1 Xi leadership rolls out another political campaign focused on Party discipline
April 3
State mouthpiece Xinhua reported that the CCP Central Leading Group for Party Building Work held a meeting to announce an upcoming Party discipline study and education campaign. Politburo Standing Committee member Cai Qi presided over the meeting as head of the leading group and delivered a speech.
The meeting said that the Party discipline study and education campaign will be conducted from April to July 2024. Party members and cadres are required to “thoroughly study and implement the important speeches and instructions of Xi Jinping” and implement the requirements put forth in a recent notice by the CCP General Office on conducting Party discipline study and education throughout the entire CCP (關於在全黨開展黨紀學習教育的通知). The meeting also urged Party members and cadres to deeply comprehend the “decisive significance” of the “Two Safeguards” and resolutely uphold them.
The meeting stressed that Party organizations at all levels and leadership teams must strictly enforce Party discipline, as well as ensure strict discipline to conscientiously maintain a high degree of unity with Party Central with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, unify thinking and actions, and have clear awareness of boundaries and exercise strict compliance.
The meeting further required Party members and cadres to study “chapter by chapter, and article by article” the “Regulations on Discipline and Punishment of the CCP” (中國共產黨紀律處分條例), and “learn in connection with practical situations” while avoiding formalism.
April 7
Xinhua reported that the CCP General Office recently issued a notice on conducting Party discipline study and education throughout the entire Communist Party.
The notice required Party members and cadres to study the revised “Regulations on Discipline and Punishment of the CCP” (henceforth referred to as the “Regulations”) from April to July 2024. The notice also emphasized the need to guide Party members, and especially Party cadres, in earnestly studying the “Measures” under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.
The notice required that Party members and cadres “internalize adhere to regulations and discipline” deeply into their “hearts and minds.” Studying and implementing the “Regulations” should be an important focus of examination and inspection in the democratic life meetings of leadership teams at the county level and above, as well as in the organizational life meetings of grassroots Party organizations in 2024.
The notice further required that Party committees (Party groups) at all levels regard Party discipline study and education as an important political task in supervising its implementation. The notice also called for doing well propaganda and guidance work for discipline study and education, resolutely opposing formalism, and guarding against “low-level red” (低級紅) and “advanced blackening” (高級黑) messaging.
Backdrop
1. The Xi leadership launched a “thematic education campaign” on studying and implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era after the 20th Party Congress. Xi ally Cai Qi heads the Central Leading Group for Learning and Implementing Xi Jinping Thought and runs the campaign.
2. The PRC’s domestic and external crises have grown more severe under Xi Jinping’s leadership. Economic challenges present the toughest visible domestic hurdle for Beijing, including weak demand, the real estate sector facing a “hard landing,” and worsening debt and financial risks. The Xi leadership has thus far acted in a manner that suggests it is stumped on how to salvage the economy. Meanwhile, the PRC’s geopolitical risks are rising with the U.S. and its allies stepping up efforts to address the CCP threat.
The PRC’s various problems and behavior have resulted in growing dissatisfaction towards Xi both at home and abroad.
Our take
1. The April 3 Xinhua report on the Central Leading Group for Party Building Work meeting reveals that Xi Jinping has handed his political ally Cai Qi another important appointment. Cai heading the leading group for Party-building work is in line with his current portfolio overseeing propaganda and ideological matters in the regime.
Cai’s new appointment suggests that he is solidly in Xi’s trust and affirms an earlier observation we made in analyzing news that Cai was put in charge of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission that Xi “likely feels confident in handing over some of his previous duties to key deputies to manage” after securing a third term at the 20th Party Congress and having centralized power to an even greater degree.
2. The launch of the Party discipline study and education campaign indicates that Xi Jinping is still struggling to overcome opposition to his rule from Party elites and bureaucratic malfeasance despite having highly centralized power.
