1 Analyzing Beijing’s white paper on global governance
On June 17, the PRC State Council Information Office released a white paper on global governance (title, “More Just and Equitable Global Governance: China’s Principles, Proposals and Actions”).
The white paper’s Chinese edition contains nearly 50 pages and more than 20,000 characters. Aside from the preface and conclusion, the document contains five sections:
- The world today faces severe and complex crises and challenges.
- Global governance initiatives provide a contemporary answer to these challenges.
- China’s contribution to advancing global governance.
- Leading the direction of change and moving toward a brighter future.
- Advancing together at a critical juncture in historical development.
The white paper’s main themes can be summarized as follows:
- The CCP authorities present China’s concepts, initiatives, and actions in global governance, ostensibly with the aim of building international consensus and responding to global challenges.
- The central concept of the paper (the “China solution”) is the major vision proposed by Xi Jinping of “building a community with a shared future for mankind.” It advocates a global governance approach based on “extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits,” promotes what it describes as “true multilateralism,” and supports both “an equal and orderly multipolar world” and “universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.”
- According to the white paper, the Global Governance Initiative has already received support from nearly 160 countries and international organizations, while more than 60 countries have joined the Group of Friends of Global Governance.
- The document emphasizes that the most fundamental requirement for implementing the initiative is to uphold the authority and status of the United Nations, with the UN as the core, international law as the foundation, and the UN Charter as the guiding framework, rather than creating an alternative system. It also stresses the responsibility of major powers, international solidarity, and addressing deficits in peace and development.
Overall, the white paper conveys a message to the international community that the PRC seeks to present itself not only as an active participant in global governance, but also as a provider of a governance framework through its Global Governance Initiative. By emphasizing multilateralism and the central role of the United Nations, the PRC portrays its approach as a “China solution” for a world facing instability and mounting challenges, while highlighting its image as a major power assuming greater international responsibility.
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Senior officials from multiple agencies — including from the PRC foreign ministry, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the CCP’s International Department — held a press conference to introduce the 36-page document (English version) white paper.
PRC foreign minister Wang Yi said, “Global governance is like a boat sailing against strong currents and it risks going backward if not moved. As the world has entered a new period of turbulence, more than ever, we need to reinvigorate multilateralism to uphold rules and the rule of law and increase the efficiency and efficacy of governance.”
In an indirect jab at the United States, Wang said, “The law of the jungle is resurfacing, not because the UN Charter is outdated, but exactly because the charter has not been effectively observed and safeguarded. Facing emerging global challenges, the pressing priority now is to fulfil the UN Charter’s obligations, uphold sovereign equality, observe the international rule of law, oppose power politics and bullying acts.”
Referencing the U.S.-Israel-Iran war, Wang said, “What is needed now is for all parties to work toward the same direction, commit firmly to a ceasefire, in order to lay the foundation for a sustainable security architecture in the Middle East.”
The various senior officials also made announcements at the press conference that it will likely use to advance the white paper’s agenda:
- Wang said that the PRC will host the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting this year to “inject new momentum into peace and growth in the region and beyond.”
- The CCP will likely take the opportunity to reshape regional trade and connectivity standards in the Asia-Pacific and reduce the impact of U.S. unilateral trade restrictions.
- Zhou Haibing, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that the 2026 World AI Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance will be held in Shanghai this July.
- The white paper proposed the establishment of a World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization and put forward the Global AI Governance Action Plan and the AI+ International Cooperation Initiative. The CCP is likely to take advantage of the AI events in Shanghai to compete for influence over the formulation of global AI rules and ethical frameworks, while counterbalancing Western “small yard, high fence” technology policies.
- Wang said that China will host the inaugural Xiong’an Global Governance Forum to “discuss ways to improve international cooperation.”
- The CCP is positioning Xiong’an as a model of “smart” and “green” governance as it seeks to showcase examples of global governance that is non-Western-led.
