China's Military Is about to Go Global           

The burgeoning need to protect commercial assets and Chinese nationals abroad will inevitably lead Beijing to develop new military capabilities and take on missions further afield.

Oriana Skylar Mastro, 12/18/14

THE CHINESE armed forces are on the move -- but to where? For over a decade, academics, policy wonks and government officials have been engaged in a relentless debate about Beijing’s military capabilities and intentions. To some, China is an expansionist country akin to Wilhelmine Germany. Others argue that while China’s assertive behavior in its regional island disputes is disconcerting, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is completely focused on domestic stability and therefore lacks global ambition.

This debate about current Chinese capabilities and intentions is widespread, fervent -- and beside the point. While the Chinese leadership would prefer to stay focused on internal development and regional issues, facts on the ground will increasingly compel the CCP to develop some global operational capabilities. Specifically, the burgeoning need to protect commercial assets and Chinese nationals abroad will lead the country to develop some global power-projection capabilities, regardless of its current plans. Even though the Chinese leadership will embark on this path with very limited goals in mind, Chinese thinking on how and when to use force could change once its strategy, doctrine and capabilities evolve to incorporate these new roles.

While the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will seek an increased global presence, this does not mean it will begin fighting major wars and stationing troops abroad. If we define global military power by the standard of the United States, no other country qualifies. Even the second tier of established military great powers -- such as Russia, France or the United Kingdom -- would probably not be able to sustain major combat operations outside their respective regions. The question here is not whether China would have the capacity to invade and occupy far-off countries, as only the United States can, but whether, like other second-tier powers, it will develop the capacity to project limited but meaningful force outside its immediate region.

Contrary to the extremes of the current debate, the Chinese military will be neither hollow nor a juggernaut. It will be neither a third-rate force confined to its region nor one that will embark on large-scale overseas combat adventures. Instead, over the next decade the PLA will likely develop certain capabilities designed to protect Chinese overseas interests. Personnel recovery, noncombatant evacuation operations (NEOs), and the ability to threaten other countries’ assets to coerce, deter, compel or punish will be some of the main objectives of a global PLA.

There are real obstacles -- technological, political and ideological -- to the Chinese military’s capacity to operate abroad, even on a limited scale. Scholars often point to China’s failure to resolve these obstacles today as proof that there will still be impediments tomorrow. True, the PLA’s experience with expeditionary operations has been limited. To date, China’s participation in the antipiracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden is the most notable example of the PLA conducting expeditionary operations. It is true that China currently has no bases abroad, no long-range logistics capabilities and only rudimentary satellite coverage. However, if motivated, China could have all of these assets by the end of the decade. At the turn of this century, the idea of China with an aircraft carrier or Chinese participation in peacekeeping operations seemed improbable. Today, the issue of a global expeditionary capability is already on the radar of the Chinese leadership. In 2013, for the first time, China’s Defense White Paper included a section on defending overseas interests -- and it has already taken steps down this path. There are three big reasons Beijing is likely to pursue this course.

FIRST, IN the near future, economic motivations will drive the development of China’s limited global power-projection capabilities. Approximately twenty thousand Chinese companies have a presence abroad. Chinese firms operate in more than 180 countries and regions, creating a constant demand for government protection of these assets. Furthermore, Chinese overseas investment is growing. At $60 billion, China’s annual overseas foreign direct investment (OFDI) in 2011 was twenty times the 2005 amount.

Energy and real-estate assets in particular have a high risk of being seized or damaged in anti-China protests or as a result of political instability. Almost half of the total Chinese overseas investment is in the energy sector, reaching nearly $400 billion. Chinese overseas property investment is expected to exceed $10 billion this year, while the total value of overseas real estate owned by Chinese people is around $3 trillion. In 2013, Chinese property developers invested $7.6 billion in the overseas market, which was a 124 percent increase from the year before. Images of damage to individuals’ property could create a public outcry in a crisis that would be hard for Beijing to ignore.

As Chinese investments increase, threats to those assets will increase in tandem. This is especially the case in politically unstable countries where nationalization or seizure is always a possibility, or in countries that have ongoing territorial conflicts where anti-China protests have often resulted in damage to Chinese-owned property. While still a fledging phenomenon, some recent examples demonstrate why China might be driven to develop limited expeditionary capabilities to augment its response options. For example, in June 2007, a Chinese company from Shandong Province was attacked in Togo, resulting in nearly 150,000 renminbi of property loss. In 2012, local mine workers at a Chinese company in Zambia protested against delays in implementing a new minimum-wage bill and killed the manager. In February 2013, Zambia’s government seized control of a Chinese-owned coal company’s assets for failing to comply with safety and environmental standards. And in May 2014, Vietnamese protesters set fire to Chinese industrial parks and factories to protest against China’s claim in the South China Sea. A one-thousand-strong mob also set fire to a Taiwanese steel mill in Ha Tinh Province (most likely thinking it was Chinese), killing sixteen Chinese workers.

These incidents are occurring more frequently and are increasingly threatening to the CCP’s strategic and political interests. Statements made by Chinese political and military leaders acknowledge that China’s need for stable access to natural resources has expanded its interests beyond the region, while its capabilities lag behind. Wang Yi, in his first speech as China’s foreign minister, outlined trends and principles in foreign policy, highlighting the need to align China’s foreign policy with its expanding global interests. China’s 2013 Defense White Paper noted, “Security risks to China’s overseas interests are on the increase,” and included, for the first time, a section on protecting Chinese overseas interests. This document stressed the PLA’s role in safeguarding Chinese economic activity around the world, especially as “security issues [pertaining to] overseas energy and resources, strategic sea lines of communication (SLOCs), and Chinese nationals and legal persons overseas” are increasingly prominent.

The difference between China and many other countries is that the majority of investment is coming from the Chinese government directly or from state-owned enterprises. As one China watcher argued, “Investments abroad are much more important to Beijing’s long-term strategy than assertive posturing in long-running territorial disputes.” In this way, Beijing’s rapid OFDI growth has created a major political stake for China, even more so than for other countries. The close connection to the government will give the CCP an even greater incentive to develop the military capabilities necessary to protect these huge, high-stakes investments.

SECOND, AN increasing number of Chinese citizens are going abroad, with many migrating to politically unstable countries as part of an exported labor force or in search of financial gain. In the twelve months leading up to May 2014, Chinese nationals recorded ninety-eight million overseas trips -- a number that has increased by ten million a year on average for the last four years. By 2020, that figure is expected to be approximately 150 million. These overseas Chinese, referred to as haiwai gongmin, expect their government to provide certain guarantees for their protection, known as haiwai gongmin baohu (海外國民保護).

Domestic public support for the development of expeditionary capabilities is coalescing as more and more Chinese nationals find themselves in situations of danger due to misfortune or instability in their host nations. In April 2007, nine Chinese workers were killed and an additional seven were kidnapped at an oil field in Ethiopia; in 2011, four Chinese oil workers were kidnapped in Caquetá, Colombia; Chinese workers have been abducted multiple times in Sudan, with the most recent incident occurring in January 2013; and in May 2014, Boko Haram rebels from Nigeria kidnapped ten Chinese workers in northern Cameroon. Chinese nationals are also being targeted largely because of unpopular labor practices and general anti-China sentiment. Anti-China protests are on the rise overseas, with locals from Peru to Zambia upset over Chinese mining operations in their communities or human-rights abuses back in China. According to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its embassies and consulates deal with an average of one hundred incidents a day regarding overseas Chinese nationals in danger. Between 2006 and 2010, six thousand Chinese citizens were evacuated from countries in upheaval, and in 2011 alone, another forty-eight thousand were evacuated from Egypt, Libya and Japan. More recently, in June 2014, China evacuated about a thousand workers from Iraq as Islamic State militants took control of sections of the country.

In 2006, the risks to Chinese nationals abroad fueled the domestic demand for the Department of Consular Affairs to establish a division that could facilitate the protection of legitimate rights and interests of overseas Chinese nationals. Chinese leaders had started developing a system of “overseas Chinese protection” after the deaths of fourteen Chinese nationals in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2004. But there are currently 190,000 Chinese citizens overseas for every Chinese consular protection officer, a ratio that is thirteen times higher than Russia’s and fifteen times that of Japan. Moreover, to date, efforts have mainly been confined to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and some in China have begun to complain that the government relies too heavily on enhancing citizen awareness of dangers and diplomatic mechanisms for citizen protection, rather than using military force. Chinese nationals express both a new expectation of government protection while overseas, as well as a lack of confidence in their government’s mechanism for protecting its citizens, despite the massive and successful evacuation from Libya in 2011. A prominent Chinese public intellectual noted in the aftermath of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 tragedy that “China’s capacity to engage in security operations outside of its national boundary still lags far behind” that of developed countries, and argued that “China has all the reason and right to turn the crisis and challenge into an opportunity to build up its security forces’ capacity to protect overseas interests.”

