SinoInsight 1
The CCP announced investigations into seven more bureau-level political and legal affairs officials in the provinces from July 10 to July 17. Six of the seven were retired, with one retired for seven years. Two of the seven once headed a provincial level “610 Office,” the former CCP agency that oversaw the persecution of Falun Gong.
Over the same period, the CCP also investigated officials in the food apparatus, including one deputy ministerial-level official and two bureau-level officials in the provinces.
Political and legal affairs apparatus
July 10
Li Bai (age 63, retired December 2018), a former member of the Shanxi Provincial Public Security Bureau Party Committee and team captain of the Domestic Security Bureau, was investigated. Before his promotion to team captain, Li spent 11 years as director of Shanxi’s Changzhi City Public Security Bureau.
July 12
Tang Guoqing (67, retired March 2014), a former Hubei Provincial Public Security Bureau inspection team member, was investigated. Before his appointment as inspection team member, Tang was a team captain at the Hubei Provincial Public Security Bureau’s Public Security Corps (September 2004 to May 2013), a “stability maintenance” body.
July 14
1. Mao Kezhang (63, retired March 2018), a former Henan Provincial Prison Administration Bureau deputy director and Party Committee member, was investigated.
2. Wang Wenhai (66, retired June 2017), the former director and Party secretary of the Henan Provincial Department of Justice, was investigated. Wang previously served as deputy Party secretary of the Henan Provincial Political and Legal Affairs Commission (February 2006 to March 2008) and director of the Henan Provincial “610 Office” (February 2007 to March 2008).
July 16
Meng Xiang (56), a member of the Supreme People’s Court’s trial committee and director of the executive bureau, was investigated.
July 17
1. Ma Yucheng (66, retired January 2019), a former deputy secretary of the Hebei Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission, was investigated.
Ma spent nearly 16 years in the earlier half of his career (March 1986 to November 2009) at the Hebei Provincial Public Security Bureau, where he served as deputy director and deputy Party secretary. Ma also once serves as deputy secretary of the Hebei Political and Legal Affairs Commission (November 2009 to January 2011), director of the Department of Supervision (January 2011 to November 2013), and director of the Hebei Provincial “610 Office” (May 2008 to November 2009).
2. Wo Lingsheng (63, retired November 2018), a former deputy Party secretary of the Heilongjiang Provincial Political and Legal Affairs Commission, was investigated.
Food apparatus
July 12
Ni Meitang (59), a first-rank inspector with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, was investigated.
July 13
1. Xu Ming (63, deputy ministerial rank privileges), a former Party Group member and deputy director of the PRC National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, was investigated.
2. Shi Zhonghua (59), the former chairman of the state-owned Beidahuang Grain Group, was investigated. Shi was previously removed from his post in April 2019.
OUR TAKE
1. With the purge of former senior provincial officials coming just 10 days after July 1, Xi Jinping clearly has not allowed the CCP centennial celebrations to get in the way of his “rectification” of the regime.
The recently purged officials climbed the ranks during the Jiang faction’s era of dominance (1997 to 2012), and are naturally suspect loyalty wise from the Xi leadership’s standpoint. Those from the political and legal affairs apparatus were responsible for brutal “stability maintenance” work or Jiang Zemin’s Falun Gong persecution campaign.
2. The PRC’s food apparatus has been relatively untouched by Xi’s anti-corruption campaign despite seeing comparable levels of malfeasance with other PRC organs. After all, Xu Ming is only the first deputy ministerial level official from the apparatus to fall since anti-corruption efforts kicked off after the 18th Party Congress in 2012, and very few officials from the apparatus have been purged. That Beijing is only making serious inroads “rectifying” the food apparatus now hints at a worsening of food security problems for the PRC and corruption there getting out of hand.
Deteriorating food security aside, there are several other reasons why the food apparatus was not the focus of Beijing’s anti-corruption efforts. First, the food apparatus is nowhere near as powerful or influential as, say, the political and legal affairs system or the military, and is hence much further down on the list of priorities in Xi’s power consolidation efforts. Second, food apparatus officials are unlikely to be as high-profile or offensive to Beijing precisely because their apparatus is relatively uninfluential and prominent. Third, anti-corruption moves against the food apparatus could have seismic, destabilizing implications for the entire apparatus given the many opportunities for malfeasance available to officials who control food supply. Finally, Beijing is likely concerned that moving too hard and fast against the food apparatus could both cause societal panic (as actual levels of food supply and the extent of shortages are indirectly exposed) and spark damaging resistance from officials looking to destroy evidence of corruption (see our 2018 analysis of burning grain reserves).