In analyzing Xi’s rise to power, we wrote on numerous occasions that Xi relied on adhering to Party orthodoxy to consolidate power and that his “quan wei” (authority and prestige) is largely established on propaganda. Thus, Xi has to perpetually rely on political campaigns and indoctrination to upkeep his “quan wei” and force the CCP rank and file to properly implement his policies lest they are found guilty of violating Party discipline.
We have also noted various rumors and information (for e.g., see here and here) that emerged around the start of 2024 concerning Party princelings opposing Xi Jinping. In an April 4 article, The Economist cited scholar Joseph Torigian as saying that “many princelings are extremely dissatisfied” with Xi because they believe he has “completely shut them out” of ruling the country. Scholar Olivia Cheung also told The Economist that Xi is “quite alert” to the fact that authoritarian regimes often collapse from infighting rather than public protests, and hence “keeping the princelings under control” is a “political priority” for him. We believe that the Party discipline study and education campaign is likely one of the measures that Xi is using to keep the Party elite in line and stop them from banding against him.
3. In Chinese political jargon, “low-level red” and “advanced blackening” refer to officials using crude (red) propaganda and subtle (black) methods to seemingly praise the leadership, while in fact damaging their public image. The call to guard against this phenomenon in the CCP General Office’s notice on conducting Party discipline study and education indicates that the Xi leadership is still having trouble eliminating the problem despite prolonged efforts to curb it:
- Xi noticeably faced problems with “low-level red” and “advanced blackening” during his first term when Jiang Zemin faction member Liu Yunshan was the chief propaganda overseer. Overseas Chinese commentators would occasionally spotlight instances of “low-level red” and “advanced blackening” by officials and how that contradicted the optics Beijing wanted, but the PRC authorities did not formally address the issue.
- The Xi leadership officially called attention to the problem of “low-level red” and “advanced blackening” in a document on strengthening the Party’s political construction published on Jan. 31, 2019. The document called for “firmly adhering to the correct understanding and actions of the ‘Two Safeguards,’ resolutely preventing and correcting all words and actions deviating from the ‘Two Safeguards,’ and not engaging in any form of ‘low-level red’ and ‘advanced blackening.’”
- Sang Linfeng, the deputy director of the commentary department of the PLA Daily in 2019, published an article in the fourth issue of the “Party-building” magazine that year explaining what is meant by “low-level red” and “advanced blackening.” Sang wrote that “low-level red” refers to the intentional or unintentional oversimplifying of the beliefs and political propositions of the CCP, while “advanced blackening” is the use of skillful language, sophisticated humor, and sometimes academic veneer “with stronger deception” to target certain Party members or the CCP’s beliefs and political propositions. Sang also classified extreme interpretations of the CCP’s ideals, beliefs, principles, and policies as “advanced blackening.”
- On Sept. 5, 2022, the propaganda department of Zhejiang Province published an article on its official WeChat account where it outlined six categories of “low-level red” and “advanced blackening” that seriously damage the image of the CCP and the PRC government, as well as provided numerous examples for each category. The six categories were “exaggeration and mindless flattery; excessive efforts and arbitrary exaggeration; self-glorification and making things overly complicated; praising while subtly criticizing; and using sweeping statements or labels to categorize and stigmatize.”
The Xi leadership’s emphasis on guarding against “low-level red” and “advanced blackening” suggests that it believes that PRC officials, or at least some of them:
- Have a simplistic understanding of why Xi Jinping centralized power and hence are not performing as instructed.
- Are “preferring left rather than right” and engaging in flattery to curry up to Xi.
- Are damaging the business environment and worsening China’s economic situation by saying things or acting in a manner that runs contrary to what Beijing wants.
- Are aligned with Xi’s factional rivals and are deliberately causing trouble for the Xi leadership.
4. We believe that the Xi leadership’s latest “study and education” campaign will not do much to help Xi Jinping achieve what he desires. Instead, the campaign is likely to increase the resentment of officials towards Xi and strengthen the perception in the West that China is becoming increasingly authoritarian under Xi.