There is also broader support for this shift in policy within the government bureaucracy. A senior CCP official argued that China should allow private companies to develop operational ties with local police forces and provide security services in high-risk areas the way Blackwater (now Academi) does for the United States. While U.S. operations abroad are usually criticized in Chinese media, both the 2012 Navy SEAL operation that rescued two hostages in Somalia and President Barack Obama’s assertion that the kidnapping of U.S. citizens would not be tolerated received tacit approval through positive Chinese media coverage.

The PLA has also been pushing for a greater role in protection of citizens overseas; for the first time, China’s 2013 Defense White Paper emphasized the need to “protect Chinese people overseas,” stating specifically that “when there is a war, riot or political disturbance, the army should be able to evacuate Chinese people swiftly.” An editorial in the China Daily by a former PLA colonel captures this sentiment:

The PLA is also responsible for rescuing Chinese hostages in the event of such crises, and this is especially pertinent at a time when pirates, terrorists and armed kidnappers are operating on a greater scale in many parts of the world. The army should also act as a deterrent against those who attempt to harm Chinese people. We will not allow any repeat of such tragedies as the May 1998 riots in Indonesia, in which some 1,200 ethnic Chinese were killed.

As more and more Chinese nationals have been exposed to risks abroad, China has begun to respond militarily, trumpeting such expeditions as evidence of its growing capabilities. But as public expectations grow even faster, the CCP’s credibility will be increasingly tied to its ability to swiftly and effectively protect Chinese interests in the farthest corners of the globe. The CCP has recognized this, with Premier Li Keqiang stating in May 2014 during a visit to Angola:

As China is becoming more open, the number of Chinese companies and citizens overseas is increasing. Their legitimate rights and interests as well as personal security have become . . . increasingly prominent issues. Safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and citizens is not only the inherent requirement of expanding the “opening up,” but also due responsibilities of the party and the government.

THIRD, IN addition to commercial demand and domestic pressure, the Chinese leadership’s desire to create a positive international image could provide additional incentives to develop global expeditionary capabilities. International pressure for China to take on more global responsibilities creates international support for PLA expeditionary operations. A Chinese military with the ability to project power globally, even if only for a short period of time in relatively permissive environments, could contribute more to peacekeeping missions and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations. China has sent over twenty-two thousand peacekeepers to participate in twenty-three different UN peacekeeping missions, and provides the largest number of troops for engineering, transportation and medical support among the 115 contributing countries. However, the international community has consistently demanded more from Beijing. In response, China agreed to increase its UN peacekeeping budget from just over 3 percent of the total budget in 2013 to more than 6 percent by 2015. In June 2013, China also agreed to deploy “comprehensive security forces” to Mali, sending combat forces to a UN operation for the first time. A proclaimed desire to contribute more to the global good could provide a legitimate and nonthreatening rationale for the development of power-projection capabilities.

The Chinese leadership has taken a broader view of its security interests, and many Chinese strategists recognize that the ability to deploy globally to aid other countries has a positive impact on Beijing’s international image. This second-order effect will create support among party officials who believe that a positive international image is necessary for China’s peaceful and successful rise. To facilitate China’s involvement in global HADR missions and ensure that operations are conducted effectively, the Chinese government has already set up a working mechanism to coordinate responses among the relevant actors and agencies. Arguably, nonthreatening missions like HADR operations, NEOs and peacekeeping will allow China to build a global expeditionary force while mitigating an adverse regional response.

IN SHORT, Chinese commercial interests, domestic public opinion and the international community are creating the strategic demand, domestic support and legitimacy for a more global PLA. Given these factors, China’s global power-projection goals will be real, but modest. An effective global capability is not inevitable -- even if Beijing responds to these pressures and assigns the PLA more global missions, the PLA will still require significant development to succeed. China has clearly demonstrated it has the material capacity to develop the PLA quickly and comprehensively, but an effective global capability will demand some very specific changes to its current posture. China is particularly weak in the key enablers required for expeditionary capability -- airlift, sealift and logistics. But if China invests in the right platforms and technologies -- such as large transport aircraft and tankers, amphibious combat ships, hospital ships and landing-dock platforms, and a robust, space-based ocean-surveillance system -- conducting limited global operations will become more possible. Likewise, new global missions such as personnel recovery and infrastructure protection would probably encourage the development of more special-operations forces, engineers and civil-military cooperation units.

At the same time, while acquiring the requisite military platforms and units is a formidable and obvious challenge, it is only one piece of the puzzle. The PLA will also face other organizational and doctrinal impediments to realizing a global expeditionary capability.

First, effective and rapid deployment outside China’s immediate neighborhood will require organizational reforms to enable more jointness between the PLA’s services and with civilian agencies. Unlike in most operations to date, the complexity of contested operations abroad will require capabilities from multiple services and coordination with civilian entities. More ambitious organizational reforms could address the currently cumbersome command-and-control structures. These reforms would signal growing institutional capacity for global expeditionary operations.

Second, the PLA would need to improve its individual and unit training to cope with new global missions. Today, field-training exercises are notoriously scripted and unrealistic. More effective training will be required as the PLA deploys on increasingly risky operations abroad.

Third, Beijing may consider revising its overseas military footprint. Despite the fears of many, China is unlikely to seek military alliances or to establish permanent military bases overseas. It would consider such moves ideologically anathema and strategically imprudent. It could, however, make arrangements to use existing facilities -- in the Indian Ocean, for example -- to restock and refuel.

The exact shape and capabilities of a global expeditionary PLA in a decade or so remain uncertain and contingent. While Beijing’s motivations may be relatively narrow, such new and expansive PLA capabilities will have much wider implications for its traditional war-fighting goals as well as future articulations of strategy and interests.

ONCE THE PLA has the ability to intervene abroad, and ideological barriers have been loosened, the Chinese leadership may become more interventionist. To date, China has been more willing to deviate from its policy of noninterference in other countries’ internal affairs if it is doing so in a multilateral and permissive environment. However, as limited Chinese operations around the world become accepted as normal practice, this may open the doors for a more assertive China in its own region.

A more assertive China may be a positive development for the United States, especially if it leads to greater Chinese cooperation on issues such as energy security, stability in the Middle East and climate change. One possible future scenario is that China relaxes its noninterference principle as its interests expand and overlap with those of the United States, leading to coordination between the two countries on global issues. But there are three reasons to question the feasibility of this ideal outcome. First, as the North Korean nuclear standoff has demonstrated, even when Chinese and American interests overlap, divergence in their preferred tactics can inhibit progress on the issue at hand. Second, China defines its core interests narrowly, in domestic terms, while the United States is more likely to view issues from the perspective of maintaining the current global order. The United States has historically attempted to influence the outside world to ensure its safety, but Chinese leaders believe that strengthening the country internally enhances its national security. This difference in strategic thinking can lead to different preference rankings for the types of international issues that need to be addressed, and which aspect of an issue is the most disconcerting. For example, both the United States and China regard North Korean denuclearization and stability as imperative, but while the United States prioritizes the former, China considers the latter to be a higher priority. Last, abandonment of the nonintervention principle to facilitate its new global expeditionary mission would mean the potential for Chinese interference in areas where the United States may prefer China’s traditional hands-off approach.

EVEN IF China develops a more robust global expeditionary capability, regional contingencies will still be the focus of Chinese war planning. However, the breadth of capabilities the PLA will acquire to conduct expeditionary operations would endow it with other options it presently lacks, and therefore may tempt China to expand the scope of those operations over time. Many of the capabilities required for HADR operations, NEOs, peacekeeping and personnel recovery missions are dual-use -- that is, they will also strengthen China’s traditional war-fighting capabilities against its weaker neighbors. Augmented sealift and airlift, advanced special-operations forces, a greater number of surface vessels and aircraft, and more experience for its troops could all encourage China to expand the scope of its interests and willingness to use force to protect those interests.

While the Chinese leadership may plan on building expeditionary forces primarily to address nontraditional threats, the increased capabilities may shape Chinese interests and preferred methods of achieving more contentious security objectives. Chinese strategists have already launched a debate about whether China should aspire to become a global military power. Currently, those debates are couched in discussions about how China should approach its territorial disputes, especially in the East and South China Seas. But influential thinkers such as Colonel Liu Mingfu, a former professor at the PLA National Defense University and author of China Dream, believe that China should aim to surpass the United States as the world’s top military power. Additionally, in a March 2010 newspaper poll, 80 percent of those surveyed responded positively to the question “Do you think China should strive to be the world’s strongest country militarily?” However, less than half of respondents approved of a policy to publicly announce such an objective.

