma antiga promessa de líderes do partido de dar maior importância a forças do mercado livre para melhorar a eficiência e colocar a economia em uma trajetória de crescimento mais sustentável.
Mas conforme Xi avança para seu segundo mandato de cinco anos, executivos estrangeiros e analistas acreditam cada vez mais que a liberalização do mercado é vista como secundária em sua abordagem centrada no Estado para a política econômica e seu foco na estabilidade.
Reportagem de Christian Shepherd e Stella Qiu
O Estado de S.Paulo. EFE. AP. 18 Outubro 2017. Xi Jinping defende autoridade do Partido Comunista e promete avançar com reformas econômicas. Em discurso no 19.º Congresso do Partido Comunista Chinês, presidente prometeu uma ‘nova era’ socialista para o país e um tratamento ‘igualitário’ para empresas estrangeiras
PEQUIM - O presidente da China, Xi Jinping, pediu nesta quarta-feira, 18, aos comunistas chineses o combate a qualquer ameaça à autoridade do partido, na abertura do congresso que confirmará o seu nome à frente do governo do país de maior população do mundo. Ele também apresentou o relatório de trabalho desde o último congresso, em 2012, enfatizando que a China viveu "mudanças históricas" neste período, como a retirada de 60 milhões de pessoas da pobreza nestes cinco anos.
Prometendo uma "nova era" socialista para o país, para o qual esboçou um panorama até 2050, o líder chinês não deu a entender que haverá liberalização do regime. "Cada um de nós deve fazer mais para defender a atualidade do partido e do sistema socialista chinês, e se opor decididamente a qualquer palavra e ação para miná-los", ressaltou ele, diante dos quase 2,3 mil membros reunidos para a grande assembleia quinquenal do partido que governa o país.
O 19.º Congresso do Partido Comunista Chinês deve renovar por cinco anos o mandato de Xi Jinping como secretário-geral, o que inclusive pode permitir que ele tenha um período no poder ainda mais longo.
Os delegados do "maior partido do mundo" - com 89 milhões de militantes - ouviram com atenção o discurso de Xi, de quase três horas e meia com numerosas interrupções, no Palácio do Povo de Pequim, protegido por rígidas medidas de segurança. O presidente foi muito aplaudido ao entrar no local, sorridente e ao lado de seus dois antecessores, Jiang Zemin e Hu Jintao.
Em uma mensagem ao restante do mundo, Xi, que receberá em novembro o presidente dos EUA, Donald Trump, afirmou que seu país se abrirá "ainda mais" e prometeu um tratamento "igualitário" para as empresas estrangeiras. Também disse que está determinado a prosseguir com a modernização militar para "tornar o exército popular um exército de primeira ordem" até 2050.
Xi ressaltou que a China avançará com as reformas orientadas pelo mercado de sua taxa de câmbio e do sistema financeiro, e deixará o mercado ter um papel decisivo na alocação de recursos. “A porta aberta da China não será fechada, será aberta ainda mais.”
O governo irá “limpar as regras e práticas que impedem um mercado unificado e a competição justa, sustentam o desenvolvimento de empresas privadas e estimulam a vitalidade de todos os tipos de entidades do mercado”, disse o presidente chinês.
Entretanto, ao mesmo tempo, ele falou em empresas estatais mais fortes e maiores. O governo irá “promover o fortalecimento, melhora e expansão do capital estatal, e impedir efetivamente a perda de ativos estatais, aprofundar as reformas das empresas estatais, o desenvolvimento da economia mista e cultivar empresas competitivas globalmente”, disse.
No discurso, o presidente também advertiu o vizinho Taiwan sobre o desejo de uma separação definitiva da China. Ele afirmou que Pequim "tem os meios para vencer as tentativas separatistas a favor da independência taiwanesa".
Congresso
As partidas de futebol foram suspensas e as discotecas fechadas na capital do país, onde um gigantesco dispositivo policial é responsável pela segurança ao redor do evento, que vai durar uma semana.
O 19.º Congresso do Partido Comunista Chinês deve renovar por cinco anos o mandato de Xi como secretário-geral, o que inclusive pode permitir que ele tenha um período no poder ainda mais longo.
O limite de idade de 68 anos imposto aos membros do politburo - a instância de 25 integrantes que governa a China - poderia efetivamente desaparecer para Xi Jinping, que terá 69 anos no próximo congresso, em 2022.
Xi Jinping "quer uma putinização" ao permanecer indefinidamente no poder, disse o sinólogo Jean-Pierre Cabestan, da Universidade Batista de Hong Kong, em referência ao presidente russo, Vladimir Putin, com quem o líder chinês parece compartilhar um certo desafio ao Ocidente, graças ao poder que possui com o auge econômico de seu país.
Desde que chegou ao poder no fim de 2012, Xi colocou homens de confiança nos postos mais importantes, auxiliado por uma campanha anticorrupção que puniu mais de 1,3 milhão de funcionários. E o Partido seguirá praticando "tolerância zero" com as autoridades corruptas, destacou.
Apesar de não ter questionado a "economia de mercado socialista", seu governo foi marcado por um retorno da ideologia marxista e por uma repressão, manifestada na internet, contra os defensores dos direitos humanos, os dissidentes e os religiosos.
"Isto não agrada a todos na China. Há pessoas que são contrárias à ideia de que ele permaneça por mais de 10 anos", afirmou Cabestan, ao indicar que "o retorno ao maoísmo provoca perplexidade em todo o país".
