Olho mágico: Um líder intrigante / Peephole: The puzzling leader

Being midway through his first term as supreme leader of China, Xi Jinping became itself an object of study and question, as is another form of a "new normal", especially after having driven a break radical with the ancient Chinese leadership and the "lost decade" of Hu Jintao. But the governance Xi Jinping is also a "case study" by the depth and scope of what the Chinese leader designated as a priority in terms of policy orientation, with the fight against corruption to stand out clearly visible. [...]

Published in Ponto Final, May 15 2015

And the text original in English with web links:

Being now halfway into his first mandate as China’s supremo, Xi Jinping has become the object of many probes—another form of “new normal”—, mainly because of his apparent clean break with the previous leadership—the so-called “lost decade” of Hu Jintao—as well as the depth and reach of everything he has undertaken or designated as a priority in terms of policy-making, among which the fight against corruption stands a distant first. Assertiveness at home and abroad has become his trademark and his self-confident and earthily personal style has made his ultimate goal to salvage the perennial rule of the Communist Party of China (CPC) very convincing for many.

In a recent “educated poll” run by Foreign Affairs flashily entitled “Will China Crumble? ,” some 32 experts and scholars from various sectors and background were asked whether or not they agreed with the assertion that “The current Chinese regime will not survive the next decade without major reform” and quite surprisingly 19 of them disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement, 6 stayed neutral and only 7 agreed or strongly agreed. Despite the relative vagueness and ambiguity of the question—are we talking exclusively about political reform? Does it necessarily mean a breakthrough towards liberal democracy? Is it “reform” versus “revolution?—this is a clear indication that beyond the two major dangers of soul-searching anti-graft purges and declining economic growth—the backbone of the Party’s legitimacy—there is a significant level of confidence regarding the ability of the Party-state under Xi’s helmsmanship to overcome the seemingly inconsistence of having economic reforms without ultimately engaging into far-reaching political reforms. In the enduring contest between the idea of “authoritarian resilience” coined by Andrew Nathan in the early 2000s and the one of inescapable “collapse” because of inherent internal contradictions popularized by Gordon Chang, Pei Minxin or more recently David Shambaugh, resilience appears to have the upper hand. Yet, all these experts do not see China as an alternative model to liberal democracy and none for sure agree with Daniel Bell’s latest claim that “Chinese-style political meritocracy can help to remedy the key flaws of electoral democracy”.

The resolve of Xi’s action has thus translated into a perceived renewed capacity of the Chinese state to deliver on its promise of modernity, but Xi the “Born Red” leader is still pretty much a puzzle, despite his impeccable princeling credentials and being the most “advertised” Chinese ruler since Mao Zedong—several books of his selected works have already been published, including a “Study China” (xuexi zhongguo) smartphone App providing his complete writings, favorite poems and travel agenda, and “Xi Dada”, “Big Uncle Xi” as he was nicknamed by the state news agency, can be found on stickers, pins, as a statuette and even comics and animated cartoons. Many an observers have highlighted that this could amount to a revamped form of cult of the personality, and yet Xi Jinping is portrayed as being genuinely “accessible” to the people—in one of these cartoons, the presidential Chinese dream becomes the one of winning the World Cup! Despite the many references to the Maoist era and the heavy crackdown on civil society and any form of dissenting view—more so if it is suspected to be under a “Western influence”—most of the reforms in the economic and social realms appear to be guided by pragmatism. If the wish for a Chinese rejuvenation or renaissance, as argued by Willy Wo-Lap Lam in his Chinese Politics in the Era of Xi Jinping, is hard to refute and has been part of the political master narrative since the humiliation of the First Opium War, other ulterior motives are less ascertained.

In a somewhat traditional neo-authoritarianism perspective, the concentration of power in the hands of a single enlightened leader is made necessary to keep stirring the boat in the right direction, and clearly the cape to avoid at all cost is the one that has presided over the demise of the Soviet Communist Party, precisely because of a lack of confidence and resolution—obviously quite an obsessive thought. For Willy Lam, the excessive monopolization of power that forces even Premier Li Keqiang to play second fiddle, the ad hoc creation of leading groups and committees that somehow circumvent the collegial power of the Politburo Standing Committee, the lack of promotion of the so-called 7^th generation of leaders, together with the admiration that Mr Xi holds for Vladimir Putin and his 15 years of uninterrupted exercise of power in Russia are an indication that the design might go beyond the salvation of the CPC and suggest a wish for Mr Xi to stay in power at least up to 2027. For a liberal thinker like Wu Jiaxiang, this tight grip over power and the fending off of rival factions and vested interests within the party correspond to a consolidating stage that necessarily precedes further reforms. The puzzle remains though: depending on the tightness of the grip, one always risks choking off the potential for innovation and reform.