SinoInsight 1
This week, the CCP sent out unusually “hawkish” and “dovish” messages to the United States.
On Aug. 24, state mouthpiece Xinhua ran a scathing 33,000-word article “fact-checking” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s July 23 speech at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. The piece was republished in Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, and ran for three full pages in its print edition. While Pompeo has been regularly singled out for attack by CCP propaganda outlets, what was irregular about the Xinhua article was the timing of its release well over a month after Pompeo’s speech and its repetitiveness, considering that propaganda outlets had already criticized Pompeo’s speech in the days after he delivered it.
On Aug. 25, Zhou Bo, a hawkish senior colonel in the People’s Liberation Army, published a piece in the Financial Times about the “worryingly high” risk of Sino-U.S. military conflict. “How to de-risk the chance of a conflict that neither side wants but which they could nevertheless sleepwalk into,” he wrote. On the same day, the PRC defense ministry accused the U.S. of flying a U-2 reconnaissance plane into a no-fly zone over live-fire military drills in the PLA’s Northern Theater Command region.
On Aug. 26, Hu Xijin, the Global Times editor-in-chief and PRC uber-hawk, published an article titled, “The Chinese People Are Not Anti-American, and America Has Historically Done the Least Harm to China” (中國人不反美 歷史上美國對中國干壞事最少). “I’ve been frequently accused of being a ‘hardliner’ on America, but I don’t hate the U.S.,” he wrote. “I concur with the saying that America has historically done the least harm to China, and has in fact done plenty of good stuff.” On that day, the People’s Liberation Army fired two missiles, including an “aircraft carrier killer,” into an area between Hainan Province and the Paracel Islands in a warning to the United States, according to the South China Morning Post.
OUR TAKE
1. The CCP knows that the Trump administration is serious about holding it accountable for malign behavior since Politburo member Yang Jiechi met with Secretary Pompeo in Hawaii in June, and has likely met preparations accordingly for a sharp worsening of U.S.-China relations. However, it is possible that the CCP did not anticipate the pace and degree at which the Trump administration would ramp up pressure against it.
A series of recent actions likely convinced the CCP that it had to simultaneously heighten attacks against a “handful of American politicians” (i.e. Pompeo) and take threatening military action while getting its American hawks to “sue for peace”:
- On Aug. 23, the Trump campaign released President Donald Trump’s second term agenda, with China coming in at number three in the list of agenda items. Trump promised actions that would accelerate Sino-U.S. decoupling while holding China “fully accountable for allowing the virus to spread around the world”—sensitive issues that threaten the survival of the CCP regime.
- On Aug. 23, American Institute in Taiwan director William Brent Christensen and an eight-person delegation accompanied Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen at an annual military memorial service to mark the killing of Taiwanese soldiers on Kinmen by PRC bombing in 1958.
- On Aug. 24, The Wall Street Journal published a piece by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper where he noted that the CCP was emphasizing “indoctrinating, modernizing and tightening control over the PLA” to help it “reshape the international order in ways that undermine globally accepted rules while normalizing authoritarianism, creating conditions to allow the Chinese Communist Party to coerce other countries and impede their sovereignty.” Esper added that the CCP’s actions have spurred the U.S. to “mount a comprehensive response, and to accelerate our implementation of the National Defense Strategy.”
- On Aug. 25, the U.S. Navy announced that the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group had entered the South China Sea earlier this month and had been carrying out air operations.
- On Aug. 26, the U.S. State Department announced visa restrictions on individuals responsible for malign activities in the South China Sea. Concurrently, the U.S. Commerce Department added 24 PRC state-owned enterprises to its entity list, including several subsidiaries of China Communications Construction Company.
- During the 2020 Republican National Convention, several speakers called out the CCP and its behavior. On Aug. 25, Secretary Pompeo said in a pre-recorded message that Trump had “pulled back the curtain on the predatory aggression of the Chinese Communist Party” and will hold the CCP accountable for covering up the coronavirus and “allowing it to spread death and economic destruction in America and around the world.” Trump “will not rest until justice is done,” Pompeo said. On Aug. 26, famed Chinese human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng described the CCP as an “enemy of humanity” and praised Trump for stopping the CCP’s aggression. He also called on Americans to “support, vote, and fight for President Trump for the sake of the world.”