Backdrop
Beijing issued the white paper on global governance amid growing geopolitical instability in 2026, particularly the Trump administration’s abduction of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife in January, the outbreak of the U.S.-Israel-Iran war at the end of February, and hardening European attitudes towards Russia and China.
Our take
1. The CCP’s white paper on global governance lays out Beijing’s fundamental critique of the current Western-led international order and outlines its proposed framework for reshaping/replacing that order. The document’s central themes and strategic intentions appear to be highly integrated and expansionary. Although the white paper seemingly advocates popular internationalist ideals like multilateralism, economic globalization, and upholding the central role of the United Nations, its deeper objective is not to reconstruct the liberal international order, but rather to pursue a targeted anti-hegemony and counter-U.S. strategy.
First, the white paper repeatedly emphasizes preserving the basic norms of international relations based on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and explicitly rejects creating alternative institutional frameworks. Beijing’s likely actual objective here is to leverage its voting influence among Global South countries in the UN General Assembly (where each state has one vote) to build legal and political defenses in the event of future contingencies, such as those involving the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea. If conflict were to emerge, the PRC could potentially attempt to reframe any unilateral sanctions or military intervention led by the United States through UN General Assembly resolutions as actions violating the UN Charter and constituting unlawful hegemonic behavior, thereby weakening the legal and political legitimacy of Western intervention.
Second, the white paper strongly promotes inclusive economic globalization and responsiveness to the development needs of the Global South. The CCP’s likely underlying objective is to channel China’s industrial capacity and technological standards systematically into developing countries, creating an external economic outlet beyond Western tariff barriers and outside the constraints of U.S. dollar compliance systems. This strategy is linked to domestic economic pressures inside China, including structural deflationary tendencies and substantial overcapacity in sectors such as green energy and advanced technologies including 5G infrastructure.
Third, the white paper’s promotion of “multilateralism” and “greater democracy” builds on CCP propaganda introduced in 2022 to emphasize the importance of Xi Jinping’s leadership over the PRC. As we previously analyzed, “Beijing is not offering countries true multilateralism, non-alignment, and optionality, but is instead looking to co-opt countries in a global ‘united front’ led by the CCP against the U.S. and its allies. In other words, countries that support the PRC’s version of ‘multilateralism’ and ‘greater democracy’ are unwittingly subscribing to the CCP’s Marxist-Leninist worldview and obliquely condoning its world domination agenda.”
2. Beijing’s global governance white paper undergirds the CCP’s diplomatic “strategic offensive” as it attempts to take advantage of perceived shifts in the global geopolitical balance.
i) The CCP likely sees the U.S.-Iran conflict as exposing the limits of American power and reinforcing its narrative of “the East is Rising, and the West is in Decline.” Notably, the Trump administration was unable to achieve its ambitious political objectives at the onset of attacking Iran (i.e. regime change) despite deploying substantial airpower and burning through its munitions pile. Instead, the Islamic Republic of Iran weathered months of U.S. pressure and President Donald Trump signed a memorandum of understanding that largely acceded to Tehran in Versailles on June 17.
The prolonged, attritional character of the conflict exposed weaknesses associated with America’s post-industrial economic structure, particularly limited conventional munitions production capacity. Also, many drones, missile components, communications devices, and supporting industrial inputs used across Middle Eastern conflict zones ultimately draw upon supply chains linked to China’s broad dual-use manufacturing ecosystem. Beijing did not need to involve itself militarily to impact the conflict; instead, the sheer scale of its industrial base acted as a form of strategic leverage capable of imposing costs on U.S. resources at relatively low expense.
In the context of the latest U.S. misadventure in the Middle East, the CCP’s global governance white paper is partly an attempt to project PRC confidence to gain geopolitical influence in the post-conflict environment, and likely among Global South countries in particular.
ii) The white paper appears to be closely integrated with the PRC’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030).