Ao lutar contra a corrupção, tanto nas Forças Armadas como no politburo, Xi "atacou os interesses adquiridos", observa o analista. "Tudo isso rendeu muitos inimigos. Assumiu riscos que conseguiu superar até o momento", disse.
Em um claro indício da influência de Xi Jinping, seu nome pode ser incluído na carta do partido, honra reservada até então apenas a Mao Tsé-tung, fundador da República Popular, e a Deng Xiaoping, idealizador das reformas que levaram a China ao posto de segunda maior economia mundial.
O próprio Xi Jinping mencionou em seu discurso uma "reflexão sobre o socialismo com as cores da China para uma nova era", uma ideia que pode resultar na distinção.
Perfil: Xi Jinping, o dirigente chinês mais poderoso do país nos últimos 25 anos. Com 64 anos, o líder vai obter um novo mandato de cinco anos no Congresso do Partido Comunista Chinês (PCC), que começa nesta quarta-feira
PEQUIM - Xi Jinping, considerado o dirigente mais poderoso da China nos últimos 25 anos, como o foram Mao Tsé-tung e Deng Xiaoping, acumula quase todos os poderes em seu país, sem fazer concessões à sociedade civil.
Onipresente na imprensa, a ponto de ser comparado a Mao, Xi, de 64 anos, vai obter um novo mandato de cinco anos no Congresso do Partido Comunista Chinês (PCC) que começa nesta quarta-feira, 18, em Pequim.
Xi Jinping foi governador de Fujian em 2000 e líder do partido em Zhejiang em 2002, duas províncias costeiras que são vitrine da China reformista Foto: Bloomberg photo by Krisztian Bocsi
Ele já acumula as principais funções à frente da segunda maior potência econômica mundial: secretário-geral do PCC, presidente da República Popular e da comissão militar central. "Representa o que os chineses querem em termos de governo: um país bem administrado, uma China forte e respeitada", observa Jean-Pierre Cabestan, da Universidade Batista de Hong Kong.
O "sonho chinês de um grande renascimento" do país mais populoso do mundo - 1,38 bilhão de pessoas - após um século de humilhação infligida pelos ocidentais, está no cerne do programa do presidente Xi.
Sua onipresença midiática lembra o estilo soviético mais puro, acompanhado de um retorno da ideologia, propaganda e repressão contra aqueles que ameaçam a estabilidade, começando com as redes sociais, monitoradas de perto.
"Xi Jinping se apresenta como o anti-Gorbachev. É alguém que foi traumatizado pela queda da URSS, o que explica a repressão da sociedade civil e o retorno da ideologia após sua chegada ao poder", analisa o jornalista François Bougon, autor de um recente livro sobre o líder chinês.
"Se nos desviamos do marxismo, ou o abandonamos, nosso partido perderá sua alma e seu curso", advertiu Xi em setembro, como se seu partido não tivesse feito grandes avanços na economia de mercado desde o fim da década de 1970.
História
Xi Jinping nasceu em um ambiente confortável. Ele é filho de Xi Zhongxun, um dos fundadores da guerrilha comunista e pertencente à casta dos "Príncipes Vermelhos", descendentes dos revolucionários que chegaram ao poder em 1949, antes de serem expulsos por Mao.
O líder tenta apagar essas origens e cultiva uma imagem de proximidade com o povo. A imprensa oficial insiste em falar sobre sua vida no campo durante a "Revolução Cultural" (1966-76), quando morou em uma caverna.
Ao final dos distúrbios da era maoísta, Xi Jinping se formou como engenheiro químico na prestigiada Universidade de Tsinghua em Pequim, embora tenha feito carreira dentro do partido, para o qual entrou com apenas 21 anos.
O presidente chinês já conhecia os EUA pois esteve em Iowa em 1985 para estudar agricultura. Divorciou-se e em 1987 se casou com a cantora Peng Liyuan, então muito mais famosa do que ele. O casal teve uma filha.
Xi Jinping foi governador de Fujian em 2000 e líder do partido em Zhejiang em 2002, duas províncias costeiras que são vitrine da China reformista.
O presidente Hu Jintao recorreu a ele em 2007 para colocar ordem em Xangai, onde o então chefe do partido havia caído em desgraça após um escândalo de corrupção. Neste mesmo ano, Xi Jinping ingressou no comitê permanente do gabinete político, politburo do PCC, cujo comando assumiu em novembro de 2012.
Xi fez da luta contra a corrupção o principal objetivo do seu mandato. Em cinco anos, mais de um milhão de autoridades foram punidas. Há quem suspeite que a campanha tente acobertar um expurgo da oposição interna.
China quer estar entre os líderes do armamento mundial. Presidente Xi Jinping fez a afirmação na série 'Exército Poderoso', veiculada pela TV estatal
O presidente chinês Xi Jinping afirmou desejar que o país que governa esteja entre as prinicpais potências do armamento mundial. O comunicado, que faz parte da série "Exército Poderoso", produção estatal veiculada pela TV do governo, sinaliza aos presidente das empresas do setor que se esforcem para aprimorar pesquisas e desenvolvimento armamentício.
O jornal independente South China Morning Post também tratou do assunto e republicou trechou da fala de Jinping. "Os desenvolvedores de armamentos devem buscar e alcançar, e inclusive superar, a tecnologia armamentícia de outros países". "A importância do desenvolvimento de armas aumentado à medida em que as tecnologias militares melhoram".
O pronunciamento de Jinping acontece poucas semanas após o novo lançamento de míssil pela Coreia do Norte, que foi condenado pelo então principal aliado norte-coreano, o país chinês. A China bloqueou parte da exportação de petróleo ao regime de Kim Jong-un.