2. The CCP fears further degeneration of the Sino-U.S. relationship and the regime-endangering erosion of its credibility and popular support as America continues salami-slicing away at the CCP. Expect the CCP’s hardliner mouthpieces to go on a charm offensive and advocate for “win-win” China-U.S. relations while going hard on the Trump administration’s China hawks in the coming days as the White House makes inroads on the China issue. The U.S., however, should also be on alert for CCP “unrestricted warfare” tactics, including the “racism” card.
SinoInsight 2
On Aug. 25, the Financial Times ran an article about how Xi Jinping is preparing to “resurrect ‘chairman’ title created by Mao.” Experts cited in the piece claimed that Xi’s renewed campaign to rectify the CCP’s political and legal affairs apparatus meant that he was preparing to do something controversial such as assuming the title of Party Chairman. Meanwhile, an observer has doubted Xi’s need for the Chairman title since he has already abolished term limits and has taken the “title” of “People’s Leader.”
OUR TAKE
1. We previously explained why Xi is stepping up efforts to rectify the political and legal affairs apparatus (see here and here). To recap and expand:
- Xi needs to chip away at resistance to his leadership and tighten his control over the regime to secure a third term in 2022.
- As domestic problems (coronavirus, floods, food shortages, etc.) pile up in China, Xi needs to get the political and legal affairs apparatus in line to ensure that domestic woes do not threaten regime survival.
- The political and legal affairs apparatus had been in the hands of the Jiang Zemin faction for nearly two decades and rectification work was “always going to be a long and difficult process” even though it started in 2012 after the Wang Lijun incident.
An elaboration on the difficulties of rectification work is in order. The Jiang faction’s long stranglehold over the political and legal affairs apparatus means that its political networks are deeply entrenched in the apparatus. Thus, Xi can reshuffle the apparatus’s leadership ranks and replace senior officials, but officials loyal to Xi need a good amount of time to purge the so-called “lingering pernicious influence of Zhou Yongkang” (周永康餘毒), the Jiang faction lieutenant and former security czar, especially in the middle to lower ranks of the apparatus. Then there is the question of ability and prowess of the Xi officials—based on our research, several of the replacement senior officials in the political and legal affairs apparatus do not have domestic security background (and hence will find it harder to command those who spent their career in the political and legal affairs apparatus, as well as reform the system per Xi’s requests) or came to their positions through “rocket promotion” (and hence are lacking in natural authority/“quan wei” to get things done well). Meanwhile, Jiang faction members still remain in the highest ranks of the political and legal affairs apparatus (Guo Shengkun is head of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, and Zhou Qiang is chief justice of the Supreme People’s Court), and are responsible for “shock” judicial decisions in recent years.
2. The theory that Xi is carrying out Yan’an style rectification work in preparation to adopt the Party Chairman title does not hold water upon close scrutiny.
We believe that Xi did have plans to assume the title of Party Chairman at the 19th Party Congress and abolish the “collective leadership” system given the speculation leading up to the crucial political conclave in 2017. However, Xi clearly did not have the “quan wei,” power, or support to do so at the time; in fact, he was not even strong enough politically to keep his top ally Wang Qishan in the Politburo Standing Committee. Hence, Xi had to settle for a “General Secretary Plus” arrangement where Party protocol gave him the “stature” of a Party Chairman even though the “collective leadership” arrangement remained unchanged on the books.
Xi later moved to scrap term limits for the PRC presidency at the 2018 Two Sessions to avoid becoming a “lame duck” leader and be able to ram through reform. However, the move was hugely controversial and politically destabilizing as it implied that Xi was looking to rule for life like Mao Zedong, which would radically upset the dynamic of the CCP factional struggle in Xi’s favor. Many political problems that have plagued the Xi leadership, including the year-long delay of the CCP Fourth Plenum and the rejection of a draft trade deal with the U.S. in May 2019, stem from immense resistance towards Xi’s removal of term limits and his push for a third term.
Xi already faces very strong headwinds by going for another term in office. If he fails to nominate a successor at the 20th Party Congress (a very likely scenario), he will face even greater political resistance. Thus, from Xi’s perspective, there is no need to make things even harder than they already are by seeking to assume the title of Party Chairman, especially when he is struggling with the “perfect storm” of domestic and external problems buffeting the regime and has barely enough credit to justify a third term as PRC president.