The implications of a growth in Chinese power-projection capability for the United States and its regional partners are uncertain. China’s increased military role and enhanced expeditionary capabilities could create a balancing backlash among its Asian neighbors and contribute to instability in the region, as incentives for preventive war increase with rapid shifts in the regional balance of power. China could become confident in its ability to achieve its objectives by brute force alone, especially with domestic support. However, a global expeditionary PLA could also create a more assertive China that is positioned to provide international public goods, further enmeshing Beijing into the current world order and reducing the incentives for it to use force to resolve disputes.

Any projection about future intent and capabilities is by its nature contingent and uncertain. Current trends, if they continue, will prompt the Chinese leadership to develop a military capable of protecting Chinese interests and nationals globally, albeit on a limited scale. At the same time, a number of factors could change these trends. For example, if China were to engage in a war, even a small one, retrenchment and rebuilding might follow, which could delay the unfolding of this scenario. But as long as China persists in its double-digit annual increases in defense spending and GDP growth continues (even modestly), China should be able to simultaneously develop traditional war-fighting capabilities to address regional challenges and global expeditionary capabilities to confront threats farther from home. While flare-ups or resolutions of persistent regional issues may delay or accelerate this future scenario, they are unlikely to reverse China’s course. Here comes the PLA.

Oriana Skylar Mastro is an assistant professor of security studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She would like to thank Elaine Li and Xingjun Ye for their research assistance.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/chinas-military-about-go-global-11882

China’s Big Diplomacy Shift             

China signals a change in priorities, raising the risk of tension with the developed world.

Timothy Heath, 12/22/14

China’s decision to elevate in priority its relationship with its neighbors over that with the United States and other great powers, confirmed at the recently concluded Central Work Conference on Foreign Relations, heralds a major shift in its diplomacy. The decision reflects Beijing’s assessment that relations with countries in Asia and with rising powers will grow more important role in facilitating the nation’s revitalization than relations with the developed world. This suggests that over time, China may grow even less tolerant of Western interference in PRC interests and more confident in consolidating control of its core interests and pressing demands to reform the international order. Washington may need to step up coordination with its Asian partners to encourage Chinese behavior that upholds, rather than challenges, the principle tenets of the international order.

“General Framework for Foreign Relations”

At the Central Work Conference, Xi Jinping changed the order of the general framework for foreign relations (zongti waijiao buju, 總體外交佈局). The general framework is a simple, but authoritative, list of broad categories of countries. It provides the conceptual schema upon which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hangs general instructions on how to approach foreign policy. In itself, the general framework says very little about how to conduct foreign policy. It does, however, provide one important clue- the list’s order has long been understood to suggest a sense of priority, especially in the reform era. Relations with country types at the top of the list, in other words, are understood to have a stronger bearing on China’s prospects than those at the bottom of the list.  The general framework frames virtually all official analyses, documents, and policy directives related to diplomacy. This schema thus provides a simple, easily identifiable layout to help officials and bureaucrats prioritize foreign policy work and interpret directives from central leaders.

The order of the framework has remained consistent, having undergone changes only a few times since the PRC’s founding. In its original revolutionary incarnation, Mao proposed a framework of “first world, second world, and third world,” which referred to the capitalist, communist, and developing worlds. At the start of reform and opening up, Deng redefined this framework to “great powers (daguo), neighboring countries (zhoubian – also called the “periphery”), and “developing countries” (fazhan zhong de guojia). The only change since 1979 has been the addition of new categories. Jiang Zemin added “multilateral organizations,” by the time of the 16th Party Congress in 2002. Hu added “domains” (lingyu) or “public diplomacy” a few years later, as can be seen in the 18th Party Congress report.

Thus, the general framework as of 2012 consisted of: great powers (understood to include principally the United States, EU, Japan, and Russia), periphery (all countries along China’s borders), developing countries (all lower income countries in the world, including China), multilateral organizations (UN, APEC, ASEAN, etc.), and public diplomacy. The simple set up does invite some confusion, as some countries can appear in more than one category. Poor Asian countries like Cambodia, for example, are regarded as part of both the periphery and developing world. Nevertheless, the framework remains widely in use.

An example of how PRC officials organize directives on foreign policy to fit the general framework can be seen in the 18th Party Congress report. It called for policy work towards great powers to “establish long term, stable, and healthy new type great power relationships.” For the periphery, the report stated China should “consolidate good neighborly and friendly relations.” For developing countries, the report called for supporting their “representation and voice” in international affairs. The report called on China to adjust policy towards multilateral organizations to “advance the development of an international order and system in a just and reasonable direction.” For public diplomacy, China should “promote people to people exchanges and protect China’s rights and interests overseas.”

Elevation of the Periphery, Downgrading of Great Powers

In 2013, new developments suggested that major changes were afoot. Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated in September 2013, that the periphery had become the “priority direction” (youxian fangxiang, 優先方向) for foreign relations work. A month later, the Central Committee held an unprecedented Central Work Forum on Diplomacy to the Periphery to review policy towards countries on the periphery. Xinhua highlighted appropriate policy changes at the start of 2014 and Xi Jinping listed the periphery first when he outlined guidance in the format of the general framework at the recently concluded Central Work Conference on Foreign Relations.

As with the most important changes to the party’s directives, the main drivers are assessments of long-term economic and geo-political trends. Beijing recognizes that the region is increasingly vital to China’s future. China’s Vice Foreign Minister stated in April that the country’s trade with East and Southeast Asia totaled “$1.4 trillion, more than China’s trade with the United States and European Union combined.” He noted “half of China’s top ten trade partners are in Asia,” and that 70 percent of its outbound investment is in Asia. The trend towards regional integration will likely continue. The IMF judges that the Asia-Pacific region remains best poised to drive future global growth if it implements structural reform and infrastructure investment. PRC leaders seek to achieve this potential through the Silk Road, Maritime Silk Road, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and other initiatives.

Moreover, China realizes it must secure its geostrategic flanks to prepare the country’s ascent into the upper echelons of global power. Chinese leaders are deeply aware of historical precedents in which aspirants to regional dominance in Asia and Europe fell victim to wars kicked off by clashes involving neighboring powers. The persistence of disputes and flashpoints in the East and South China Seas makes this danger vividly real for Chinese policymakers. Finding ways to consolidate China’s influence and weaken potentially threats, such as the U.S. alliance system, offers for China hope of greater security. In the words of Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin, the “imbalance between Asia’s political security and economic development has become an increasingly prominent issue.” China’s proposal to create an Asian “community of shared destiny” aims to resolve this imbalance.

The elevation of the periphery in priority necessarily means a downgrading in strategic priority of China’s relations to the United States and other great powers. Although access to Western markets and technology has long played a critical role in powering China’s economic growth, trends decades in the making have eroded considerably the importance to Beijing of the industrial West. The global financial crisis has left much of the developed world reeling in economic and political stagnation. Technologically, China has narrowed considerably the gap in knowledge and capability, although its ability to innovate remains weak. Emerging markets appear poised to possibly outpace the developed world as engines of demand and growth. And a still rapidly modernizing PLA continues to narrow the gap in capability with modern militaries, especially in China’s surrounding waters.

The conference showed one other possible modification in the general framework. Xi highlighted a sub-category of developing countries: “major developing powers (kuoda fazhanzhong de guojia), for which Xi called on China to “expand cooperation” and “closely integrate our country’s development.” PRC scholars identify these as especially important partners to support reform of the international order. PRC media has linked this label to countries including Russia, Brazil, South Africa, India, Indonesia, and Mexico. Official reporting also now describes China in this way, apparently abandoning the traditional self-designation as a “developing country.”

The Growing Importance of U.S. Allies and Partners

The downgrading of relations with the developed world in priority may appear surprising, given the recent breakthroughs in cooperation between China and the United States on issues such as climate change. The two sides have even agreed to step up military cooperation. These developments show that the relationship with the United States remains the single most important for China. The extraordinary economic, military, political, and cultural power of the United States has always made it the most consequential nation for China’s rise, and this remains true today.

Nevertheless, the conclusion by Chinese analysts that the periphery and developing nations will overshadow in importance the developed world carries major implications for international politics. The change in the general framework shows just how much this assessment now informs PRC foreign policy. European countries have already discovered how little Beijing cares for their views of PRC policies. China has not only rejected criticisms on human rights issues, it has retaliated with punitive measures against EU nations, as it did to the United Kingdom over meetings with the Dalai Lama and to Norway over its recognition of dissident Liu Xiaobo. Similarly, China has shown itself increasingly resistant to U.S. criticisms of its behavior. Beijing has dismissed Washington’s criticism of its reclamation and other efforts to consolidate its claims in the South China Sea. Nor is China slowing down its efforts to build alternative institutions and mechanisms to assert its regional leadership of Asia. U.S. demands that China curb its cyber espionage have similarly yielded little fruit.