"Se há uma brecha no armamento, é impossível ganhar uma batalha", adicionou o presidente no episódio do seriado. Jinping aborda também o desenvolvimento de outras frentes do sistema científico e tecnológico das forças armadas, como a supercomputação, a navegação por satélite e o desenvolvimento de novos mísseis balísticos.
"A tecnologia dos mísseis antibalísticos da China está alcançando a dos Estados Unidos", disse o presidente, quem também assegurou que apenas seu país e o de Donald Trump têm meios para interceptar armamentos deste tipo.
Especialistas no setor acreditam que o país esteja usando parte de seu potencial jovem - universitários e recém-formados - para aprimorar programas científicos, o que inclui o sistema de navegação Beidou, o equivalente chinês ao GPS, sistema americano que já é usado em todo o mundo.
No início deste mês de outubro, a além da modernização das Forças Armadas, a China anunciou também mudanças na cúpula militar, que inclui alterações na liderança do Partido Comunista.
THE WASHINGTON POST. October 18, 2017. Asia & Pacific. Xi Jinping at China congress calls on party to tighten its grip on the country. A ‘new era' of power: Xi Jinping kicks off China’s 19th Party Congress
BEIJING — For three and a half hours, China’s President Xi Jinping commanded the stage and the nation’s television screens, as he set out a far-reaching agenda for the Communist Party, outlining a vision of total control, not only of the nation’s economy and the Internet but also of culture, religion and morals.
The Communist Party already has a hand in just about every aspect of life here. But Xi’s speech on Wednesday — opening a five-yearly Congress of the party’s top leadership — cast the net even wider.
His was a vision of a reinvigorated Communist Party, backed by a strong economy and a powerful, modern military taking an even more central role in the affairs of the nation and a more confident role on the world stage.
“Achieving national rejuvenation will be no walk in the park,” Xi told more than 2,200 members of the party’s elite in the mammoth Great Hall of the People, a monument to Communist authoritarianism in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, beneath gigantic red drapes and a huge hammer and sickle.
“It will take more than drumbeating and gong-clanging to get there,” he added. “Every one of us in the party must be prepared to work even harder toward this goal.”
Yet outside, the run-up to the 19th Party Congress has been marked not by confidence but rather by the Communist Party’s particular brand of paranoia.
Dissidents have been arrested or railroaded out of town, lest they disrupt the celebratory mood by saying anything remotely critical. Ordinary public gatherings — anything from a top-level soccer match to regular gym classes— have been closed down or postponed.
Censorship of the Internet and controls on private chat groups have dramatically intensified, while long lines built up at subway stations in the capital this week as security checks were stepped up. The WhatsApp messaging service has been blocked. Foreigners living in the city have been visited by police for passport checks, and volunteers with red armbands and security personnel patrol almost every street corner. Banners extolling the party dominate almost every free space.
Factories around Beijing were ordered to close in a bid to curb air pollution, while every arm and level of the government has been straining for months to make sure nothing was left to chance, that nothing would spoil this, the big moment for the president.
In a week’s time, Xi will be formally granted another five years in power as general secretary of China’s Communist Party.
On Wednesday, with a large illuminated red star gleaming in the ceiling 30 yards above his head, he painstakingly set out what he sees as his achievements over the past five years and his vision for the next five — a campaign speech with particularly Chinese characteristics, where the support of the entirety of the tiny, handpicked electorate is already guaranteed.
“For five years, our party has demonstrated tremendous political courage and a powerful sense of mission,” Xi said, boasting of having driven profound and fundamental change in China but also warning of many difficulties and challenges ahead.
His speech beamed around the nation on state television, China’s leader also set out his ideological contribution to the party’s intellectual canon, ponderously named “Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.” One official later described it as the “third milestone” in the party’s “ideological innovation”— after Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping theory.
The congress may formally incorporate that ideology into the party’s constitution next week — a step that could elevate Xi to the ranks of the most powerful leaders in party history.
Behind him, his immediate predecessor, Hu Jintao, listened attentively, his eyes mostly on the text of the speech. But 91-year-old Jiang Zemin, president from 1993 to 2003, seemed less captivated, only occasionally taking out a large magnifying glass to gaze at the text, scratching his ear, yawning.
Other delegates took notes, or stared straight ahead, looking attentive, stern, impassive, dazed — or just tired, as Xi spoke on, and on, and on. In the gallery, one diplomat dozed.
The theme of the congress: that the party should remain true to its original aspiration, hold high the banner of socialism, and secure a decisive victory in the battle to build a moderately prosperous society.
It was a call for party members to “snap back into line” and focus on the core tasks of governance, politics and ideology, said Jude Blanchette of the Conference Board's China Center for Economics and Business in Beijing. “This means we should expect a continuation of calls for cadres to read Marx, study party history, and to distrust outside ideologies.”
In bullet point after bullet point, Xi set out a vision of party leadership and discipline, of reform and development, national security, and national pride, of ideological confidence and above all, of control.
“The party exercises overall leadership over all areas of endeavor in every part of the country,” he said, the first sentence of the first bullet point of his ideological exposition.
It was a message of continuity, said Yanmei Xie, China policy analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics in Beijing. “The policy recipe during his first term has produced results that made him popular with the Chinese people and powerful within the party, and enhanced the party’s legitimacy.”
Small adjustments were possible, she said, but a change in the winning formula was not part of the plan.