The ordering of Beijing’s foreign policy priorities underwent a significant shift between the publication of the “Recommendations on Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan” in October 2025 and the adoption of the 15th Five-Year Plan Outline in March 2026. In particular, the section concerning the “community with a shared future for mankind” was moved substantially forward in the document structure.
The CCP political system places strong emphasis on hierarchy and sequencing within official texts. The elevation of the “community with a shared future for mankind” concept from a concluding section in the recommendations to a core section in the final outline signals that diplomatic resources would increasingly be directed toward promoting an alternative model of global governance.
Meanwhile, the 15th Five-Year Plan indicates that Beijing views current global instability and uncertainty not only as risks but also as a historic strategic opportunity. This means that CCP policymakers will seek to use the period in which the U.S. remains strategically occupied outside the Asia-Pacific region to accelerate the promotion of PRC governance concepts through multilateral institutions and the four major global initiatives associated with Beijing’s international agenda.
iii) The Trump administration currently appears to have adopted the posture of “competing while negotiating” and “pursuing peace through strength” in dealing with China. This posture plays into the CCP’s “delay and wait for change” tactics and creates strategic room for Beijing to maneuver.
The Xi-Trump summit in May 2026 saw some transactional agreements and the apparent stabilization of the Sino-U.S. relationship. This development suits Beijing. The PRC used large procurement commitments to bind segments of American business interests, ease domestic political pressure facing the Trump administration (including inflation concerns, economic stress, and electoral pressures), and reduce the risk of immediate military escalation in areas such as the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea. Weeks later, Beijing released the global governance white paper and intensified diplomatic outreach to the Global South through multilateral forums. This dual-track strategy — described here as tactical compromise combined with strategic offensive action — reflects Beijing’s ambition to establish the institutional foundations of a parallel international order during what it sees as a temporary window, i.e. before the U.S. fully disengages from Middle Eastern commitments and while domestic divisions in Washington remain unresolved.
3. The global governance white paper is closely linked to the PRC’s accelerated development of an external legal governance framework, an anti-sanctions legal architecture, and financial networks designed to operate in parallel with Western systems.
i) The CCP’s anti-sanctions legal framework has entered an “operational” phase. Previously, the PRC lacked legal instruments to counter U.S. “extraterritorial” jurisdiction and secondary sanctions. This, however, has changed in the first half of 2026:
- April 7, 2026: The State Council released the “Regulations on Countering Improper Extraterritorial Jurisdiction by Foreign States,” which took effect on April 13. The regulation formally introduced defensive mechanisms such as non-recognition/blocking orders and a malicious entities list at the administrative regulation level, filling a previous institutional gap between ministerial rules and national anti-sanctions legislation.
- May 2, 2026: The PRC Ministry of Commerce issued Announcement No. 21 of 2026, and for the first time applied the Measures for Blocking the Improper Extraterritorial Application of Foreign Laws and Measures. The announcement determined that sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) against five Chinese petroleum refining companies — due to participation in Iranian oil transactions and their inclusion on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List — constituted improper extraterritorial application. The PRC then formally issued a blocking order directing entities within China not to recognize, implement, or comply with the U.S. sanctions measures.
- May 15, 2026: Following an investigation jointly involving the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Commerce, the PRC concluded that the European Union’s cross-border investigation into Nuctech under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation likewise constituted improper extraterritorial jurisdiction and instructed organizations and individuals not to cooperate with enforcement. These cases signal that Beijing’s legal toolkit for responding to foreign extraterritorial measures has moved from a phase of legislative preparation into one of active deployment.
ii) The white paper’s themes of “economic security” and “inclusive development” indicate that the PRC is making practical efforts to institutionalize networks intended to reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar:
- In 2026, BRICS coordinators and financial regulators accelerated efforts to build an independent payment infrastructure and planned to formally introduce the BRICS Pay mechanism. The objective of this system would be to enable currencies such as the renminbi and Indian rupee to settle transactions without relying on Western intermediary banks, reducing dependence on dollar conversion and lowering exchange losses through real-time settlement.
