China, Middle Land: Meritocracy has become secondary to reaching the political elite in China, says professor

All seats on the Standing Committee held by loyal officers. No women in the Politburo.

No sign of the powerful factions in Shanghai, Chongqing and the Communist Youth that once ruled the Communist Party. A new term with no trace of a potential successor.

Thus Xi Jinping consolidated his power, becoming the strongest leader in China since Deng Xiaoping.

With the announcement this Sunday (23) of the six officers who will rule at his side — all men, as has been the rule since the founding of communist China — Xi confirmed the reading of most international political observers: the country is now turning in around his figure.

“Collective leadership”, a response to the excesses committed by Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976), disappeared. The extent of Xi’s influence, however, exceeded even the expectations of seasoned analysts, who thought there was some residual support for those who did not automatically align themselves with the powerful Chinese leader.

A researcher of the Chinese political elite and professor at the University of California at San Diego, Victor Shih says he is surprised by the choices for the political summit. He highlights the expectation that the current premier, Li Keqiang, 67, would remain in power at least as a member of the Central Committee before retiring.

In Chinese tradition, officials who reach the age of 68 before the party congress leave politics. One of Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao’s protégés, Li was due to stay on for another term.

He is a member of the Communist Youth League, a once-powerful faction resistant to Xi’s advances in consolidating domestic power. Also at 67, Standing Committee member Wang Yang, linked to the prime minister and seen as a moderate in the party circles, is yet another to retire.

“I thought Xi would force some opponents to leave the party with internal rule changes, but he didn’t even bother with that and forced them to leave. The age limit was not applied to people close to him,” says the academic. “Zhang Youxia, for example, will be deputy leader of the Central Military Commission [órgão responsável pela supervisão das Forças Armadas] at 72, something we haven’t seen since the 1990s.”

For the professor, the meteoric rise of the secretaries-general in Shanghai and Beijing, Li Qiang and Cai Qi, to the Standing Committee, even under harsh criticism due to the handling of the pandemic and miscalculations in the economy, is another point to note. When The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Li Qiang could be the new premier, the information was met with skepticism.

If the promotion is confirmed, Li, who carries on his resume the stain of having brought Shanghai to the brink of chaos with the disastrous management of Covid in the first half, will be the first to occupy the prime minister’s chair without having been vice premier since. Zhou Enlai, historical figure of Chinese communism, and Hua Guofeng, heir consecrated by Mao. He also had no previous experience on the Council of State.

In his favor, only his long-term closeness to Xi counted. It was enough.

Cai Qi appeared on very few betting lists for the Standing Committee. Protected by the Chinese leader, he worked with him in Fujian and Zhejiang. As soon as Xi came to power, Cai was catapulted into the political elite in record time: while most chiefs in provinces and municipalities take at least five years serving as governors and mayors before they reach the Central Committee, Cai went from mayor to secretary-general. General of Beijing, a position that puts him in the body, in just nine months.

Seen as a minor figure, he had marginal chances of reaching the Standing Committee. But in the negotiating rounds leading up to the party congress, he took the lead, occupying an expected vacancy for the influential general secretary of the Chinese Party in the Chongqing metropolis, Chen Min’er.

Shih points out that both represent Xi’s desire to surround himself with those he trusts. “Educational background, performance and past experiences have become secondary aspects. Li Qiang did not graduate from elite universities and did only average work in Zheziang Province.”

prospectus for the future

With the absence of Hu Chunhua not only on the Standing Committee list, but also among the 24 members of the Politburo, Xi has managed to formalize his hegemony in the leadership chain. It is an unprecedented feat, especially for a leader who, in the first term and until the middle of the second, did not control several essential elements of the state organization, such as the security apparatus.

Shih points out that the party has been under Xi’s undisputed leadership since at least 2018, after reforms in the military governance system and with the control of the national security apparatus, especially with the arrest of former vice ministers of public security, Sun. Lijun and Fu Zhenghua, two names close to Hu Jintao and sentenced to life imprisonment for involvement in corruption schemes.

The main question now, says the professor, will be to analyze how the political elite will behave with almost the entire party structure revolving around one man. In the past, absolute leadership has proved a major setback in correcting failed policies, such as the Great Leap Forward, where Mao Tse-tung’s insistence led to the death of tens of millions of people from starvation.

“By now, party members know what he likes: ideological purity, technological advancement that allows for leadership over the US, a haughty military response to strategic issues in the region,” says the professor. “The problem is that as soon as Xi decides on something, it will be implemented immediately without much dispute. This scenario can lead to strategic miscalculations that he refuses to bow to. We are already seeing this with the management of the pandemic. . Nobody has the courage to contest it.”

As the list on the Standing Committee also has no heirs-apparent and suggests that Xi will seek a fourth term in five years, there is already uncertainty, speculation and instability over the succession.

“The dictator wants to become irreplaceable, and when that happens the political vacuum left by the absence of opposition generates internal crises. In the short term it will be a stable government, but what if he disappears longer than usual? These concerns bring ups and downs that you don’t want to see in an economy as big as China’s, with repercussions for all countries that rely on commodity exports, like Brazil.”