Yet President Xi also identified key challenges that strike at the heart of the Communist Party’s claim to legitimacy, include the “contradiction” between unbalanced development and people’s rising aspirations, as well as rampant corruption.
“The people resent corruption the most; and corruption is the greatest threat our party faces,” he said.
Indeed, Xi’s campaign against corruption has been one of his most popular initiatives with the general public, even if it has also been used to take down factional rivals, and may only have pushed graft slightly further underground rather than eliminated it.
Xi told party members to resist vices including “pleasure seeking, inaction, sloth and problem avoidance.” In general society, he said, the party would launch a campaign to raise moral standards, and promote family values and personal integrity.
Under Xi, China has taken a more confident role on the world stage, as he was eager to point out, citing his “Belt and Road” infrastructure development project and his controversial program of island-building in the disputed South China Sea. At the same time, the military would be further modernized and strengthened.
“A military is built to fight,” he said. “Our military must regard combat capability as the criterion to meet in all its work and focus on how to win when it is called on.”
The speech was long on aspiration but largely devoid of concrete new policy measures. Much was devoted to the idea of keeping the party’s ideology the center of public life.
“Culture is a country and a nation’s soul,” Xi said, before explaining how he wanted Chinese culture harnessed to the cause of socialism, and following the guidance of Marxism.
“Ideology determines the direction a culture should take and the path it should follow as it develops,”’ he said. Writers and artists should produce work that is thought-provoking but also extols “our party, our country, our people and our heroes.”
Religion must also be “Chinese in orientation,” and guided by the party to adapt to socialist society.
Those remarks would appear to pour cold water on talk of a formal rapprochement between the Chinese government and the Vatican, in a country where the party does not recognize the pope’s authority over a population of around 12 million Catholics.
In the run-up to the congress, popular talk shows and costume dramas were taken off the air by order of the government, so the entertainment media could focus more wholeheartedly on propaganda and anti-Japanese war films.
Indeed state media has been in overdrive in its praise of Xi in recent weeks, gushing on Wednesday about thousands of foreign journalists who were enthusiastically covering the congress and how schoolchildren were inspired, happy and excited after watching Xi’s speech.
Less enthusiastic was anyone who has tried to stand up for the civil rights of the Chinese people or fight injustice. Chinese Human Rights Defenders documented 14 activists who were criminally detained and two cases of enforced disappearance in the run-up to the meeting. Liu Xia, the widow of Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo — who died in Chinese custody this year and who has herself been under house arrest since 2010 — was also reportedly forced to leave Beijing by government agents.
Security was so tight that Airbnb abruptly announced it was suspending its service in central Beijing during the second half of October, as did a well-known online retailer of knives and scissors. The five-star Sheraton Hotel, more than 1,000 miles away in the southern city of Dongguan, told guests that wireless Internet would be disconnected in their rooms from Wednesday onwards, on local government orders.
Shirley Feng and Luna Lin contributed to this report.
THE WASHINGTON POST. October 18, 2017. WorldViews. Analysis. Why the world is watching Xi Jinping and China’s party congress
By Adam Taylor, writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.
By the time you read this, one of the most important global political events of the next five years — if not longer — will have begun: the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. The event may sound obscure to those uninterested in Sinology. It's not.
Beginning on Wednesday and expected to last for about a week, the event brings together 2,300 Communist Party members from across China. It's where the party will select its leadership — and with it, its policies — for the next five years. Given China's huge population, economy and military strength, the 19th National Congress could set the agenda not only for Beijing, but also for much of the world.
Most observers predict that the congress will put power increasingly in the hands of one man: Xi Jinping.
Xi became the leader of China after its last party congress in 2012, and this year's edition will almost assuredly hand him a second five-year term, which has become near-automatic for Chinese leaders. But some think that Xi is setting himself up to spend a far longer time holding the reins of power.
“What he wants to do is create a very personalized style of leadership where it seems there is no alternative to Xi Jinping in terms of taking the country forward,” said Rana Mitter, a professor of modern Chinese history and politics at the University of Oxford, to The Washington Post's Beijing bureau chief Simon Denyer recently. “The point of comparison is Vladimir Putin, who also runs a very personalized style of rule.”
There are other, less-savory reference points as well. Stein Ringen, the author of “The Perfect Dictatorship: China in the 21st Century,” writes for The Post that Xi's state is Leninist. John Pomfret, a former Post bureau chief in Beijing, has a more ominous warning: “Xi has positioned himself as the defender of [Joseph] Stalin’s legacy.”
Such proclamations may be surprising to anyone who has gone to China recently and seen what seems to be an ever-less-ideological society, happy to embrace capitalism when it suits. Xi even presented himself as a defender of international economic cooperation during a speech in Davos at the start of the year, an address many analysts saw as a rebuttal to the protectionist ideas of President Trump. “We must remain committed to developing free trade and investment,” Xi said through a translator.
But observers point to a number of worrying signs that what Xi doesn't want is an increasingly open China. Instead, they think, he seeks a totalitarian quashing of dissent.
The most obvious component of that move is the rapid restrictions being placed upon dissent within the Communist Party itself. “The clear objective is to eradicate the organizational means to establish and sustain patronage networks that are not controlled by Xi or his clear close allies,” Victor Shih and Jude Blanchette wrote for Foreign Policy this week, pointing to the shutdown of the Communist Youth League and other actions as evidence.