- Following lessons drawn from the Iran conflict, Beijing concluded that CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System) alone would be insufficient to withstand comprehensive U.S. financial restrictions. As a result, the PRC is attempting to expand this governance framework into a broader economic architecture involving Middle Eastern energy exporters, Russia, and Global South commodity suppliers. Under this model, resource transactions could increasingly involve barter-style exchanges of physical commodities, while China would provide industrial goods and technical equipment. This emerging parallel economic system is gradually developing its own political and legal rationale, with the intention of reducing the practical effectiveness of unilateral Western sanctions across participating regions.
4. Beijing’s white paper on global governance and external legal framework projects an assertive posture. Behind this defensive expansion and geopolitical arbitrage, however, lie several major strategic blind spots that could generate significant blowback for the PRC’s own security and economic development.
i) The PRC commerce ministry’s first blocking order was nominally intended to provide companies operating in China with legal protection against unilateral U.S. sanctions. In practical business operations, however, this could create a severe two-sided compliance dilemma for multinational corporations. Faced with a legal environment in which firms may be forced to choose between compliance with Chinese rules and compliance with U.S. sanctions regimes, most foreign companies and multinational technology firms are unlikely to risk losing access to global markets and dollar settlement systems in order to resist U.S. law.
Instead, the expected response would be to accelerate the physical separation of China-related operations from global supply chains, or even reduce or withdraw research, development, and manufacturing activity in China altogether in order to avoid triggering legal liabilities under Chinese regulations. Such a shift could accelerate the outflow of advanced technologies, foreign investment, and highly skilled talent from China, placing additional pressure on the Chinese real economy during the transition period associated with the 15th Five-Year Plan.
ii) The CCP’s heavy emphasis on the United Nations and its legitimacy could encourage Western countries to build institutions outside it.
Beijing’s strategic calculation is likely based on perceived advantages in mobilizing support from Global South countries within the UN General Assembly, potentially using the institution as a political counterweight against Western alliance structures. The CCP’s “hijacking” of the UN, however, could encourage the U.S. and Europe to operate outside the UN framework, including smaller, values-based coalitions and security arrangements such as the G7, the Quad, AUKUS, and trilateral frameworks such as U.S.–Japan–South Korea cooperation.
Should the West increasingly rely on alternative structures, direct sanctions, and coordinated strategic pressure outside formal UN channels to deal with China, the diplomatic and legal protections Beijing hopes to build through UN-centered governance could become less effective during periods of crisis.
iii) The white paper’s promotion of “inclusive economic globalization” could trigger renewed industrial protectionism across the Global South.
Beijing’s promotion of inclusive economic globalization reflects domestic economic pressures, including deflationary pressures, stress in the real-estate sector, elevated youth unemployment, and industrial overcapacity. China urgently needs external markets for sectors including green technologies, batteries, electric vehicles, and
civilian drone components. Therefore, the PRC seeks to use global governance mechanisms to encourage or pressure countries of the Global South to adopt Chinese technical standards and absorb excess industrial output.
However, many developing economies — including India, Brazil, Indonesia, and Turkey — are simultaneously pursuing their own industrialization strategies. Large inflows of inexpensive Chinese industrial products could undermine the manufacturing sectors in those economies and create employment pressures. Over time, Global South countries may respond by strengthening economic sovereignty measures, including tariff barriers, anti-dumping investigations, and industrial protection policies. This could see Beijing’s strategy of integrating the Global South through industrial exports eventually generate new trade frictions and diplomatic resistance.
4) The white paper’s discussion of the Global Security Initiative and broader involvement in Middle Eastern and European security issues is potentially out of alignment with the current capabilities of the CCP’s military to project power overseas.
