SinoInsight 1
On Sept. 15, the CCP ideological journal Qiushi published a speech given by Xi Jinping to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the National People’s Congress on Sept. 5, 2014.
Key points in Xi’s speech include:
- The CCP led the Chinese people to create the NPC system. To safeguard this system, it is necessary to “persevere with the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party,” “adhere to democratic centralism,” and “borrow from useful overseas political cultures, but not give up the fundamentals of the Chinese political system.”
- “The future and destiny of a political party and power depend upon the support or opposition of the people. What the people oppose and hate, we must resolutely guard against and attack.”
- “To evaluate whether or not a country’s political system is democratic and effective, a main factor is whether or not the country’s leadership ranks can be replaced in accordance with the law.” And China has “abolished lifetime tenure for leading cadres that was in actual existence and established fixed term limits for leading cadres to actualize orderly replacement in the state organs and the leadership rank.”
OUR TAKE
1. From our research, there was fierce factional fighting in the CCP elite ranks between the Jiang faction and the Xi camp in the lead up to Xi Jinping’s speech on September 2014 and after:
March 15: Former Central Military Commission vice chairman Xu Caihou was investigated. Xu is a prominent ally of Jiang Zemin and a key Jiang faction member.
May 1 onwards: Jiang Zemin’s office in Zhongnanhai was abolished and downgraded to a “contact group” (聯絡組).
June 10: The State Council Information Office released a white paper on the “one country, two systems” policy which asserted that China has “comprehensive jurisdiction” over Hong Kong. The white paper sparked the Umbrella Movement protests. The protests led to the cancellation of the rehearsal ceremony for the opening of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect on Oct. 26 and the delaying of the Stock Connect’s official opening. At the time, the Xi leadership appeared to have plans to take advantage of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect to stimulate the markets.
June 30: Xu Caihou was officially expelled from the Party and his case was handed over to prosecutors.
July 30: Xu Caihou was officially expelled from the military and stripped of his military rank.
September 5: In his speech to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the NPC, Xi said that the Party had “abolished lifetime tenure for leading cadres that was in actual existence.”
October 27: Prosecutors send Xu Caihou’s case to the courts for charges to be recommended.
October 30: The People’s Liberation Army’s annual political work conference was held in Fujian’s Gutian Town. Xi Jinping gave a speech during the conference where he called for the purge of Xu Caihou’s “pernicious influence” from the military.
2. In the context of the Xi-Jiang struggle in 2014, it is clear that Xi’s Sept. 5 speech about abolishing lifetime tenure for leading cadres was aimed squarely at “retired but still active” (退而不休) Jiang Zemin and his persistence interference in CCP politics.
Xi’s move to abolish presidential term limits after the 19th Party Congress, while contradicting his earlier stance on lifetime tenure, is also shaped by the “you die, I live” factional struggle. We explain why Xi did away with term limits for the presidency in greater detail here.
We believe that the publication of Xi’s 2014 speech in Qiushi before the Fourth Plenum in October is Xi’s way of signaling to the Party that he only abolished presidential term limits to deal with the Jiang faction and does not actually plan to rule for life. Xi would likely be hoping that the CCP elite would get the hint, stop opposing him, and get behind his effort to tackle the multiple crises facing the regime. Whether or not the Party’s elite believe Xi is another matter.
