The Communist Party of China will hold its 20th Congress next year. By then, Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the CPC, will have completed 10 years in office. Xi’s next move has raised concerns from all walks of life. Studies by the United States and Australia have suggested four possibilities for Xi’s ouster. And U.S. China law experts believe Xi Jinping’s power is in the greatest danger if he takes a desperate step on the Taiwan issue.
U.S., Australian Study: Four Possibilities for Xi’s Ouster
As the 20th Communist Party Congress draws near, the issue of Xi’s succession will raise more and more concerns. According to some scholars, the key to this problem is that the CCP’s political system has not yet been able to solve the succession problem of CCP leaders.
Xi Jinping first abolished the written constitutional limit on the term of office of the president when he came to power, but in March, in a conversation with Larry Diamond, director of the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University’s Institute for International Studies, Claremont McKenna College professor Minxin Pei said that the party’s top leader may not serve more than two five-year terms, ” There is no effective mechanism to prevent these rules from being broken by subsequent leaders.
On May 21, the Voice of America reported that at least two recent studies on Xi’s succession have attracted widespread attention. One is a report co-authored by Jude Blanchette, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Richard McGregor, a fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Australia, titled “After Xi: Future Scenarios for Leadership Succession in Post-Xi Jinping Era. Scenarios for Leadership Succession in Post-Xi Jinping Era), and a new book by Roger Garside, a former British diplomat in China, China Coup: The Great Leap to Freedom, and The Great Leap to Freedom,” by Roger Garside, a former British diplomat in China, and “Regime Change in China is not only possible, it is imperative,” by Garside in the Canadian Globe and Mail.
The study by the U.S. and Australian researchers suggests four possibilities for the end of the Xi era.
The first possibility: the customary orderly handover at the 20th Communist Party Congress in 2022.
Second possibility: Xi Jinping retires by the next term, or the next term after that, i.e., the 21st Congress in 2027, or the 22nd Congress in 2032.
The third possibility: a challenge to him from the top of the Communist Party, or even a coup d’état. The report said, “The plot to overthrow Xi and his government is not the product of a feverish imagination, but something that has been widely described by senior Chinese [Communist Party] officials, including Xi himself.” In early 2012, Xi believed that his opponents were trying to prevent him from taking over the leadership of the CCP later that year, and in 2016, Xi spoke in an internal speech about a “political conspiracy” aimed at “undermining and splitting the party.”
The fourth possibility: Xi’s accidental death or incapacitation. The report argues that if this happens to Xi Jinping, it would create a power vacuum and trigger infighting in the Politburo. The report argues that Xi’s incapacitation would be even more dangerous than the consequences of his death.
Experts: Xi will lose power if he is not wise to Taiwan
According to the report, Kong Jierong, a retired professor of law at New York University School of Law and an expert on U.S. China law, believes that the greatest danger to Xi’s power is not a challenge or coup from the top. He believes that the real threat to his power could be his desperate foreign policy.
“If Xi Jinping makes an unwise move on Taiwan, he could lose power. If he acts, it will lead to serious damage to China politically, economically and militarily. This would be very harmful to his future. So, in principle, he has a clear path ahead of him, as long as he stays alive and grows up, which means he can do another 20 years. But on the other hand, he cannot be sure of the political environment, and he has to be very careful not to get involved in a foreign policy that would upset his government, that could be economically, militarily, and diplomatically costly for China. And he also has to be careful not to let elite discontent build up over time, because every crackdown will backfire.” Kong Jierong said.
As we enter 2021, the Taiwan Strait is stormy. The Chinese Communist Party has been increasing the frequency of its military activities around Taiwan for some time, and in late April, when asked whether the induction of a Communist Navy amphibious assault ship was a substantial preparation for armed unification of Taiwan, Wu Qian, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, claimed, “We will never leave any room for any form of separatist activities for Taiwan independence. We always insist on being fully prepared to deal with interference by external forces and Taiwan independence secessionist activities.”
In March, Adm. Philip Davidson, then commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, warned at a congressional hearing before leaving office that the Chinese Communist Party could take military action against Taiwan within six years, and that while a policy of strategic ambiguity has maintained the status quo in the Taiwan Strait for decades, such a policy should be routinely rethought.
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