Although the U.S.–Iran conflict exposed the limits of American power, it also demonstrated how easily critical maritime routes (such as the Strait of Hormuz) can be disrupted by localized conflict. Compared with the United States, which retains the ability to conduct long-range joint operations, special rescue missions, and ground intervention abroad despite strategic strain, the PRC’s current naval presence in the Gulf region remains focused primarily on escort deployments. China still lacks a broad overseas basing network, fully integrated long-range joint operational systems, and mature overseas logistics and strategic sustainment capacity.
As Beijing increasingly presents itself as a provider of security and economic stability for the Global South, expectations from partner countries may also rise. Countries facing crises could begin expecting tangible Chinese security guarantees. If the PRC is unable to protect its citizens, supply routes, or partner states in distant theaters such as the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, or Strait of Malacca, Beijing’s image as a responsible major power could face significant reputational costs.
2 CCP rolls out ‘Xi Thought on Party building’ to further indoctrinate cadres before 21st Party Congress
On June 15, the CCP convened a national symposium on Party building in Beijing. Cai Qi, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, attended the meeting and delivered a speech. Senior officials including Li Xi, Shi Taifeng, Li Shulei, Liu Jinguo, and Mu Hong were also present, with Shi Taifeng presiding over the meeting.
The meeting formally introduced and elaborated upon the concept of “Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building.” The new political theory was defined as an important component of “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” and presented as addressing the major contemporary question of “what kind of long-term governing Marxist political party to build, and how to build such a long-term governing Marxist political party.”
The meeting stated that “Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building” serves as the fundamental guiding framework for Party-building work and outlined fourteen “adherences” (or guiding principles), including:
- Upholding Party leadership.
- Upholding centralized and unified leadership of Party Central.
- Advancing full and rigorous Party self-governance.
- Remaining true to the Party’s founding mission.
- Making political development the overarching priority.
- Strengthening ideological cohesion through innovative theory.
- Tempering strong Party discipline and character.
- Improving the organizational system.
- Building a high-quality cadre corps.
- Institutionalizing and normalizing conduct and work-style improvement.
- Enforcing strict discipline.
- Advancing the integrated anti-corruption approach of “not daring to be corrupt, being unable to be corrupt, and not wanting to be corrupt.”
- Governing the Party through institutions and regulations.
- Implementing political responsibility for Party governance.
The meeting emphasized that studying and implementing “Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building” constitutes an important task for the entire Party both now and in the future. Specific implementation requirements included:
- Organizing Party members and officials to study the original texts, understand the original principles, and internalize the theoretical foundations.
- Deepening understanding of the concepts of “the Two Establishes” and “the Two Safeguards.”
- Carrying out systematic and theoretical research, interpretation, and public communication.
- Guiding Party organizations at all levels to implement comprehensive and strict Party governance.
Three days later (June 18), the Central Leading Group for Party Building Work issued a “Notice on Studying and Implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building,” requiring Party committees and Party leadership groups at all levels to organize training activities and carefully coordinate publicity and theoretical interpretation efforts.
Our take
1. In the CCP political system, periods of intensive ideological mobilization often precede major power restructuring and organizational reshuffling. Therefore, Beijing’s introduction of “Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building” and its associated political mobilization campaign is not just another indoctrination exercise, but is likely also a political mechanism aimed at screening cadres for their loyalty and reinforcing Party discipline.
The central objective of this round of political education is likely an extreme test of compliance within the bureaucratic system. By extending political oversight into officials’ personal cognition and expectations, the Xi leadership is establishing a political boundary that leaves little room for deviation: not only prohibiting open criticism of Xi Jinping, but also potentially elevating technical policy adjustments or expressions of personal concern during crises into questions of political loyalty. Ultimately, the campaign seeks to complete a comprehensive political consolidation ahead of the 21st Party Congress, even at the cost of reducing bureaucratic flexibility and governance vitality.
2. The political mobilization around “Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building” is consistent with the CCP’s tradition of ideological rectification, which has often coincided with major internal power shifts.