2 More senior defense executives are purged
April 3
Li Zhaozhi, the former head of the China Ordnance Industries Group’s (Norinco) equipment support department, was placed under investigation on suspicion of serious violations of discipline and the law, according to an announcement on the website of the CCP anti-corruption authorities.
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China Ordnance Industries Group is a super-large central-owned enterprise involved in military equipment research, production, and manufacturing. The group developed the PRC’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, and its main clients are the five service branches of the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police.
At least three senior executives from China Ordnance Industries Group have been investigated over the past six months, including Li Zhaozhi, Zhang Jianwu (former Party secretary of Changchun Equipment Technology Research Institute under China Ordnance Industries Group; probed on Feb. 4, 2024), and Guo Pingxiao (deputy director of the science and technology committee of Beiben Heavy Duty Truck Group under China Ordnance Industries Group; probed in December 2023). Yin Jiaxu, the former head of China Ordnance Industries Group (retired in early 2018), was investigated in 2021 and expelled from the Party in September that year.
April 7
The CCP anti-corruption authorities announced the investigation of He Wenzhong, the deputy general manager and Party group member of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), on suspicion of serious violations of discipline and the law.
He was appointed as deputy general manager of CETC on May 11, 2023, and is the 19th senior official at the central level to be purged in 2024.
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CETC is a super-large central-managed enterprise involved in designing, manufacturing, developing, and applying communication equipment, computers, and software for military use. The company is a key force behind the PRC’s strategic military technology and is part of the “national team” for cybersecurity.
Backdrop
The Xi leadership has been steadily purging senior defense industry executives (see here, here, and here) since the PLA Rocket Force corruption scandal broke out around mid-2023.
Our take
The investigation of Li Zhaozhi and He Wenzhong indicates that the Xi leadership is still focused on cleaning up corruption in the PLA and the PRC’s military-industrial sector in the wake of former defense minister Li Shangfu’s removal and the exposing of corruption in the PLARF. The military and defense industry purges are likely to continue into the foreseeable future as Beijing follows the trail of corruption involving the senior PLA officers and executives. We previously analyzed that more defense industry executives and officials could “have their seats in the CPPCC or NPC revoked as Beijing deepens its anti-corruption probe into the industry and the PLA.”
The ongoing probes into the PLA and defense industry will obstruct the Xi leadership’s plan to modernize the military and have it ready to both prepare for possible aggression (taking Taiwan by force, etc.) and defense against countries who are waging the “new cold war” against the PRC. This would put a dent in Xi Jinping and the CCP’s ambitions for external domination, while endless anti-corruption investigations place an additional strain on the regime’s resources that could be better spent elsewhere. The anti-corruption probes also risk demoralizing the military and affecting combat readiness.
The PLA’s lack of readiness from the problems caused by corruption and Beijing’s struggles to rebuild military capabilities and capacity will limit the Xi leadership’s options for dealing with geopolitical tensions. In particular, the Xi leadership faces a dilemma in figuring out how to best handle the PRC’s relationship with Russia in the face of growing pressure from the United States and its allies to stop supporting Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine. Strengthening support for and relations with Russia will likely put the PRC on a collision course with the U.S. and its allies on a faster time frame and before the CCP regime is confident in its military’s readiness for the challenge. Yet abandoning Russia is out of the question because the PRC needs at least one powerful ally to stand with against the so-called “collective West,” and is currently benefiting from the “breathing room” created by the U.S. and its allies being more immediately focused on tackling Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation.
We believe that Beijing will likely continue to balance its relations with Russia and the West for as long as possible, support Moscow in as many ways as the PRC can get away with, and seek to “delay and wait for change” (以拖待變) in the hopes that the CCP regime can overcome its many crises and eventually outlast the U.S. and its allies. However, Xi and the CCP face stiff hurdles in playing the long game, especially with Xi’s lingering factional rivals, Party princelings, and PRC officials becoming increasingly dissatisfied with his rule and more incentivized to undermine the Xi leadership.