As Chinese power grows, and should its efforts to consolidate its leadership of the Asia-Pacific region succeed, China’s tolerance for Western “interference” on sensitive policy topics will decline even further. Beijing will also likely push harder to consolidate its leadership of Asia and step up demands for reforms in the international order to more fairly reflect the changing distribution of power. Should Beijing lose confidence in cooperation as the means to secure such accommodation, the temptation to explore more coercive options could prove difficult to resist. In a situation of intensifying rivalry and distrust, an exasperated United States could well find itself driven to increasingly escalatory measures to ward off PRC behavior it finds threatening to its interests.

To forestall this possibility, the United States will need to step up policy coordination with its Asian allies and a growing array of partner countries, especially the major developing powers in China’s vicinity. The U.S. will continue to play a critical role in ensuring stable ties and deterring Chinese misbehavior, but coordination with regional powers will become an increasingly vital avenue for encouraging China in a direction that supports, rather than challenges, the fundamental tenets of the international order. The growing strength of the developing world and projected flat growth trajectory of the developed world carries huge consequences for the future of global politics. Chinese leaders grasp this potential keenly. Washington and its allies must anticipate this trajectory just as thoroughly to sustain a stable and peaceful world order.

Tim Heath is a Senior Defense and International Analyst at the RAND Corporation. Mr. Heath has over fifteen years of experience as a China analyst in the US government. He is the author of the book, China’s New Governing Party Paradigm: Political Renewal and the Pursuit of National Rejuvenation, published by Ashgate (2014).

http://thediplomat.com/2014/12/chinas-big-diplomacy-shift/

Xi Jinping emerges as forceful No. 1 – rewriting China's power playbook

Not since the days of Mao Zedong has any one individual in China been so visible a leader or held so much control. He's changing China by scrapping 'rule by consensus' and targeting civil society.

Robert Marquand, the Christian Science Monitor, 10/08/14

With a speed and toughness not imagined when he took China's top job as head of the Communist Party, President Xi Jinping has not only consolidated power but is overseeing such an extensive crackdown that some wonder if he’s accrued too much power.

Not since the days of Mao Zedong has any one individual in China become so visible a leader or held so much control over the rising nation of 1.3 billion people as Mr. Xi – whose father was a prominent comrade of Chairman Mao.

Nor since Mao has a Chinese leader pushed so complete a program of old-style Communist Party values and blunt force. Not since Tiananmen Square in 1989 has a leader so thoroughly undercut even baby steps toward political openings. Under Xi’s grip in recent months, even civil society moderates have been harshly silenced – in what now appears to be a serious purification program of party and society.

He is being called everything from a new “dictator of the party” to a modern day emperor. He is said to see himself as a man of destiny who is overseeing the waking up of China.

Quietly, he has emerged on the world stage as a leader whose authoritarian direction rivals that of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Certainly he’s dashed hopes of the birth of a more pluralistic civil society here any time soon.

In the past 18 months Xi has rolled up rivals in a vast, multilayered anti-corruption campaign that has often been tantamount to a soft purge. Upwards of 2,000 ranking party cadres have been replaced. Rising young cadres like Guangzhou party chief and mayor Wan Qingliang can find themselves earning honors one day – and out the door the next.

Xi’s tactics are creating fear and uncertainty up and down party ranks, according to a range of sources in China, Asia, and the United States interviewed about Xi during August and September.

Asians talk about “killing the chicken to scare the monkey” – as a form of control. But Xi has also taken down monkeys. A powerful general, Xu Caihou, will soon be court-martialed. An even more powerful party figure, Zhou Yongkang – whose police and security force network often acted like a second government or mafia – was taken down in July.

“The message is clear, ‘If he can get Zhou, who can’t he get?’” says David Kelly of the research group China Policy in Beijing.

'NEW CONCEPT FOR CHINA'

Xi’s “new concept for China,” as state run Xinhua news service put it in August, runs “farther and wider than the outside world can imagine.” Xi refers to this as a great “rejuvenation.”

Xi has lavishly promoted a vision of a “China Dream” of wealth, status, and national pride that appeals to the urban middle class where he is very popular. It strikes a nationalist chord in a country that has long felt looked down on. Yet Xi is also implementing strict prohibitions found in party circular Document 9 of August 2013, also known as the “Seven No’s.”

The manifesto calls on party faithful to stamp out free expression, foreign influences, or anything that faintly smells of democracy, transparency, or independent views.

In his own backyard, Xi has out-hardlined the hardliners: He clamped down with extra vigor on upstart ethnic Uighers in the far west Xinjiang Province. His messages to Taiwan about unity with the motherland are tougher. He deep-sixed Hong Kong’s hopes for free and fair elections in 2017 – something that has come back to bite him on the streets of that former British colony, Asia's financial hub.

For the first time, China, under Xi, is taking aggressive stances in Pacific waters, confronting East Asian powers like Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and the US. It claims vast swaths of ocean and sky.

Right after President Obama visited Asia this spring to reassure rattled allies, China moved an oil rig directly into disputed waters off Vietnam. On Sept. 22 after a visit to India he was quoted in Xinhua telling People’s Liberation Army military units to make sure they stayed combat ready should they need to win “a regional war.”

“We didn’t see this coming,” a White House national security staffer told reporters after China denied a Pentagon account of a mid-air encounter between a PLA jet and a Navy spy plane off Hainan last month.

Orville Schell of the Asia Society US-China program now asks: “Does China have any real friends?” US analysts say that Xi and Mr. Obama will have much to talk about in a November APEC meeting in Shanghai.

COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP WANES

If Xi’s rise is a turning point, the reason is because he and a coterie of patriotic elites in 2012 essentially scrapped China’s “collective leadership” model. For decades, ultimate power in China was shared diffusely. Decisions were made by consensus among nine standing committee leaders.

Shared power was designed by Deng Xiaoping, the reformer who opened China, in part to avert another Mao-like “cult of personality” – or another Cultural Revolution. So the collective model had a reassuring quality to it. No one would get too strong. There were brakes. 

Yet Xi is already proving far tougher than his predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Their tenures featured a “friendly” China that wanted to learn from the outside world and rise “harmoniously” in Asia. Yet Jiang and Hu are now called caretakers or stewards. What China has been waiting for, so goes the new party line, is a strong man like Xi – able to rein in the clashing fiefdoms and corruption that threatens party authority and economic progress, two of the sacred goods of the People’s Republic.

Xi comes from China’s “Red Second Generation” – children of the nation’s founders. His father, Xi Zhongxun, was one of “Eight Immortals” who helped pioneer Mao’s revolution. The “Second Reds” see the party and the nation as one. They feel a deep reproach for opportunists that grew rich and corrupt off the sacrifice made by their parents. They want to curb those who live ostentatiously but care little for China, those “who take and don’t give,” as a scholar here put it.

“He has a ‘red heart,’ as we say,” says Li Datong, an intellectual and prominent former newspaper editor. “His generation feels a very deep sense of responsibility. They feel, above all, that faced with a crisis, they must do something.”

While Xi’s father was jailed by Mao, as were many, the son is turning to Mao for inspiration. In a new book of essays released Sept. 25, Xi urges party members not to abandon the “spirit of Mao” or of Mao’s idea of constant revolution. Xi is the first Chinese leader since Mao to refer to himself in the first person, notes French Sinologist Francois Godement. Xi believes in a "strongman" theory of history, and is also the first since Mao to hold forth publicly on leadership, saying the “role of No. 1 is key.”

CHINA NEEDED A STRONG HAND

The dynamics behind Xi’s rise to No. 1 date to the early 2000s and the invitation for capitalists to join the party. That invitation is today seen as a very mixed blessing. It was an attempt to harness China’s economic dynamism into the politics of a 19^th century structure conceived by Vladimir Lenin.

New fiefdoms, tycoons, and the so-called princeling sons and daughters of China's top families all vied for connections within the party. It became ground zero for the “guanxi” or relationships needed for access to cash and credit. Huge streams of money flowed from sectors like telecommunications, minerals, steel, and construction. By 2010 the cacophony – the offshore bank accounts, the shark fin soup banquets, the purchase of sex and drink, the elbowing and backstabbing – threatened, as one source put it, to make China “ungovernable.”

Hu Jintao seemed unable to rein in the surge of money and ambition before his tenure was up in 2012.

Diagnoses of China’s crisis were many and varied. Some said the party was doomed. Others said the economy was doomed. Some said both. Some of the fundamentals were disturbing: Local governments had borrowed beyond their means to build apartments, skyscrapers, shopping malls, and highway overpasses.

The core question was how China was going to turn its export-based economy into an advanced technology-driven one. Could the party reform itself to allow a more innovative approach – or was a more authoritarian centralizing of party decisions needed?

As fear in the party deepened, elites turned to the Red Generation for help. And they chose the hard-line route, virtually abolishing any remnant talk of a liberal opening.