3. We previously explained why the phrase “People’s Leader” is not a title in the CCP that provides any special political privilege or hard power. While Party bosses like Mao and Hua Guofeng have used the “People’s Leader” moniker to boost their “quan wei,” they were still susceptible to attacks from factional rivals. For instance, “People’s Leader” Hua was eventually “dethroned” by Deng Xiaoping, who never took the top Party position but was still widely regarded as paramount leader with immense “quan wei.”
The “People’s Leader” tag is a double-edged sword. In the case of Mao, the “People’s Leader” moniker and other similar titles (“great leader, great supreme commander, great teacher, great helmsman”) were used to establish his cult of personality during the Cultural Revolution and restore the “quan wei” he lost as a result of the Great Leap Forward. But with this deification, Mao also put himself at high risk of being denounced by ambitious cadres for straying from the CCP ideological line. However, Mao managed to stay one step ahead of those who sought to displace him; Lin Biao, Mao’s anointed successor and one of those who was responsible for deifying him, was later suspected of being involved in a coup attempt against Mao and died in a plane crash (the incident is widely believed to be an assassination) as he and his family tried to escape to the Soviet Union.
Today, “People’s Leader” is chiefly used as an expression of adoration in describing Xi Jinping, and not as a laudatory title during Mao’s time. However, what is used to praise Xi now can later be cited as “evidence” of cult of personality-building by his factional rivals. Xi’s rivals will also likely use the analysis of his supposedly moving to assume the Party Chairman title against him.
SinoInsight 3
On Aug. 26, Xi Jinping held a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing where he conferred a flag to the PRC police force. Public security minister Zhao Kezhi and Minister of State Security Chen Wenqing received the flag from Xi. Xi also ordered the police force to be “loyal to the Party, serve the people and be impartial in law enforcement and strict in discipline,” according to a report by state mouthpiece Xinhua.
After the ceremony, the Ministry of State Security Party Committee immediately held a meeting and requested that all its state security agents must be loyal to and obey Xi. The readout of the MSS Party Committee meeting used flattering language in mentioning Xi, touting Xi’s “leadership precepts,” claiming that the police force had been subjected to a “major review by the people’s leader,” and describing him as the “helmsman of Party Central with comrade Xi at the core.”
OUR TAKE
1. Xi’s presentation of the police flag and calling for loyalty are ways of signaling that he is in command of the PRC police force. Xi also presented flags to the military and called for troop loyalty after embarking on his sweeping military modernization program in 2016.
While the idea of presenting a police flag was first floated by a representative of the PRC National People’s Congress in 2003, neither Jiang Zemin nor Hu Jintao presented flags to the police force. The idea was reconsidered in 2017 after Xi’s political ally Zhao Kezhi was appointed public security minister, and a formal motion was introduced in January 2019.
Technically, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security are directly subordinated to the PRC State Council and premier Li Keqiang. Both ministries, however, come under the purview of the CCP’s political and legal affairs apparatus in the “collective leadership” model. Xi’s flag presentation ceremony now makes it even clearer to whom the Party’s domestic security forces should be loyal.
Xi’s police flag ceremony is part of his larger effort this year to rectify the political and legal affairs apparatus and consolidate his control over it ahead of the 20th Party Congress in 2022 (see SinoInsight 2).
2. We gave an overview of the factional problems Xi is facing from the political and legal affairs apparatus in the previous entry (SinoInsight 2). Xi’s Shaanxi inspection tour in April and the public security ministry’s exhortation to purge the “pernicious influence of Zhou Yongkang, Meng Hongwei, and Sun Lijun” after the latter’s arrest on April 19 hint at the strength of the anti-Xi resistance in the apparatus.
A recent example highlights why Xi feels the need to extend a rectification campaign that began in 2012. Longtime readers will be familiar with a recent re-examination of the infamous “Shaanxi 100 Billion Mining Case” (“陝西千億礦權案”, see here) and what appears to be judicial injustice perpetrated by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission and the Supreme People’s Court (two organs helmed by Jiang faction officials). Since the “shock turn” in the Shaanxi case in 2019, Cui Yongyuan, a former state television presenter who seems to be advocating for judicial justice in the case on behalf of the Xi camp, has been prevented (presumably by political and legal affairs officials) from leaving China to receive medical treatment. Recently, information on Chinese social media noted that Cui had been poisoned on Aug. 11 and is now lying comatose in a hospital where he received emergency treatment. Just days prior he was admitted to the hospital, Cui claimed in a video posted to his social media account that “If I don’t make an appearance for a week, it means something’s happened to me.”
