Beijing’s political jockeying intensifies ahead of next year’s congress

[chahlley]

(China&India Today Monday 26 September 2016) 

Xi expected to be anointed for a second term

Beijing’s political jockeying intensifies ahead of next year’s congress
Xi needs to crack down on the powerful factions, make them listen to him: Political expert

BEIJING — “Reading tea leaves”, the fine art of interpreting Chinese elite politics, has entered its high season as the ruling Communist Party sets the stage for a gathering next year that will allow top leader Xi Jinping to cement his influence.

Mr Xi will almost certainly be anointed for a second term at the 19th party congress next autumn, in line with a two-term tradition that has allowed the top leaders of post-Mao  Zedong China to step down from power. The political appointments made then will determine Mr Xi’s ability to influence politics beyond his second term, after he oversaw a centralisation of power in his first.

Mr Xi has presided over an anticorruption purge within the party, and a drive for greater political control over society that has felled influential Internet personalities, quelled the media and cracked down on civil rights organisations. He himself is a “princeling” — a member of one of the powerful Communist families that have entrenched themselves in Chinese political and economic life after Mao’s death.

But he is surprisingly weak in the patronage networks that underpin factional politics in China, and at the highest ranks of the party he enjoys relatively few personal ties that stretch back decades. Appointments before the next congress will allow him to position potential allies and maintain influence long after he gives up his official titles as head of the party, the state and the military.

“Now is the season,” said Professor Bo Zhiyue, an expert in elite Chinese politics at Victoria University of Wellington. “This is Chinese politics, so they don’t fight. They try to guess, or outguess each other.”

Scholars of this elaborate chess game track the known “rules” of Chinese appointments. Candidates to watch hail from the nearly 400 members or alternate members of the Central Committee. They are in their 50s (the maximum age to start a term at the top-ranked Poliburo Standing Committee has crept up to 67, so a person needs to be firmly positioned by his late 50s). Most rotate through two provincial posts and a ministerial position before vaulting into the 25-member politburo.

The pinnacle of power is the Standing Committee, currently made up of seven members including Mr Xi and Premier Li Keqiang.

In the three weeks since the leadership’s annual retreat at the seaside resort of Beidaihe, 10 promotions or transfers of provincial governors, party secretaries or ministers have been announced, along with numerous  appointments at lower levels.

Certain party secretary posts,  including the powerful cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Tianjin, the export powerhouse of Guangdong and frontier region of Xinjiang are viewed as near-guarantees of a seat in the politburo. That explains the interest taken in the transfer of Mr Chen Quanguo — once a protege of Mr Li — from the politically sensitive post of party secretary in Tibet to the strategically and economically important frontier region of Xinjiang.

Meanwhile, the transfer of Mr Li Hongzhong from an inland province to the port city of Tianjin coincided with the detention for corruption of a deputy mayor there. At least two current Standing Committee members owe part of their careers to Tianjin’s rapid, debt-fuelled growth, creating the need to keep the city in a safe pair of hands.

That is the science, but there is also a lot of art in the game of reading tea leaves. For instance, how to interpret the eye-catching vote-buying purge of delegates to the National People’s Congress from Liaoning province? The struggling rust-belt region was a power base for disgraced politician Bo Xilai, whose flamboyant and ultimately failed bid for power coincided with Mr Xi’s elevation. But Li Keqiang, the Premier, also served there.

“If Xi wants to push forward his personnel arrangement before the 19th party plenum, he needs to crack down on the powerful factions and make everyone listen to him,” said Dr Zhang Lifan, an independent historian and political commentator in Beijing. “He needs to set a few examples and have something on everybody so that they will be obedient and agree to his personnel arrangement.”  FINANCIAL TIMES

This is Chinese politics, so they don’t fight. They  try to guess, or outguess each other. Professor Bo Zhiyue an expert in elite Chinese politics at Victoria University of Wellington.