Xi first emerged as an almost folksy man of the people who eats jaozi or dumplings, stays in modest hotels, and has a reassuring baritone voice.

Yet when the top six Politburo ministries were remade in 2012, including national security, finance, military, and reform – Xi headed them all. He also had the opportunity to quickly dispatch his disgraced former arch-rival, Bo Xilai, in a highly public trial in 2013.

Unlike Hu and Jiang, Xi is seen as not just talking but acting. He has interpreted Document No. 9 to go after moderate reformers, which is new. Xi has “obsessively” worried about how the Soviet Union fell under Mikhail Gorbachev and does not want the same corrosive free expression or “glasnost” to topple China, Harvard senior China scholar Roderick MacFarquhar argued in a recent talk on Xi.

TARGETING CIVIL SOCIETY

Increasingly, police are cracking down on artists, evangelicals, lawyers, bloggers, social media figures, and professors who appear to be influenced by civil society ideas or refute the party's concept of China’s unity and its paramount role.

“About 300 rights lawyers are now detained, never has there been so many,” says Teng Biao, a human rights lawyer at Harvard for a year. “These lawyers are moderate. They aren’t taking on sensitive issues, or defending Liu Xiaobo [the jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner] but are dealing with things like anti-discrimination and consumer rights.”

Document No. 9's main target is “constitutionalism.” That is, a push to make the Communist Party more accountable – under, not above the rule of law – and to allow freer expression. (Liu Xiaobo’s Charter 08, for example, calls for experiments with competing systems of power and “an end to the practice of treating words as crimes.”)

Under Xi, words not cherished in the Leninist vernacular – such as dialogue, negotiation, power-sharing, rule of law, NGO, rights, and mutual understanding – are increasingly viewed with suspicion.

In recent months, every day brings reports that sound like a trip down Red China memory lane: Police and goon squads have been closing rural libraries since some books promote civil society and offer places to gather and discuss. TV shows from the US are taken off the air. The party announced it will issue its own version of Christian theology. An independent film festival in Beijing that ran for 10 years was not allowed to open for its 11th.

In September, during Uigher uprisings in Xinjiang, Ilhem Tohti, a moderate Uigher scholar in Beijing who advocated dialogue and who opposed violence and separatism, was sentenced to life in prison.

“A rural library has nothing to do with politics,” says Mr. Teng. “It is completely separate. But Xi is going after all civil society. He is actually implementing Doc. 9."

FIRST COMES PUTIN, NEXT COMES XI?

Unlike Mao, who only traveled once outside China – to visit Joseph Stalin in Moscow – Xi has some cosmopolitan credentials. He lived briefly in the US, served in coastal Zhejiang province and in Shanghai, and oversaw the 2008 Beijing Olympic preparations. He has a daughter at Harvard and is married to a famous singer. Yet Xi has clearly set himself against Western style government – as has Mr. Putin.

Putin may be the prototype new authoritarian. He seized Crimea, pampered crony capitalists, and speaks of a Slavic union based on what he calls “Eurasian values.” Xi is thought to share many of Putin’s notions that the US and Europe are demoralized and in a downward spiral as civilizations – and a new authoritarian axis bridging Asia is the next thing.

Xi is not yet perceived as a Putin-style bully however. He’s “taken a number of pages from Putin’s book,” says Mr. Kelly of China Policy. “Except Xi has resources and capabilities Putin can only dream of.”

The question is whether Xi has created such turmoil and so many enemies that he must become an ever-harsher authoritarian to maintain his grip. (Intellectuals in Beijing seriously debate whether Xi is a hardline authoritarian or a new kind of totalitarian, the latter having truly unknown implications.)

The Chinese press says Xi sees himself as a man of destiny. And this may be true. He cut his teeth in the violent and inward Cultural Revolution and now sees China moving out as an equal to Japan, the US, and Europe.

Deng Xiaoping counseled the nation as it recovered from Mao that China should “hide its light and bide its time.” Yet Xi may believe those days are over. He has ten years in office to prove it.

“Xi believes he can be a great leader, articulate a great vision,” says a knowledgeable Beijing professional with ties to the party. “He thinks the people will be the grass and he will be the wind. He will blow and they will bend.”

“The problem is that the qualities in Xi that make him effective now are not good for a next phase toward an open and more innovative economy and society. When will that come?”

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Read this story at csmonitor.com

http://news.yahoo.com/xi-jinping-emerges-forceful-no-1-rewriting-chinas-110005863.html

Xi Jinping Battles for a 'Chinese Communist Party 2.0'              

Toshiya Tsugami, 09/05/14

Four major changes have occurred in China since President Xi Jinping took power: the concentration of power in the hands of Xi, an iron-handed war against corruption, the bold "Third Plenary Session reforms" and much tighter controls on speech and thought.

All of the changes originate from one cause: the deterioration in governance over the 10 years of the previous administration of President Hu Jintao that led to grave problems for the economy, politics and society and threatens the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) regime.

People in China now are hurling an endless amount of abuse, particularly at Hu and former Premier Wen Jiabao, the ones who "caused these problems," but the results would have been much the same no matter who the leaders were. That is because what lies at the root of the serious regression of this decade is that change has come slowly for China's economy and society over a decade-long period.

LATE 1990s-EARLY 2000s: DESPERATE REFORMS

During this period the CPC, which was confronted with a stagnant economy and a financial drought in the midst of the country's transition to a market economy system, enacted desperate reforms. The party, suppressing resistance from the conservatives clinging to Marxism and nationalism, acceded to the WTO and implemented the "minjin guotui" (private enterprises fade in, state enterprises fade out, 民進國退) reforms to allow the private sector to manage more of the economy. That wisdom and courage was admirable, and the dividend was the explosive economic growth that followed.

However, these reforms were a major "rightward" diversion from the CPC's traditional political gravity center. In the mid-2000s, when the regime had escaped a crisis through dramatic growth and wealth flowed into the coffers of the government and the state-owned economy, a leftward turn to bring the party back to its original center of gravity began. The vested interests within the government that had been forced into austerity started to bulge.

Furthermore, the governing system, too, in fact, needed an update at this time when the economy was growing and society was transitioning into a new stage of development. The economy and society, which had become enormous, advanced and complex, were ungovernable without decentralization, and the dispersed authority needed ad hoc checks placed upon it. Even without "separation of powers in the Western manner," China needed to strengthen checks by the legislature and judiciary at every level of government and strengthen the social checks by the public that had finally started to develop. However, the CPC had sealed political reform due to the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989, and an outdated system of governance has been maintained without update, in which the CPC holds all power, and the only mechanisms for checks are one-way and "bottom-down."

LATE 2000s-EARLY 2010s: THE INVESTMENT BUBBLE

The reformists sounded the alarm over the reform reversals that began in the early-2000s, but the global financial crisis that ensued after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 squelched their voices. The investment growth and unbridled monetary easing that began with Beijing's 4 trillion yuan (65.777 trillion yen, or $644.5 billion) stimulus package abruptly expanded Chinese debt and assets (investments). Due to this investment bubble, China's growth rate got a big yet temporary boost and its economy was the only one in the world to make a dramatic recovery, providing a mirror image to the still sluggish Western economies.

That contrast sent China and its people into a state of euphoria and fostered arrogance among them over "the West's fall and China's restoration as a great power." All at once, China's attitude toward the outside world turned assertive. And simultaneously there was corruption on an unbelievable scale, while the large dividends paid out in the prior decade were squandered and appropriated. The outdated system of governance was unable to stop this relentless sequence of events. The two former leaders who have now stepped down were like the leaves of a tree at the mercy of this great wave.

PAYING THE TAB FOR EXTRAVAGANCE

Now the big, extravagant party is over, and China has to pay the tab for the last decade of indulgence.

Although the potential growth rate of the Chinese economy may still be around 5 percent, that does not mean it will continue to grow at this rate. The Chinese economy's balance sheet has more than doubled in size over the past five years. Yet the accumulated assets (investments) have very poor yields and many seem incapable of repaying the debts incurred. The result is widening damage to the balance sheet.

At this time, investment and borrowing should naturally slow down; such a stabilizing measure is built into a market economy. The repercussions lead to a shortfall of effective demand and growth temporarily falls significantly, but this is a necessary process so that the balance sheet does not go bust. The CPC, however, fearing that "slower growth will destabilize party rule," is suffering from its inability to halt the harm to China's balance sheet.

The problems the Chinese economy faces are not confined to the after-effects of the investment bubble. The key to sustaining growth into the future for China, which has a falling birthrate, is to raise productivity. However, the "guojin mintui" (state enterprises fade in, private enterprises fade out) setback that occurred over the past decade and expanded the state-owned sector are hindering an increase in factor productivity. This is more than problematic because China, like Japan today, will have any productivity improvements it makes offset by a falling influx of labor and hindered real growth awaits the country in the next 10 years.