Xi has used a widespread crackdown on corruption to eliminate powerful rivals, including those with strong links to previous party leaders. “Since Xi took power, the number of arrests of senior Central Committee or provincial Standing Committee officials has increased dramatically — 28 officials in 2014 alone, which is nearly six times greater than the highest number of arrests” during the second term of Hu Jintao, Xi's predecessor, Shih and Blanchette write.
At the same time, restrictions on the freedoms of average Chinese citizens seem to be expanding. Take China's famous “Great Firewall” that restricts the country's access to the global Internet: In the weeks running up to the 19th National Congress, further restrictions were added to the censoring system — including one that effectively bans anonymous users — and the government cracked down on virtual private networks, tools long used by residents of China to circumvent the firewall.
Chinese citizens' online actions are also under tighter scrutiny. The government is requiring Internet companies to establish a system to rate and score users' online conduct, and those scores would be integrated into an already-in-development system of “social credit” that has been widely compared with an episode of the dystopian sci-fi series Black Mirror. Steven Lee Myers and Sui-Lee Wee of the New York Times reported this week that in the aftermath of the political disruption allegedly caused by Facebook and other online services in the United States, Beijing feels vindicated by its new restrictions.
Even China's move toward capitalism and open markets may be pulled back. Lingling Wei of the Wall Street Journal makes a persuasive case that China's declining economic fortunes are leading Xi to turn away from markets and back to state intervention. “Xi’s increasing emphasis on ideological purity leaves little room for Western-style capitalism,” Wei writes.
If Xi continues to push China in this direction, the impact could be huge. China is not just an economic giant planning an ambitious “One Belt, One Road” international infrastructure project, but a geopolitical one. Richard Bush, a Clinton-era national intelligence officer for East Asia and former head of the American Institute in Taiwan, has suggested that Xi may even set a deadline for resolving the ongoing dispute with Taiwan, potentially drawing the United States into that problem. China's role in the ongoing North Korea crisis also puts it squarely at the center of high-stakes geopolitics, although the issue is unlikely to come up at the party congress.
Perhaps worst of all is the sense that Xi's desire to tighten his grip isn't born of confidence, but of insecurity — of the idea that any cracks in China's totalitarian state would lead it to crumble. The worry for the world ahead of the Party Congress is that what he cooks up instead could be worse.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES. OCT. 18, 2017. ASIA PACIFIC. Xi Jinping’s Marathon Speech: Five Takeaways
By CHRIS BUCKLEY and KEITH BRADSHER
Adam Wu and Ailin Tang contributed research.
BEIJING — As Xi Jinping’s first five-year term as China’s leader ends, he gave himself a shining report card on Wednesday — and a big to-do list for his next five years. Speaking at the start of a Communist Party congress in Beijing, Mr. Xi gave a work report that summed up his achievements so far, while also laying out where he wants to take China in his second term, which starts after this congress. Sitting at a podium before 2,300 delegates, he spoke for 205 minutes, long enough that his predecessor, Hu Jintao, pointed at his watch when Mr. Xi finally finished.
Mr. Xi did not mention Donald Trump or North Korea or other specific policy headaches. Party congresses are held every five years, and always start with China’s leader giving a work report that is a broad outline of policy, not a detailed blueprint. Even so, Mr. Xi’s priorities shone through. This is a leader who believes China is on the cusp of greatness, but who worries about domestic security threats and maintaining ideological control. Here are some key takeaways from Mr. Xi’s report:
Economic Changes, Not Market Reforms
Mr. Xi said he would put China on a sounder economic footing by containing financial risks, encouraging innovation and increasing consumer spending. But he also refrained from calling for the liberalizing overhauls that earlier leaders like Deng Xiaoping used to bring China roaring growth in the 1980s and ’90s.
Since then, the Chinese leadership’s enthusiasm for allowing market forces to pick winners and losers has wilted as social inequalities have grown, and Mr. Xi’s speech confirmed that trend. He used the word “market” only 19 times, compared to 24 times by Mr. Hu at the previous congress in 2012, and 51 times by then-President Jiang Zemin at the congress in 1997.
Mr. Xi emphasized making state-owned enterprises stronger and bigger, yet more efficient. He also called for stricter regulation of banks and other parts of the financial system amid a surge of borrowing by companies and local governments. But he did not mention using market tools like improving the disclosure of information by banks and companies alike, which many economists advocate.
Still, Mr. Xi did raise some points dear to economic reformers. He called for breaking up monopolies, even though he oversaw the merger of the two largest rail equipment manufacturers to prevent them from competing against each other for overseas projects. And he made a fleeting promise to “support the growth of private businesses.”
Foreign Policy and Military Modernization
Throughout his speech, Mr. Xi described China as a “great power” or a “strong power” 26 times, a clear departure from the days when leaders in Beijing depicted their country as a poor, modest player abroad. “China will continue to play its part as a major and responsible country,” Mr. Xi said.
Mr. Xi said China was committed to supporting international cooperation, global economic integration and the developing world. He also highlighted his trademark “One Belt, One Road” initiative to build roads, railways and other infrastructure projects that solidify Chinese economic and political influence.
But Mr. Xi also took a hard line on some issues. Near the start of his report, he called China’s building of artificial islands in the South China Sea a highlight of his first five years, despite the fact that they have raised tensions with other Asian countries, and the United States Navy.
Mr. Xi also warned that China had to gird for possible conflict. Having reorganized China’s military during his first term, Mr. Xi promised more changes in the next five years, including greater professionalization of officers and more innovation in weaponry. By midcentury, he said, China’s military would be first class in every way, though he did not give details of what that meant.
“A military is built to fight,” Mr. Xi said. “Our military must regard combat capability as the criterion to meet in all its work, and focus on how to win when it is called on.”
