For Chinese leaders, the Olympics weren’t an extravagant element in 2022
BEIJING (AFP) – The just-concluded Winter Olympics were not China’s biggest event of the year – at least indoors. For the Communist Party, this fall comes a major meeting likely to cement Xi Jinping’s standing as one of the nation’s most powerful leaders in seven decades of communist rule.
The party congress, which takes place every five years, is expected to appoint Xi to a third five-year term as its leader, in breach of recent past practices that set the first person in power for a 10-year term. That would clear the way for him to seek a third term as China’s president at the annual meeting of the legislature the following year.
For China’s 1.4 billion people and the rest of the world, Xi’s firm grip on power signals at least a partial return to the cult of personality that characterized the rule of Mao Zedong, who led communist China from its founding in 1949 until his death in 1976., and that the Party He moved away from her after the disaster of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
“The party’s 20th congress will be very important though and probably because there will be no change of leadership,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “Xi Jinping will likely set his priority agenda, which will provide insight into the ancient items he hopes to achieve.”
The overarching goal, which preceded Xi, was to “rejuvenate” China, building it into a powerful country that would be on a par with other major nations. Xi has sought to speed up this process, making it a key part of his mandate and expanding China’s global role.
His “Belt and Road” initiative has built ports, railways, and other infrastructure around the world. Chinese vaccines and other goods linked to the epidemic followed. China’s foreign policy has become more powerful as it uses its growing military power to claim territory in the Pacific and rejects Western criticism of the Communist Party’s authoritarian ways.
While China remains a middle-income country on a per capita basis, Xi appears to be saying it is time for the world’s second largest economy to stand on an equal footing in international affairs.
This attitude was demonstrated at the Winter Olympics, which concluded in Beijing on Sunday. China set up the Games on its own terms, publicly rejecting the US-led diplomatic boycott over China’s human rights record.
Leaders from about 20 countries still attended the opening ceremony, most notably Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is finding common ground with Xi in the face of his own differences with America. Others came from Mongolia, Argentina, Ecuador, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries.
Calls by human rights groups for the International Olympic Committee to hold the Games outside China and for corporate sponsors to withdraw support fell on deaf ears.
While the diplomatic boycott has sent an important signal of growing concern, “More collective action by a larger community of nations is needed, and it remains to be seen whether it can influence China’s human rights policies,” Glaser said.
The party convention has 2,300 delegates who hear the reports and nominally elect their leaders. Indeed, the names are carefully vetted and the results are determined through negotiations between those at the top.
In the end, a few members of the new Standing Committee – the highest party leadership – appeared on the stage, revealing their identity for the first time.
Notably, the standing committee that appeared at the last conference in 2017 did not include a clear successor to Xi, fueling speculation that he does not intend to step down in 2022.
The speculation was confirmed when Xi, at a meeting of the legislature the following year, asked lawmakers to scrap the two-term limit for president, opening the way for him to stay at the head of state for more than 10 years. There is no formal limit to party leadership.
Another cornerstone of Xi’s rule: strengthening the Communist Party by advancing the patriotic spirit and patriotic studies, placing the party’s role at the center of China’s achievements, and suppressing any dissent through internet censorship, arrests and detentions.
The future of both the party and the nation has become deeply entangled in party manifestos that the path to China’s “rejuvenation” depends on the party and Xi himself.
The Communist Party identified its ideas, known as “Xi Jinping Thought”, as a guiding principle and acknowledged its “essential” role, saying that both are “of crucial importance in advancing the cause of the Party and the state … advancing the historical process of national revival.”
Xi delivered a speech lasting more than three hours at the 2017 conference, laying out his vision of building China into a prosperous, strong and “harmonious” country by the middle of the 21st century, when the party hopes to celebrate its 100th anniversary. years of communist rule.
“Achieving National Regeneration will not be a walk in the park. It will take more than just drums and bells to get there.” “Everyone of us in the party must be prepared to work harder to achieve that goal.”
Barring any surprises, this fall’s party congress is likely to confirm Xi’s status as one of the three most dominant leaders of communist-era China, along with Mao and Deng Xiaoping, who launched an opening of the country in 1978 that led to its rapid economic ascent. .
And while some have speculated that Xi is setting himself up for a life sentence, the 68-year-old leader has given no public indication of his plans.
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Ken Moritsugu is the director of Greater China News at The Associated Press. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kmorit