Politically there is a mountain of problems, brought on by the delayed governance reforms (i.e., the lack of effective checks on power), that need work: corruption, human rights violations, environmental destruction and social instability.

EMERGENCY CALL

Two years ago, when Xi inherited the post of CPC general secretary, it was not quite certain how much he recognized the gravity of the situation awaiting him. However, at the beginning of 2013 not only Xi, but also many people inside the regime, must have felt a serious sense of crisis that "if nothing changes, then the CPC's rule will fall apart."

There were bold reform proposals made at the Third Plenary Session last November covering the economy as well as state affairs in general, but much of the content of those proposals were what the reformists, over the past decade, had been saying China needed, while the mainstream faction had consistently disregarded them. Why were proposals for reform that had been ignored for 10 years suddenly adopted last year? The answer is nothing other than the CPC's heightened sense of crisis.

The traditional policy of the CPC has been "group leadership" among the state's leaders. However, after Xi took office there has been a concentration of power unseen in China for more than 20 years. That is because of "the need for strong leadership to overcome our difficulties." The systemic sense of crisis has, in a manner of speaking, pushed Xi into a powerful and fearsome "single top" position.

The anti-corruption drive continues to exceed people's expectations in its breadth, severity and duration. A strict order to enforce discipline has come down to throw a bucket of cold water on party officials from the top down, including those who do nothing but engage in extravagant behavior. Unless it does so, the party will not be able to explain itself to the people.

When Xi assumed office, people once hoped he would usher in democracy, but what actually happened was much stronger suppression of speech and greater thought control. Xi must foresee that circumstances in the economy and society will both get even worse. He seems, so to speak, like a captain of a ship in distress who is hardening his resolve to deny his passengers the liberty to act on their own. To put it another way, it is like he has covertly instituted martial law.

All these major changes that have occurred over the past two years can be consistently explained by the dawn of a new decade when China is confronting the unprecedented difficulties after the investment bubble that began in 2009, and by the presumption that the CPC regime, with Xi at its top, is viewing these difficulties with a sense of crisis that the party's survival is at stake.

SLOW PACE OF REFORM

"Create a setting for economic growth in which the state will step back, and in its place the market will be the deciding factor." You could say this is an update to the conventional policies of "reform and opening up," but the decisions taken at the Third Plenary Session touched on more than just the economy. These decisions also called for an arrangement under which the judiciary and legislature check the government's power. If this arrangement were fully introduced in China, a country where there is no mechanism for a change of administration, then these checks on power would be more than a change of administration -- they would spell regime change. Some might explain it away as a "socialist" governance system "with Chinese characteristics," but it is equivalent to aiming for a "CPC 2.0" by largely rewriting the "four cardinal principles"* formulated by Deng Xiaoping.

However, the pace of reform for now is slow even though half a year has already passed since the Third Plenary Session. The party officials seem to either stay put to weather the storm of the anti-corruption and official discipline drives or to wait and see whether Xi can rise above Deng to become a leader "on the level of Mao Tse-tung" under whom no one can object.

Deng was also a strong leader, but his hand was burned by resistance among the party's elders. In comparison, Mao was almighty. Those officials waiting to see how things play out see Xi's reforms encountering resistance from party elders.

Xi's anti-corruption attack against party elders is becoming more and more harsh and decisive, and even the ex-top military man who is a well-known "homme de confiance" of an ex-party top was recently found corrupted and decided to be sent to criminal court. Nonetheless, those fears of awaiting officials may turn out to be well-founded.

In that case Xi, who would have become a strong leader only momentarily, will then be suddenly forced into being a lame duck, and sooner or later, China will be forced into making a hard landing -- not only economically, but politically as well.

Xi, who is taking on the massive resistance against regime change, may also be forming a "united front" among disparate party factions with various interests and values in order to oppose his strong political enemies. The fact that the job of placing controls on speech and thought are assigned to horribly obstinate and stubborn conservatives may be proof of this. They share in the sense of crisis that they have to "save the party and its dynasty," but perhaps they do not share in the "CPC 2.0" idea.

Xi must hold authority in the manner of Mao now in order to arrange for new economic growth where "the market will be the deciding factor" and in order to introduce a new system of checks on power "with Chinese characteristics." Oh, the irony! We in the West are skeptical of such contradictory methods, and we feel disgusted with the suppression of speech occurring now.

However, this does not mean that "if we pull the weeds of the autocratic regime, the flowers of a democratic regime will naturally sprout." Now, after learning this from Iraq, Afghanistan and the Arab Spring, can we still lecture the Chinese to "study Western ways" with the same confidence we have had before?

In the end it is only the Chinese people who can decide which way China will go. But it is certain that the conclusion of this battle of Xi's will have an enormous effect on those of us outside China.

* Deng proposed the "four cardinal principles" in 1979, and they are one of the political tenets the CPC has held fast to ever since. They state that the party must uphold the "socialist path," the "dictatorship of the proletariat," "the leadership of the Communist Party of China" and "Marxist-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung thought."

More:

Communism 2.0 Xi Jinping Communism 2.0 China News Xi Jinping Rule Xi Jinping Impact China Japan Relations China Communism 2.0 Xi Jinping Xi Jinping Election China Communism Xi Jinping Power China Reform Japan News Japan Xi Jinping Presidency China China Japan

Toshiya Tsugami is a China expert and business consultant at Asahi Shimbun (朝日新聞社)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/toshiya-tsugami/xi-jinping-chinese-communist-party_b_5772170.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

China’s Political Spectrum under Xi Jinping    

China’s president has been positioning himself with respect to competing political ideologies.

Sebastian Veg, the Diplomat, 08/11/14

When, in November 2012, Xi Jinping took up his position as secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), his political ideas and positioning inside the Party remained largely a mystery. The CCP is a huge bureaucratic machine mainly devoted to its own survival, within which various interests and priorities unceasingly compete at every level. The personal convictions of supreme leaders are at best diffuse and changing, and none of them can lastingly avoid going through the system of decision by consensus. For this reason it is somewhat futile to try to identify perennial political factions.

Nonetheless, to canalize personal conflicts and court intrigues, the regime uses two kinds of tools. First, it constantly produces new institutions and more or less stable rules. And second, by building up clientelistic ties, it tries to ensure the support of certain groups inside and outside the Party that participate in political debates in the media and more largely in the Sinophone public sphere. Eighteen months after Xi’s ascension, news of a formal investigation of Zhou Yongkang wraps up the president’s first political cycle of power consolidation. That makes it a good time to attempt to sketch out the contours of the political synthesis represented by Xi Jinping, based on the public debates and institutional innovations that have been announced during the first third of his first term.

As political positions continue to shift after the 18th Congress (at which time I presented a six-force model), the spectrum can be grossly divided into four main families: advocates of the “China Model,” who dominate within the Party and the army, among “princelings” (children of former leaders) and State administrations; the “left,” which is made up of both nostalgics of the Mao era (the old left) and academics, often trained in Western universities, critical of capitalism and proponents of a strong state (the New Left); social democrats, usually academics and former inner-Party reformers who, reaching old age, can speak out more freely (the journal Yanhuang Chunqiu is a case in point); and the liberals, overrepresented among the “metropolitan” (semi-private) media, lawyers, and more largely the urban population and private economy.

Since coming to power, Xi Jinping has, implicitly or explicitly, positioned himself with respect to these four groups. The idea of the “China model,” which gained currency in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis, reflects a growing indifference among Chinese elites to Western political systems and economic liberalization, and their renewed interest in a “Chinese path” to development, underpinned by State intervention. This mix of populist nationalism and statist authoritarianism continues to form the core of the ideas expressed by Xi Jinping who, already in 2009, mocked “well-fed foreigners who have nothing better to do than to lecture us.” Upon taking up his position, Xi immediately coined a new name for this ideological composite: “the China dream,” a dream of “wealth and power” (fuqiang), heralding the “great renaissance of the Chinese nation,” a phrase first coined by Jiang Zemin and regularly used by Hu Jintao. By visiting the National Museum of China shortly afterwards, where he inspected the exhibition on 20th century history, precisely titled “The Road to Renaissance,” Xi endorsed this nationalist program, as also attested by his unilateral decisions in the area of foreign policy. However, whereas at the end of Hu Jintao’s mandate Chinese exceptionalism and authoritarianism were often legitimated by Confucian rhetoric (the “harmonious society”), under Xi neo-traditionalists seem to have been absorbed within the general discourse on the China dream.