Taiwan and Hong Kong
Just days ago, soccer fans in Hong Kong angered many in mainland China by turning their backs to the Chinese national flag during the playing of China’s national anthem. The show of disrespect was the latest sign of the deep unhappiness at Beijing’s opposition to full-fledged democracy in the former British colony, where there are even calls for independence from China.
In his speech, Mr. Xi said that Hong Kong and nearby Macau, a former Portuguese colony, can govern themselves, but only “with patriots playing the principal role.” He also called for the return of Taiwan, a self-governing island, to mainland Chinese control, before delivering the line that won the loudest applause of his marathon speech: “We will never allow anyone, any organization, or any political party, at any time or in any form, to separate any part of Chinese territory from China.”
Security at Home, Too
While Mr. Xi’s report described a more confident, engaged China abroad, it also dwelled on the risks from social tensions created by decades of rapid growth. While Mr. Xi has tightened China’s already strict controls on protest, dissent and unrest, he warned that the sources of social discontent were changing in ways that demanded new responses.
“What we now face is the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life,” Mr. Xi said. He said improving people’s lives included reducing pollution, improving schools and health care, and ensuring fairer access to courts and the justice system.
But keeping China under control requires sticks as well as carrots, Mr. Xi told delegates. Mr. Xi has already established a National Security Commission, a secretive body that helps steer domestic security. China would further “improve the national security system, and strengthen national security capacity,” he said.
To do that, Mr. Xi promised more efforts to control the internet, including the use of censorship to “clearly oppose and resist the whole range of erroneous viewpoints.”
Leading China Into a New Era
Among the many slogans used by Mr. Xi, one stood out. Time and again, Mr. Xi said China had entered a “new era” under his stewardship, and the phrase also featured in the long-winded title of his report: “Secure a Decisive Victory in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects and Strive for the Great Success of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”
“It will be an era that sees China moving closer to center stage,” Mr. Xi said.
Mr. Xi also made clear that he was the best leader to guide China into this new era. By using that phrase and others like it, Mr. Xi appeared to be making the case that he was to this new era what iconic Chinese leaders like Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping had been in their times.
Mr. Xi also held out China as a model for the new era, saying his country had developed its economy without imitating Western values. “It offers a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence,” he said.
FT. 10/18/2017. China Politics & Policy. Xi Jinping’s ambitions on show during epic congress address. President speaks for almost four hours, declaring that China ‘stands tall and firm in the east’
Unusually for the leader of a country of China’s size and economic weight, Xi Jinping does not give an annual “state of the nation” address. That task instead falls to Premier Li Keqiang, who every March presents a “work report” at the opening of the country’s annual parliamentary session.
So when President Xi on Wednesday spoke at a rare Chinese Communist party congress, which convenes only once every five years, it was arguably his first major public domestic policy speech since assuming power in November 2012. He made the most of it, surprising his congress audience of about 2,300 delegates by speaking for three-and-a-half hours.
Jiang Zemin, the frail 91-year-old former president who had to be helped to and from his chair beside Mr Xi, looked repeatedly at his watch throughout the epic address. Online, social media users shared pictures of schoolchildren and monks sitting at attention as they watched blanket state media broadcasts of the speech.
“It reminds me of Big Brother in 1984,” one post read, in a reference to the political broadcasts that never stopped in George Orwell’s dystopian novel. Five years ago, when then-President Hu Jintao addressed the party congress, his speech lasted a relatively brief 90 minutes.
Mr Xi, however, has bigger ambitions than Mr Hu and Mr Jiang. While his two predecessors were personally endorsed by Deng Xiaoping and therefore closely associated with the late paramount leader, Mr Xi made clear that he expects his presidency to mark the beginning of a bold new era for the world’s second-largest economy.
“The Chinese nation now stands tall and firm in the east,” Mr Xi proclaimed. It was an echo of the famous September 1949 declaration by Mao Zedong, the party’s revolutionary hero, that “the Chinese people, comprising one quarter of humanity, have now stood up”.
That message was duly received by party delegates, who later parroted it in group sessions. “Our party is entering a new era under the core leadership of Xi Jinping,” said Lou Qinjian, the party boss of Shaanxi province.
“We have solved many tough problems that were long on the agenda but never resolved,” Mr Xi added, in a possible reference to Mr Hu’s 10 years in power to 2012. Many Chinese officials who consider that period a “lost decade” characterised by rampant corruption have welcomed Mr Xi’s stated determination to “realise the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation”.
“This [congress] is about politics and political control,” says Jude Blanchette, a China politics expert and Beijing-based analyst with The Conference Board.
Wednesday’s opening session of the Chinese Communist party’s 19th congress was in fact an anticlimactic start to a critically important political conclave. The congress will conclude on October 24 with the revealing of Mr Xi’s new Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s most powerful body.
The new leadership line-up will reveal just how much power China’s president has been able to wield during intense political bargaining, and provide clues about whether he might try to cling to power beyond the traditional 10-year period. “Xi won’t have a totally free hand to choose his [second-term] team,” says one person who advises Chinese policymakers. “But he’ll probably have as free a hand as it gets.”
Mr Xi is also expected to make a bid for the party constitution to be revised to include a reference to “Xi Jinping Thought” or “Theory”, an honour previously bestowed only on Deng and Mao. “If Xi gets his name in the constitution then maybe it doesn’t really matter too much who is on the Standing Committee, because then . . . opposing him carries a much higher cost,” says Christopher Johnson at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
As in 2013, when the party produced a contradictory reform blueprint, on Wednesday Mr Xi emphasised the importance of market mechanisms and strong state-owned enterprises while also promising foreign companies an ever more open and equitable investment environment.
