Xi Jinping is said to be the biggest change in the political situation of the Chinese Communist Party.
In the run-up to the 20th Communist Party Congress, U.S. scholars say Xi Jinping has not named a successor and faces political turmoil if something happens to him, making him the biggest variable in the Communist Party’s political situation this year and next.
Speaking at a hearing of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Jacqueline Deal, president and CEO of the Long Term Strategy Group, a Washington think tank, said that the most uncontrollable variable in the CCP is Xi Jinping.
He said, “If something were to happen to Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party would potentially face instability because Xi has not named a successor and he is unlikely to name a successor acceptable to all factions.”
The current view among analysts is that Xi Jinping is trying to seek re-election at the 20th Communist Party Congress.
He has not followed the CCP’s usual practice of naming a successor at the 19th Congress. Neither Hu Chunhua, who was rumored to have been designated by Hu Jintao as his successor, nor Chen Miner, who was Xi’s preferred successor, made it to the 19th National Congress. As for Sun Zhengcai, Jiang Zemin’s designated “successor” and then secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee, he was taken down by Xi before the 19th CPC National Congress in the name of anti-corruption.
The Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao has published a commentary saying that Xi’s successor or successor group should emerge at the 20th National Congress, and that in terms of seniority, the CCP’s successor should be born among the current provincial and ministerial officials.
This article argues that since the 18th National Congress of the CCP, statistics show that the CCP officialdom is facing a “crisis”, that is, there is still no sign of new generation of “political stars” in the current huge bureaucratic system, and the CCP is caught in the embarrassment of having no successor.
According to an article by current political commentator Wang He, Xi Jinping removed term limits and quickly became the “core” of the party, but the selection of his successor was ruined by him.
According to Wang, Xi is not willing to arrange a successor, and if he does, it will give his political opponents the opportunity to make legal moves. “The issue of a successor involves the core interests of various political factions, so the CCP will naturally fight to the death.
In addition to the embarrassment of having no successor before the 20th National Congress, the infighting around the 20th National Congress has become more and more intense.
Many departments of the Chinese Communist Party have jointly issued a notice on strengthening the supervision of the general election, listing the “ten prohibitions”.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s visiting professor of history, Lin He Li, told Voice of America that since the end of last year, the CCP has been issuing propaganda instructions on party discipline and “aligning with Xi’s core”, and the “ten prohibitions” were issued at the beginning of 2021.
According to Lin and Li, Xi Jinping completed a constitutional amendment in 2018 to remove the restriction on the re-election of the president, but he needs to completely silence opposition from his party’s political enemies before the 20th Communist Party Congress. The “ten bans” are meant to further consolidate his power.
According to Li Hengqing, a scholar at the Institute for Information and Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C., Xi’s re-election campaign for the 20th National Congress is a Life-or-death battle that will either end in a lifetime re-election or become his Waterloo.
Recent Comments