The second group Xi Jinping must cater to is the left. The Bo Xilai affair, although successfully contained on the institutional level (Bo was officially condemned for corruption), provoked a political reconfiguration: the convergence of the old and new left represents a revived political force. While we may never know whether Xi holds personal beliefs in Mao’s theories, he has shown willingness to cater to the new and old left with several symbolic announcements since he took power. Already in 2011, before the fall of Bo Xilai, in a speech for the 90th anniversary of CCP foundation, Xi formulated the idea that the 30 years of Maoism and the 30 years of reforms were of equal importance or value. This idea found its classic formulation in his theory of the “two irrefutables” in January 2013. For Xi, the accomplishments of Maoism cannot be refuted in the name of reform, just as the accomplishments of reform cannot be refuted in the name of Maosim, a position which represents a slight but significant departure from the Party Resolution of 1981, which condemned certain grave errors committed by Mao.

The institutional reforms undertaken by Xi, with the creation of three new “Leading Small Groups” (LSG’s) – the LSG on the deepening of reforms, the National Security Commission and the LSG on Internet Security – directly reporting to the Central Committee and chaired by Xi, counteract efforts to separate the Party from the State in policy areas. Party ideology has again become a preferred tool of control: ideology, rather than law, was used to justify the anti-corruption campaign, as highlighted by the verbal attacks on “flies and tigers.” Even as the Bo Xilai trial was under preparation, cadres were called upon in April 2013 to “look at themselves in a mirror” 照鏡子 (conform to Party discipline), “adjust their clothes” 正衣冠 (be frugal), “wash up” 洗洗澡 (practice self-criticism), and “cure their illness” 治治病 (in prison), all expressions taken from Mao’s rhetoric, as explained by the official exegesis of a speech Xi gave in June. Self-criticism sessions were organized on a grand scale in the summer of 2013. Without institutions allowing legal or democratic control, the anti-corruption campaign appears mainly as a pretext for settling factional scores with the former head of the security apparatus, Zhou Yongkang.

These activities were all part of Xi Jinping’s revival of the “mass line” as a Maoist alternative to democracy, according to which the Party grounds its legitimacy among the masses. Admittedly, this use of ideology is not new: in Mao’s Invisible Hand Patricia Thornton, recalling Zhao Ziyang’s revival of the notion of “mass line” in the 1980s, points out that “Mao-era methods of mobilization” can be used for different ends. Perhaps Xi may still use this concept to further greater representativeness within the Party. However, the “mass line” remains connected with the “spiraling movement” by which the Party selects certain social artifacts, refines them into theory, and re-disseminates them among the “people.” As Shi Tianjian writes in a passage Thornton quotes, mass participation is shaped by the “elimination of the organizational bases for people to articulate their interests collectively, ‘forced departicipation’ of previously participatory groups, and political education.” In this sense it is a conceptual antidote to the growth of civil society.

Nonetheless, Xi Jinping has not completely forgotten the internal reformers or social democrats: committed to ideals of social equality, they criticize the Party from the inside, without calling for a full reform of the political system. The measures unveiled during the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee meeting in October 2013 gave some satisfaction to this group: the scrapping of the Reeducation through Labor system, an adjustment of the one-child policy, and a possible improvement of the residence permit (hukou) system, allowing for better social protection, which received a fuller announcement at the July 2014 Politburo meeting. The announced state-owned enterprise reforms, which were supposed to raise the importance of the market in the economy, appear for the moment to be a tool in the factional score-settling rather than a political priority. Finally, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen democracy movement – which the reformers would like to see rehabilitated – was marked with a strong wave of repression.

Finally, while the liberals briefly entertained the idea that they could use Xi’s mention of “constitutional rule” 依憲治国 in a speech delivered in late 2012, as attested by the publication of the “Consensual Proposals to advance reforms” signed by a long list of prominent intellectuals, repression followed shortly thereafter, in the form of severe sentences for independent lawyers and members of the New Citizen movement. Xu Zhiyong, who advocated the publication of leaders’ assets and hukou reform was sentenced to four years of prison as a result of his attempt at building a political organization. New Left intellectuals launched ongoing attacks on liberal concepts on the theoretical level. In May 2013, Yang Xiaoqing extolled “people’s democracy” 人民民主 over “constitutionalism” 憲政 followed by Hu Angang’s vigorous defence of “the people’s society” 人民社會 against “civil society” 公民社會 in July 2013. Hu Angang uses mainly three arguments – cultural exceptionalism, the inherent selfishness of capitalist societies resting on “private interests”, as opposed to the unique ability of the Chinese government’s mass line to improve livelihood (minsheng 民生) – to construct a binary opposition between citizens (shimin 市民 or gongmin 公民) and “the people” (renmin 人民). As Rogier Creemers notes, Yang Xiaoqing’s arguments similarly highlight the superiority of socialist governance over constitutional governance, demonstrating a continued adhesion to the theoretical framework of the Mao era enshrined in notions like “the people” and “the masses.”

Hu’s article was followed at the end of the month by a longer piece authored by another scholar associated with the New Left, Wang Shaoguang, who denounces “civil society” as an “unclear concept” peddled by neo-liberals, associated with four myths: homogeny (masking actual class conflicts in society), purity (non-profit organizations are often power instruments in the hands of the social elite), independence (they are in fact controlled by big capital) and separation from the state (which is in fact not desirable). “People’s society,” by contrast, is a time-honored notion that demonstrates, for Wang, that the “people” are an organic whole rather than a collection of individuals, a “political community within a state led by the working masses.” Finally, the list of “Seven don’t-mentions” (qi bu jiang) listed in the internal “Document no. 9” singles out a list of topics banned from public discussion: constitutional democracy, universal values, civil society, market liberalism, media independence, criticizing errors in the history of the Party (“historical nihilism”), and questioning the policy of opening up and reforms and the socialist nature of the regime. This list effectively silenced liberal voices.

In conclusion, two points deserve to be mentioned. After a period of weakening of supreme power under Hu Jintao, during which the various bureaucracies (xitong) represented at the top of the state shared the benefits among themselves, Xi has reasserted the pyramid structure of power, under the authority of the Party and its ideology. This initiative no doubt stems from an authentic feeling of crisis among the new generation of Party elite who fear that their hold on power may be threatened by slowing economic growth, as well as the weakening of authority under Hu. The anti-corruption campaign can indeed provide the opportunity to weaken the grip of the state on the Chinese economy, but it remains subordinated to a political campaign logic rather than a legal logic, and feeds into the reinforcement of Party authority. However, this reassertion does not fundamentally call into question institutional benchmarks like the principle of collective decision at the top. The confirmation of an investigation against Zhou Yongkang, given the length of time before it was officially announced, seems to have met with very strong resistance within the Party, and – uncharacteristically – contained only a mention of Zhou’s suspected breach of Party discipline (no mention of breach of State laws). Many commentators have highlighted that the anti-corruption campaign has mainly targeted “self-made” Party cadres, largely sparing the “Second Red generation.”

By calling into question an unwritten trade-off inaugurated by Deng Xiaoping, Xi is taking risks that could still lead to a political crisis at the top. Since the 1980s, top leaders have accepted age-based retirement and collective leadership in exchange for future immunity: if the latter is withdrawn, the former might become problematic. In the area of political ideas, Xi Jinping has coined a new style and given a new form to nationalist rhetoric rather than renewing the Party’s thinking. The anti-liberal crackdown, while couched in new rhetoric, has been ongoing since 2008 under Hu Jintao. Nevertheless, the new synthesis between the old and new left, with the latter’s statism reinforcing the nationalism of the China dream, has undeniably provided new arguments to enemies of economic liberalization and advocates of social control under Xi Jinping.

Sebastian Veg is a Research Professor (Directeur d’Études) at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Science, Paris, currently on secondment as Director of the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China, Hong Kong. His interests are in twentieth century Chinese literature, political debates, and intellectual history.

-- 請至原網頁參考中國意識型態分析圖

http://thediplomat.com/2014/08/chinas-political-spectrum-under-xi-jinping/

The Chinese Communist Party Ain’t What It Used to Be

Joshua Keating, 08/01/14

One of the recent international developments that would have been a huge news story any other month was China launching an investigation into former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang for vaguely defined "serious disciplinary violations." Zhou isn’t just the most high-profile target so far for President Xi Jinping’s ongoing anti-corruption crackdown, as a member of China’s nine-member Politburo Standing Committee until he retired two years ago, he could be the highest-ranking Chinese official to face criminal charges since the early 1980s.

There’s good reason to be cynical about the ongoing crackdown, which often seems motivated more by a desire to sideline prominent political threats to Xi’s rule than to clean up corruption. (If Xi’s really so concerned about exposing corrupt officials, something called a “free press” might help.)

Nonetheless, the crackdown, and the move against the previously untouchable Zhou in particular, seems to be popular with the Chinese public. It also may be changing some career ambitions and having an impact on membership in the world’s largest political party.