But the failure of Mr Xi’s administration to deliver on many difficult economic and financial reforms promised four years ago, along with his repeated references to the party as “the backbone of the nation”, suggest that political prerogatives will trump economic reforms.
“I do not expect dramatic changes after the congress,” says Tony Saich, a Chinese politics expert at Harvard University. “There has been limited momentum in key reforms that were proposed in 2013, in major part because of resistance by vested interests.”
But Prof Saich also notes that negotiations on everything from the new leadership line-up to constitutional amendments and a possible revised reform blueprint are likely continuing. “Despite all the meticulous preparations, many things only get decided at the last minute.”
By Tom Mitchell and Lucy Hornby in Beijing
Additional reporting by Xinning Liu
President Xi Jinping declared that China had “entered a new era” as he opened a landmark Communist party congress that he hopes will cement his status as a transformative leader alongside Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong.
“The Chinese nation now stands tall and firm in the east,” Mr Xi said on Wednesday in Beijing at the opening of the party’s 19th congress, marking the formal start of his second five-year term as party leader . The congress, attended by about 2,300 delegates, will deliberate for one week before Mr Xi’s new party leadership team is revealed on October 24.
In an address that ran for more than three hours and was attended by his predecessors Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, Mr Xi urged his party colleagues to “work tirelessly to realise the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation” and hailed the economic progress made during his administration’s first term.
“The Communist party is entering the Xi era,” said Sima Nan, a patriotic blogger. “Mao and Deng’s shadows still loom large, but Xi is his own man.”
As the hours ticked by, pictures circulated on social media showing young school children sitting at attention in their classrooms as they watched the president’s address on television.
This is an era that will see China move closer to the centre of the world and make more contributions to humankind
XI JINPING
Mr Xi, however, offered little in the way of concrete plans and warned that “severe challenges” awaited China’s ruling party. “We have a long way to go in protecting the environment,” he said as air pollution in the Chinese capital hovered at officially “unhealthy” levels.
“The last leg of a journey just marks the halfway point,” Mr Xi added, quoting a Chinese proverb. “Achieving national rejuvenation will be no walk in the park; it will take more than drum beating and gong clanging to get there.”
Upon assuming power in November 2012, Mr Xi declared China’s rejuvenation as one of the world’s great powers to be the “dream” of the Chinese people.
After a stock market crash and run on China’s currency in late 2015 and early 2016, which marked the low points of Mr Xi’s first term in office, the party’s confidence surged as economic growth stabilised and Europe and the US were rocked by the rise of economic nationalism.
Mr Xi indirectly alluded to these events, most notably Britain’s decision to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the 2016 US presidential election, in Wednesday’s address.
“China’s cultural soft power and the international influence of Chinese culture have increased significantly,” Mr Xi said. “China’s international standing has risen as never before.”
Mr Xi noted that, during his time in office, China’s annual economic output had surged from Rmb54tn to Rmb80tn ($8.2tn to $12tn), accounting for about one-third of total global growth.
“China has seen the basic needs of over 1bn people met,” the president said. He added that an average of 13m new urban jobs had been created each year, while 60m people had been lifted out of poverty.
The Chinese president also highlighted the accomplishments of his signature anti-corruption campaign, which has ended the careers of more than 150 senior officials including 18 members — or about 9 per cent — of the party’s outgoing central committee.
One of the speech’s biggest applause lines was Mr Xi’s pledge to maintain the campaign’s “unstoppable momentum”. He said anti-graft investigators would continue to “take out tigers, swat flies and hunt down foxes”, referring to officials of all ranks and corruption suspects who have fled abroad.
“We have solved many tough problems that were long on the agenda . . . but never got done,” the president added.
“The focus for Xi has clearly been party-building and cleaning out corruption,” said Andrew Polk at Trivium China, a Beijing-based consultancy. “Everything else has been secondary.”
Mr Xi also outlined a vision for China through the middle of the 21st century, predicting that the world’s most populous nation would be “moderately prosperous” by 2035 and “prosperous, strong and democratic” by 2050. “This is an era that will see China move closer to the centre of the world and make more contributions to humankind,” he said.
The president’s long-term vision has stoked speculation that he might seek to stay on as party leader beyond the traditional 10-year term.
The Globe and Mail. 19 Oct 2017. Made in China: Xi sells his vision of new socialism to the world. China: Xi describes vision for ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era’
[Mr. Xi]’s put out a blueprint for the Chinese Communist Party and for China for the next 33 years. And it’s an ambitious set of goals that are designed not only to raise the living standard in China but also China’s profile and influence around the globe.
Dali Yang Political scientist at the University of Chicago
Xi Jinping, the man shaping a new Chinese era according to his vision of Communist Party greatness, strode onto the massive stage of the Great Hall of the People and bowed twice, once to the thousands of party officials gathered to hear him speak, and again to the elites whose ranks he is about to remake.
Then, for a moment, he directed his words to the rest of the world.
China’s way can be your way, too, he said, offering the Chinese system of authoritarian capitalism as an alternative to the Western democracy it is seeking to undermine, in a landmark speech in which he looked back on his first five years in office and sketched a vision for what is to come.
“Socialism with Chinese characteristics is now flying high and proud for all to see,” he said.
The Chinese model has blazed “a new trail for other developing countries to achieve modernization. It offers a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence; and it offers Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind.”
