Great Despotism of China

For his good luck, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe might look to be a democratic leader, when he is compared to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Chinese Communist Party Congress upheld Xi as an ideological icon paralleled with former big names. Xi concreted his regime with denial of emergence of new leaders who would succeed him. It is likely that despotic leadership of Xi is going to last long.

The congress was closed after electing 204 members of Central Committee and approving the party code on Tuesday. In the action guideline of the code, the party wrote down “unique socialist ideology of China in a new era of Xi Jinping.” Xi appealed to the comrades building “socialist modern great power” by mid-21^st century in the congress. His presence was engraved in the party constitution.

There have only been two names in the party ideology: Thought of Mao Zedong and Theory of Deng Xiaoping. By including his name in the official document, Xi overtook his two predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. That unique socialist ideology consists of “quintinity in unity,” which promotes building of economy, politics, culture, society and ecologic civilization, and “four allovers” in moderate society, deeper reform, rule of law and strict control of the party. Under that ideology, Xi argued necessity of building first-class military in the world.

In the first plenary meeting of Central Committee on Wednesday, the party formed new administration led by Xi. While Xi and Prime Minister Li Keqiang stayed on their position, five new members entered to the Politburo Standing Committee. They are Director of General Office Li Zhanshu, Vice Premier Wang Yang, Head of Central Policy Research Office Wang Huning, Head of Organization Department Zhao Leji and Secretary of Shanghai Han Zheng. Zhao succeeded one of the closest allies of Xi, Wang Qishan, as Secretary of Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Although two young leaders in the 6^th generation next to Xi, Secretary of Guangdong Province Hu Chunhua and Secretary of Chongqing Chen Min’er, were not included in the China Seven. While former Chinese leaders tried to stabilize their regime by naming the successor, Xi refused it this time. Xi’s exclusion of next generation is recognized as his ambition to maintain his regime after the second term just started.

Newspapers in Japan criticize concentration of power in Chinese government. Asahi raised a headline of “Walking toward Personal Despotism?” in the editorial on Thursday. “Although Xi seems to hope to rebuild the party, concentration of power to that extent is dangerous,” argued Asahi. “In this era, any despotism will not bring sustainably long stability.” It is Chinese people that can ring a wake up call.