3. The investigation of Xu Ming is likely connected with the Xi-Jiang factional struggle.
Xu spent the formative part of his official career in the commerce ministry. He later served as an aide to Jiang Zemin’s protégé Bo Xilai when the latter was commerce minister (February 2004 to December 2007), and was also promoted from a deputy director to director during Bo’s time at the ministry. Xu later followed Bo to Chongqing after the 17th Party Congress to serve as his deputy secretary-general and director of research. Eventually, Xu was promoted to municipal secretary-general and the deputy ministerial rank, and also became a member of the Chongqing Party Committee. In December 2011, Xu was transferred to Chongqing’s Liangjiang New Area to serve as secretary of its working committee.
Following the arrest of Bo Xilai in March 2012, Xu Ming kept his position in Chongqing for a year before being transferred to his final official post in the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration. While serving as deputy director of the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration was technically a demotion, Xu was still entitled to his deputy ministerial rank privileges.
Xu Ming has clear ties with Bo Xilai. However, Xu likely survived the immediate purges following his boss’s downfall because he does not appear to have been directly involved in the Wang Lijun scandal, or with Bo and Zhou Yongkang’s attempted coup against Xi Jinping. Xu’s transfer to a senior position in the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration and his avoiding arrest for nearly nine years also indicates that he has pretty powerful political connections. Hence, the purging of Xu at this time suggests that his political backers are not quite as powerful as before, and is also a warning to other officials in the food apparatus that they better mend their ways quickly or prepare to feel Beijing’s wrath.
SinoInsight 2
July 11
The PRC State Council issued guidelines on strengthening (“modernizing”) the CCP’s control over its basic level government management system (“中共中央國務院關於加強基層治理體系和治理能力現代化建設的意見”).
Key points in the guidelines include:
1. The CCP will establish a basic level government management system over an estimated five year period. After implementing the management system, the CCP government will then “realize the modernization of the basic level government management system and management capabilities” over another 10 years.
Interpretation: The CCP is working to tighten Party Central control over basic level government and broaden the penetration of its techno-totalitarian model in localities.
2. The CCP will strengthen the Party’s “comprehensive leadership” over basic level organizations. Village community Party secretaries will also double up as directors of village residential committees.
Interpretation: The CCP is merging state and Party operations in basic level government as part of its move to tighten control.
3. Basic level governments will have the power to organize administrative law enforcement at their level.
Interpretation: The CCP is legitimizing the previously illegal “stability maintenance” work carried out by basic level governments.
4. The emergency management capabilities of villages and towns will be boasted.
Interpretation: The CCP is looking to prevent local uprisings from emerging in the event of economic and social conflicts, as well as natural disasters.
5. The “peace construction” capabilities (平安建設能力) of villages and towns will be strengthened, and the “Fengqiao Experience” (楓橋經驗) of the (Xi Jinping) “new era” will be developed further.
Interpretation: More “more stability maintenance” measures, including promotion of the classic “pitting the masses against the masses” (群眾鬥群眾) strategy via the “Fengqiao Experience.”
6. Self-government of the masses at the basic level will be strengthened.
Interpretation: Institutionalization of the “pitting the masses against the masses” strategy.
7. Basic level government “wisdom management construction capabilities” (智慧治理能力) will be strengthened.
Interpretation: So-called “wisdom management construction capabilities” alludes to the broadening of the CCP’s techno-totalitarian system and Orwellian surveillance.
8. Basic level governments and Party committees will be held responsible and accountable for strengthening the management of basic level government, and will be subjected to performance evaluations.
Interpretation: By tying the basic government management project to the career prospects of officials, the central government is looking to ensure that Beijing’s orders are duly fulfilled and not ignored.
July 12
The CCP Central Committee and the PRC State Department jointly issued guidelines on “strengthening and improving ideological and political work in the New Era” (“關於新時代加強和改進思想政治工作的意見”).