Mr. Xi’s comments came early in a speech to open a party congress, held every five years, that will endorse a new generation of party leadership with him at the helm. Claiming success abroad has often been a way for leaders to enhance their standing at home.
But Mr. Xi also offered clear confirmation that his vision extends far beyond his own country’s borders as he positions China’s illiberal model as a competitor to Western systems of democratic governance and open markets. This comes particularly at a time when the West is seen as fragile and vulnerable, buffeted by demagogic leaders and fractured social structures.
But Mr. Xi also offered clear confirmation that his vision extends far beyond his own country’s borders as he positions China’s illiberal model as a competitor to Western systems of democratic governance and open markets – particularly at a time when the West is seen as fragile and vulnerable, buffeted by demagogic leaders and fractured social structures.
Mr. Xi calls it “socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era,” an ideological banner meant to fly over his vision of renewed authoritarian control at home and “a new type of international relations” abroad, he said.
He cast himself as a promoter of peace, although China’s actions have suggested a more divisive attempt to promote its own interests.
In the diplomatic community, China is seen as attempting to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe, exploiting frictions between the two sides to ensure Western powers cannot unify against its agenda.
Mr. Xi spoke barely 24 hours after Xinhua, the country’s central news agency, published a stinging rebuke to world democratic powers in an editorial headlined: “Enlightened Chinese democracy puts the West in the shade.”
The echoes of Cold War ideological competition were accompanied by assurances that China will work for global good. But the Chinese President, already a strongman at home, is seeking a legacy that places him in the pantheon of the country’s greatest leaders. Burnishing and promoting China’s own system would accomplish that.
“The people who initiate new phases often get the most recognition. Mao [Zedong] set up this country; that was a new phase. Deng [Xiaoping] launched the reform and opening up policy; that was another new phase,” said Shan Wei, a specialist in China’s political development at National University of Singapore, referring to China’s two most notable leaders.
Indeed, Mr. Xi’s leadership vision has been difficult to distinguish from his own ambitions for power, and his speech did little to quell speculation that he may intend to remain in control for longer than the two terms that has become customary among recent leaders.
“With all his big talk and longerterm plans and visions, it seems like he is maybe laying the ground work to stay on,” said Christopher Balding, a professor of economics at Peking University.
Mr. Xi does not appear to have succeeded in gaining a named theoretical contribution, which would enshrine his name in the party’s constitution alongside Mao and Deng – an indication that he has not achieved unrestrained internal power. What is clear, though, is that Mr. Xi intends to make China a country that, by building strength at home, takes an increasingly prominent role on the world stage.
“He’s put out a blueprint for the Chinese Communist Party and for China for the next 33 years,” said Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago. “And it’s an ambitious set of goals that are designed not only to raise the living standard in China but also China’s profile and influence around the globe.”
Those goals include becoming, by 2035, a cutting-edge innovator and making the country’s soft power “much stronger,” while at home improving the environment, setting in place better rule of law and swelling the ranks of the middle class.
By 2050, Mr. Xi wants to ensure “China has become a global leader,” he said.
That work is already in progress: Sensing weakness in the West, China has already “become much more assertive, pushing its version of globalization – meaning globalization with Chinese characteristics,” said Michael Clauss, the German ambassador to China.
Mr. Xi spoke for nearly 31⁄2 hours, colouring his words with soaring rhetoric delivered before the party’s assembled elders, including his predecessor Jiang Zemin, who repeatedly glanced at his watch as time slowly passed. At one point, former president Hu Jintao left the room, not returning for nearly 10 minutes. In the cavernous audience gallery, men in uniform dozed and diplomats struggled to keep their eyes open. In Chinese, the printed version of his remarks stretched to 68 pages.
Still, Mr. Xi’s comments distilled his vision, including for extensive party control of the country’s life. Religions “must be Chinese in orientation”; core socialist values should “become part of people’s thinking and behaviour”; works of art should “extol our party”; students should be “well prepared to join the socialist cause”; and the party’s influence in the military should strengthen.
“The party exercises overall leadership over all areas of endeavour in every part of the country,” he said. He also promised to abolish
shuanggui, the abuse-prone system used by party investigators to interrogate graft suspects without charges. It “will be replaced by detention,” Mr. Xi said, as part of reforms to the party.
But he offered no indication that he would ease a clampdown on dissent that has become a hallmark of his tenure.
“We must oppose and resist various erroneous views with a clear stand,” he said.
It was an “affirmation of tighter control on freedom of speech, intellectual and media freedom,” said Lynette Ong, a scholar of authoritarian politics at University of Toronto.
Indeed, although China may see its experience as a useful model for others, human-rights advocates caution about following its lead.
“By its own admission, China’s economic achievements are still fragile, and its environmental and human cost remains deliberately hidden,” said Nicholas Bequelin, East Asia regional director for Amnesty International.
“It is too soon to tell whether it constitutes a model or not, and its top-down nature can lead to severe rights violations if it lack strong safeguards.”
Mr. Xi gave no corner to critics: “No one should expect China to swallow anything that undermines its interests,” he said in a forceful rebuttal that underpins the appeal he hopes China’s “new socialism” will hold for others.
“The idea that nations can reject Western universal values in favour of developing their own exceptionalism may be very persuasive to other nations,” said Mike Gow, an expert in state propaganda at Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University.
“We need to view China’s international activity as less about exporting an ideology and more in terms of building regional and global alliances which necessarily undermine and weaken the dominance of Western systems,” he said.
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LGCJ.:
