Today you had an especially interesting incident taking place at the 20th congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), in Beijing.
At a certain point in the closing ceremony of the congress, shortly after journalists were allowed in, Hu Jintao, who was President of China between 2003 and 2013, and who at the congress was sitting beside current President Xi Jinping, was removed from the event by security, even while offering a fair share of resistance to that. Hu even seemed to appeal to Xi, who showed himself aloof and unconcerned, and, of all the CCP officials sitting in the front row, only Li Keqiang, the outgoing premier, seemed to show a measure of solidarity to Hu—all others, including current Foreign Minister Wang Yi, displayed nothing but cold indifference.
What could be signified by this moment?
It is, after all, of the greatest institutional import for a former Chinese leader to be removed from the Party congress to the callous indifference of top officials. Even more so in a Communist country, where there's always a deep concern with the symbolic impact of everything that may occur, and where it's even usual for the power structure to carefully choreograph moments and situations for the purpose of conveying specific messages.
Was Hu's removal merely casual? After the event, Chinese state media alleged Hu had to be removed because he wasn't feeling well, but that account of the event is clearly contradicted by Hu's resistance to being removed. So, could this moment have expressed something different, such as a clash in the Party structure? Could this have been a way for Xi to signal superiority over any rival faction?
This is where other events taking place at the CCP congress may be of relevance. One of the general themes of this congress is the dramatic strengthening of Xi's political power. This is occurring through amendments to the Party charter, and also by means of Xi's impending anointment for a third term as secretary-general of the CCP. But it also takes place through the reshuffling of the CCP's Central Committee, with the elevation of Xi loyalists, to the exclusion of technocratic moderates such as outgoing premier Li Keqiang. As put by Chris Buckley and Keith Bradsher for The New York Times,
“Aside from Mr. Li [Keqiang], several others set to retire were senior leaders with a record of favoring market-oriented policies and a somewhat less confrontational stance toward the West. They included Wang Yang, a current Politburo Standing Committee member, as well as three top officials in finance: Liu He, Guo Shuqing and Yi Gang”
Buckley and Bradsher also go on to say that,
“[Xi] positioned allies to dominate the new leadership. He kept officials who have promoted his muscular approach in diplomacy and the military... [he] has advanced a contingent of Communist Party loyalists ready to defend him, expand state influence over the economy and bolster national security... Mr. Xi’s enhanced control suggests China will maintain its tough stance toward Washington, and expand the party’s intervention in the economy, technology and the internet”
So, Hu Jintao's removal from the CCP congress could have been a continuation of that: a way to signal that the era of technocratic moderation is now over, and that the times ahead will be dominated by hardline policies and, indeed, by hardline politics.
But, and on par with that, Hu's removal could also have been a way to humiliate Hu himself, along with the “bourgeois” vision of society he's become somewhat associated with, through the modernization of an open China and the comparative enfranchisement of the Chinese people that were achieved by means of his term in office. Such a humiliation would clearly be in convergence with Xi's war on the liberal worldview—and, as a part of that, on middle class freedoms, rights and indulgences—, and with his push for a return to discipline and ideological orthodoxy. So, Hu's removal could actually have been a Cultural Revolution moment: one of those moments by which “the new generation enforces doctrinal purity by means of degrading and crushing the older generation, which is contaminated by bourgeois habits.”
Time will tell.
By anointing Xi Jinping for a third term as CCP secretary-general, the CCP congress is essentially establishing Xi as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. This is of course a mere formality, at a time when the Chinese people, and Chinese children themselves, are routinely indoctrinated with “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”—a collection of the ideological diktats of the new Great Leader, providing for an updated version of the Communist state religion.
Furthermore, Xi has spent the last years steadily and discreetly steering China into a totalitarian reawakening. This of course includes the heightened repression of the population across the territory in general, and more ostensibly in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. But it also includes the adoption of imperial posturing in international relations, as expressed by the purpose of elevating China to a central role in the world stage by mid-century, by the ongoing establishment of a geopolitical axis with Russia, and by heightened provocations to India and Japan, to the states of Southeast Asia, to Taiwan and, of course, to the United States. This penchant for provocation appears to be backed by the rapid buildup of Chinese military capabilities—the largest and most ambitious since World War II, as recently stated by the Australians.
During his speech at the opening ceremony of the CCP congress, Xi of course called for heightening China's military capabilities' buildup, and said that “we will work faster to modernize military theory, personnel and weapons,” and that “we will enhance the military’s strategic capabilities.” In that speech, Xi also celebrated the end of what he referred to as the “chaos” in Hong Kong, and he saber-rattled further on the Taiwan issue, by stating that while “we will adhere to striving for the prospect of a peaceful reunification, [we also] will never commit to abandoning the use of force, and reserve the option to take all necessary measures.” Xi also reaffirmed the validity of the “zero-COVID” policy, by which major Chinese cities, along with key industrial and transport hubs, have been regularly locked down, with all the attendant impacts—given China's decisive role in the world economy—on global trade and on global economic stability.
Xi’s authoritarian politics, as well as his effronteries to the Chinese people, are bound to be ruffling a fair amount of feathers across China and the CCP’s power structure itself. If there ever was a time for the democratic countries to work with such sources of opposition, then this is it.