Main points in the guidelines include:
1. The guidelines consist of six segments,
- “Overall requirements” of the CCP Central Committee and the PRC State Department on “ideological and political work.”
- “Ideological and political work” should be viewed as an important way in which to govern the Party and the country.
- Education in “ideological and political work” should be launched.
- “Ideological and political work” should be promoted in the grassroots.
- Innovation and development of “ideological and political work” should be advanced.
- Build an overall mechanism for the promotion of “ideological and political work.”
2. The guidelines note that Xi Jinping has made a priority of and promoted “ideological and political work” since taking office. Thus, “the ideological unity of the whole Party and society has been consolidated, and the situation in the ideological field of our country has undergone an entire, fundamental shift.”
3. The strengthening and improvement of “ideological and political work” in the “new era” will be guided by “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”
4. The “guiding principle” of strengthening and improving “ideological and political work” in the “new era” is the strengthening of the Party’s comprehensive leadership over China.
5. “Xi Thought” should be used in “ideological and political work” education to enhance “political identity, ideological identity, theoretical identity, and emotional identity.” Officials should also strengthen their “hardship consciousness,” develop their “struggle spirit,” and extensively carry out propaganda and education to “prevent and resolve major risks.”
6. “Ideological and political work” should be strengthened in the grassroots, including grassroots enterprises, villages, schools, communities, and on the internet. “The broad masses should be united under the broad banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
7. “Ideological and political work” should be incorporated into the public discourse. Party and government leadership teams will be assessed on their adherence to “ideological and political work.”
OUR TAKE
1. The CCP’s promotion of ideology is not an anachronism, but a manifestation of its “survival-dominance” dynamic. The Party is willing to tolerate a degree of “liberalism” if it believes that it is dominant, has the support of the masses, and the regime is relatively stable. For instance, Deng Xiaoping “rehabilitated” political prisoners and promoted “reform and opening up” after the CCP restored its “quan wei” with the purge of the “Gang of Four” and the downfall of Hua Guofeng and the Maoist “Two Whatevers” faction.
However, the Party is not afraid to retreat into its totalitarian shell when it senses crisis and feels threatened. For instance, various pro-democracy movements in mainland China arose after the implementation of “reform and opening up” led to “ideological emancipation” (解放思想) in the younger generation of Chinese. All those movements, be it the “Democracy Wall” in Beijing in 1978 or the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, were eventually crushed by the CCP and control over society was retightened.
Today, Xi Jinping and the CCP clearly feel very threatened by the “perfect storm” of domestic and international problems facing the regime. The promotion of “ideological and political work” is one way in which Xi and the Party are looking to brainwash the Chinese people, rebuild popular support for the regime, and lower the probability of a destabilizing mass social event breaking out. Meanwhile, the promotion of the Cultural Revolution-inspired “new era Fengqiao Experience” is the CCP’s way of “pitting the masses against the masses” to forestall social upheaval or anti-government movements like those in Cuba or Venezuela.
2. The CCP’s focus on “modernizing” basic level government is consistent with its recent move to develop its supply and marketing cooperatives system. Put another way, Xi Jinping and the Party are making contingencies to deal with a “Berlin Wall moment.” That Xi and the CCP feel the need to prepare for the worst betrays their usual “great power diplomacy/wolf warrior” bluster, and signals that the regime is struggling mightily despite projecting strength.
3. Xi Jinping’s effort to rein in basic level government shows that he is still having problems with officials not obeying Zhongnanhai (政令不出中南海) or properly implementing Party Central’s orders despite him having consolidated power to a high degree.
In accounting for Communist Party culture, operations, and factional struggle, Xi will unlikely be able to resolve his dilemma regardless of what he does, but may in fact worsen the situation with his current plans. CCP officials will default to “preferring left to right” in implementing Xi’s orders, including using ultra-left measures in carrying out “stability maintenance” work. Heavy-handed crackdowns have the potential to intensify social conflicts, especially when the public’s grievances are great and times get tougher for the communist regime.
Meanwhile, Xi’s attempts to compel officials to heed his command by tying the implementation of his instructions with work performance could end up in futility as disgruntled officials cover for each other to meet assessment targets and pay lip service to Party Central. Resentment towards Beijing will also grow as fiscal shortages eat into civil servant salaries.