Xi Jinping has in recent years carried out extensive political restructuring within the military. Notably in October 2025, the CCP’s Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee formally confirmed earlier Politburo decisions to expel former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission He Weidong, CMC member Miao Hua, and twelve other individuals from the Party, while appointing Zhang Shengmin, then secretary of the CMC discipline inspection commission, as CMC vice chair. In January 2026, CMC Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia and chief of the joint staff department Liu Zhenli came under investigation. At the same time, numerous senior generals reportedly disappeared from public activities or were replaced by acting officials.
Following this period of major personnel disruption, the PRC National Defense University launched a training program for senior military officers on April 8, 2026. Xi Jinping personally attended the opening ceremony and emphasized the need to carry out ideological rectification and deepen political restructuring. This training program concluded on June 16, spanning nearly 70 days. Such a duration is unusual in the history of senior cadre training programs. The unusually long training session was likely not due to the nature of theoretical coursework, but reflected a process of simultaneous training, political review, and evaluation.
Zhang Shengmin, who presided over the opening and attended the graduation ceremony of the senior military officer training session, is currently serving simultaneously as CMC vice chairman and secretary of the CMC discipline inspection commission. This dual role suggests that the military disciplinary authorities are directly managing the political training process of senior military officers. When these officers were gathered in a closed setting at the National Defense University, internal inspections may have included retrospective reviews of military procurement decisions, personnel promotion histories, and political reliability. If so, then the June 16 graduation ceremony represented more than the completion of a training course, but was a form of political certification for officers judged to possess both clean political records and unquestioned loyalty. Those who passed this process are portrayed as likely candidates for future appointments and recipients of enhanced political trust, marking a consolidation of power following broader military restructuring. This process is similar to the military reorganization following the 1971 Lin Biao incident and the nationwide retraining of political-legal officials after the 2012 Wang Lijun incident, and reflects the recurring political logic in the CCP of collective rectification and organizational restructuring through comprehensive review and approval procedures.
3. The timing of the rollout of “Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building” appears to be closely synchronized with the CCP’s broader schedule of ideological mobilization and local leadership reshuffling.
The cycle of local Party congress leadership transitions ahead of the 21st Party Congress generally begins with township-level Party congresses between July and September, followed by county-, municipal-, and provincial-level transitions, culminating in provincial Party committee sessions between late November and mid-December. During this process, the Fifth Plenum of the 20th Central Committee would typically be expected around October or November.
In considering the leadership reshuffle cycle, the following sequence of political developments appears coordinated. In February 2026, the General Office of the Central Committee issued the “Notice on Carrying Out Party-wide Education on Establishing and Practicing a Correct View of Political Achievement,” aimed primarily at leading officials at the county level and above and scheduled to conclude by the end of July. In mid-June, the National Symposium on Party Building was convened. Around the same period, the first session of the senior military officer training program concluded. This sequence forms a political roadmap of ideological consolidation and personnel restructuring ahead of the 21st Party Congress:
- February to August 2026 represented a phase of political evaluation and screening. Through education campaigns on political performance standards and mandatory promotion of “Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building,” the central authorities conduct broad reviews across both the Party and military systems. The reviews likely seek to compel officials to publicly align themselves ideologically, identify dissenting elements, and select individuals viewed as fully aligned with the political center.
- Beginning in October 2026, attention shifts to the period of local leadership positioning. The large-scale reshuffling of Party committees across the provincial, municipal, county, and township levels is a key preparatory stage for the 21st Party Congress in 2027. Military officers who emerged from prior political restructuring with renewed political standing, as well as local officials who passed ideological evaluation, would be positioned into local power structures to weaken entrenched local networks and competing political factions.
- Through this two-stage process of political screening and personnel adjustment, the Xi leadership aims to establish a highly unified bureaucratic system composed of politically dependable officials, ensuring that no institutional resistance or procedural obstacles emerge during future leadership arrangements.
4. Political criteria are increasingly replacing economic performance as the key standard for evaluating officials in the CCP regime. Local governments in the PRC currently face multiple pressures, including local debt risks, weakness in the property sector, and geopolitical headwinds. Given widespread fiscal constraints, efforts by Beijing to evaluate officials primarily through traditional economic indicators (such as GDP growth and investment attraction) could reduce advancement opportunities for politically trusted cadres if local economies remain weak. Therefore, shifting evaluation standards from economic performance metrics to political indicators becomes a structural adaptation for maintaining centralized governance.
Within the framework of “Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building,” political loyalty and Party commitment increasingly become the primary measures of cadre qualification. This shift produces two major effects:
- Officials who demonstrate complete political alignment and unconditional support for the leadership may continue to advance even if local economic performance remains weak or is negatively affected by the implementation of central policies.
- Conversely, technical governance decisions — such as local borrowing or financing intended to maintain operations — may become vulnerable to reinterpretation as political deviations or insufficient implementation of central directives.
- This dynamic expands the discretionary influence of disciplinary and supervisory institutions.
The resulting political pressure will extend into officials’ personal lives. In an environment of intensified accountability, some officials could seek psychological or spiritual reassurance through religious or ritual practices. However, the disciplinary authorities have framed participation in activities labeled as “superstitious practices” and evidence of weakened ideological conviction or insufficient political loyalty. The lack of a “pressure valve” to release political pressure is likely to increasingly wear on the psyche of CCP officials.
5. On paper, the high-pressure political screening of officials greatly strengthens the political security of the top leadership. However, it also pushes the authoritarian system into what is described as an inescapable “dictator’s dilemma,” namely, preserving absolute bureaucratic loyalty at the cost of institutional suffocation and declining governance capacity.
According to overseas Chinese-language media reports, the PRC officialdom is increasingly entering a state of self-preservation. Many local leaders are adopting a strategy of collective risk avoidance, reflected in behaviors such as reluctance to approve or sign documents, reluctance to meet businesses, and reluctance to resolve legacy administrative issues. The reasoning is that any fiscal allocation, project approval, or investment initiative handled today could later become subject to retrospective investigation and potentially be reclassified as a political or economic liability. Consequently, the officials’ rational response becomes avoiding substantive decisions altogether.
This creates a major paradox within centralized governance. Bureaucratic energy becomes increasingly concentrated on political signaling and procedural compliance, including attending meetings and repeating official formulations during the day, writing ideological reflection reports at night, and responding to inspections and audits. Such visible demonstrations of political loyalty increasingly mask stagnation in actual governance. Objectively, this creates policy vacuums in areas requiring initiative and flexibility, including local debt resolution, support for private enterprise, and attraction of foreign investment. The outcome is a kind of collective paralysis in policymaking.
At the same time, this mechanism could produce “reverse selection” against professional technocrats. During periods of economic stress, officials with expertise in modern economic management or independent analytical capacity may become vulnerable if they identify practical policy constraints or introduce technical adjustments during implementation. Such actions risk being interpreted as political unreliability or deviation from central directives. Over time, key positions become increasingly occupied by individuals selected primarily for political conformity rather than administrative competence.
6. In sum, the CCP’s intensive political mobilization carried out under the banner of studying and implementing “Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building” appears to be a defensive political consolidation campaign ahead of the 21st Party Congress. By systematizing and operationalizing the framework of the fourteen “adherences,” the Xi leadership has effectively created an extensive loyalty-testing mechanism designed to remove potential dissent and eliminate competing voices within the system. This is likely intended to facilitate Xi Jinping’s move to take another term in 2027.
Xi’s effort at greater power consolidation will come at the cost of reduced bureaucratic flexibility. The weakening of institutional self-correction mechanisms will negatively affect the CCP’s ability to respond to complex internal and external challenges. This will reduce the CCP regime’s resilience to future economic and social pressures while increasing the leadership’s political risks.