The Financial Times reports that “last year, just 2.4m people joined the [Chinese Communist Party] -- a quarter fewer than in 2012 -- marking the smallest number of new members since 2003.”

It may be that increasing rates of entrepreneurship and the growing prominence of the private sector in the Chinese economy are making party membership less vital to success.

But some experts also believe that due to Xi’s anticorruption campaign, the perks of membership aren’t what they used to be and high rank in the party no longer carries the security and impunity that it used to.

Given the recent spate of suicides among high-ranking officials, it’s not surprising that party membership may not seem quite as appealing as it used to.

Joshua Keating is a staff writer at Slate focusing on international affairs and writes the World blog.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/08/01/with_china_cracking_down_on_corrupt_officials_communist_party_membership.html

硬辦周永康 習近平終結老人政治

李春/聯合報香港特派員, 07/31/14

中共領導層決定拿下大老虎周永康之際，北京流傳著一個消息，說西郊301醫院(解放軍總醫院)樓頂上江澤民題詞大字，已被拆除。

很多人為之興奮不已，很多人信了人民網那「不是句號」的評論，說「老老虎」也要打。有人昨天天一亮就跑到萬壽路去看，結果那幾個字根本沒拆，還豎立在那。

拿掉周永康，是不是這場反腐大戰的終結，還不好說，但可以肯定的是，中共老人政治終結的鐘聲，這回敲響了。

中共自改革開放以來，就陷落在老人政治的怪圈中不能自拔。每一朝的領軍者都深受老人政治之害，有些人又變成新的政治老人。

受老人政治之害最深的，是鄧小平垂簾聽政下的胡耀邦和趙紫陽，他們都是在中共最高領導人位子上，被人揪下，最後胡耀邦被活活氣死，趙紫陽被拿下後，軟禁在富強胡同六號，他的小院數十公尺之外就是明朝的東廠。

不知是巧合還刻意，就在宣布審查周永康的同時，網上開禁胡耀邦和趙紫陽的資訊，民眾可以自由搜索他們的相關資料。不管這是不是為之平反的先聲，但選在這個時候，不無象徵意義。

這象徵意義對在任的領導人來說，意義重大，在客觀上，他們辦這件事，不用再去問政治老人的意見，因為誰都知道，趙紫陽就是他們圈禁的，胡耀邦在一定意義上，也是讓他們氣得不說話捂胸而去。

處理周永康案，根本不是象徵而是標誌。在此之前，中央軍委副主席徐才厚案，有人要求將谷俊山結案，以免火燒到徐才厚，習近平頂回軍方的主事者：「這案怎麼結，你說怎麼結？」結果沒理老人說項，最後還是把徐才厚辦了。

從去秋到今夏，為了如何處置周永康，現任和前朝較量了多回合。到五月，傳出習近平妥協的聲音，但他從中南美之行回京，立即就把周案結了。因為老人們這時都到了北戴河，再拖，更麻煩。

辦了周永康，不僅是反腐的階段性結果，還是中共權力政治階段性變局。就此一役，沒人再敢扮政治老人大聲說話，老人政治或者從此終結。

在此關鍵時刻，有人將毛澤東的詞送上，說「宜將剩勇追窮寇，不可沽名學霸王」，勸勉意圖淺白。

【2014/07/31 聯合報】

http://udn.com/NEWS/MAINLAND/MAIN1/8839367.shtml

肅貪最大高潮 中共辦周永康

特派記者陳言喬/聯合報/上海報導, 07/30/14

中共官媒新華社昨天公布，中央前政治局常委周永康涉嫌嚴重違紀，中共中央決定，由中央紀律檢查委員會對其立案審查。

新華社昨天傍晚六點公布周永康被查的短訊只有七十個字，卻是2012年11月中共十八大以來，查辦官員貪腐弊案的最大高潮。周永康也是中共建政以來，第一個因「違紀」（涉貪等經濟問題）查辦的「黨和國家領導人」（中央政治局常委屬正國級）。

周永康涉案被查的消息從去年底傳開，今年初日趨明朗，尤其今年三月中共全國「兩會」上政協發言人一句「你懂的」，更間接證實此事，但直到昨天由官媒宣布後才確定。

不僅周永康本人，失聯一陣子的周永康兒子周濱昨天也傳出被逮捕。這半年多來，周永康的兒子周濱及多名親人，舊屬一個個落網，周所涵括的石油幫、四川幫、政法系的人馬幾都被查辦。

新華社公布周永康案情的字眼是「違紀」，但未提及「違法」，未來是否會查出「違法」移送司法機關調查，還有待觀察。

中共「打虎」一波接一波，而周永康不僅是「老虎」，還是隻「超級大老虎」。大陸改革開放以來，查辦的官員最高只到中央政治局委員，一直「刑不上常委」，但在習近平主政後，反腐方向直指最高級的國家領導人，對大陸的反腐工作具有畫時代意義。

【2014/07/30 聯合報】@

http://udn.com/NEWS/MAINLAND/MAIN1/8837004.shtml

中國高官許傑「受賄、通姦」被開除黨籍            

BBC 中文網，06/27/14

中紀委宣佈，已經對信訪局原黨組成員、副局長許傑嚴重違紀違法問題進行了立案檢查。

中紀委網站的消息稱，「許傑利用職務上的便利為有關單位或個人謀取利益，索取、收受巨額賄賂；對國家信訪局來訪接待司發生的系列嚴重違紀違法案件負有主要領導責任；與他人通姦。」

為此，經中央紀委審議並報中共中央批准，決定給予許傑開除黨籍處分，並將其涉嫌犯罪問題及線索移送司法機關依法處理。

去年11月28日，中紀委在其網站公布，許傑涉嫌嚴重違紀違法，正接受組織調查，但當時並沒有披露許傑所涉嫌的具體犯罪行為。

長期任職信訪系統

根據中國官方媒體公布的資料顯示，今年59歲的許傑除了在1992至1993年間掛職山東省昌邑縣副縣長外，許傑長期任職於信訪系統。

他在1974年4月參加工作，1978年作為文革後首批大學生入讀中國人民大學經濟系，1982年取得學士學位。

1989年，他在國家信訪局前身——中共中央辦公廳國務院辦公廳信訪局——出任辦公室副主任，其後升任主任。

2005年9月，許傑出任國家信訪局副局長兼中共黨組成員。

國家信訪局是中國官方處理國內群眾和境外人士的來信來訪事項的部門。

（撰稿：李文 責編：路西）

http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/trad/china/2014/06/140627_cn_xujie_corruption.shtml

開除徐才厚黨籍 「新四人幫」逐一現形

泰國世界日報/社論，07/02/14

千呼萬喚下，中共30日終於宣布對傳聞多時的貪腐「大老虎」開鍘。由習近平親自主持的中央政治局會議決定開除曾長期掌握中共軍隊人事大權的原中共政治局委員、中央軍委副主席徐才厚黨籍，交由軍事檢察機關處理涉嫌受賄的犯罪問題。徐才厚是自毛澤東時代林彪「九一三事件」後，43年來中共落馬的軍中最高階將領。他的落馬顯示，權力基礎比前任江澤民、胡錦濤穩固的習近平，反腐更有底氣和決心，中共政壇「新四人幫」在薄熙來、徐才厚相繼倒台後，傳聞已遭軟禁的周永康及仍身居要職的令計劃何時落馬，將是觀察未來中國反腐的重點。

徐才厚案宣布，可說是習近平反腐的突破性進展。中共處理徐案手段十分細膩，顯見其重要性以及對中共黨、政、軍的影響，絕不亞於周永康案。首先，徐才厚被指控罪名如同薄熙來一樣「完美切割」，只有受賄罪，至於外界盛傳的「密謀政變」和生活腐化等完全未提及。當然他受賄罪在「情節嚴重，影響惡劣」外還留有一個大尾巴，就是中共公報中巧妙提到的「犯罪線索」，將來受賄罪是否僅局限解放軍總後勤部副部長行賄的3600多萬元人民幣和上海的四套豪宅，還待未來釐清；或準確地說，將視曾行賄的軍中將領如何向習近平輸誠而定。

其次，中共選在6月30日即中共建黨93周年前一天開會，對徐才厚開鍘，有極大象徵意義。旨在讓黨內繼續發揮影響力的大老們明白，習近平、王岐山主導的反腐絕非為一己私利，而是關係中共的生死存亡。然而要解釋為何在反腐運動中落馬的都是傳說中的「新四人幫」成員及黨羽，即18大前曾威脅習近平掌大位的人，看來還得花不少功夫。

其三，與其他落馬官員倒台模式不同的是，徐才厚30日被宣布開除黨籍前，中共並未宣布他「因嚴重違法違紀被有關部門帶走調查」。是否意味「周永康案」甚至「令計劃案」也可能採取這個模式，值得觀察。事實上，據稱因患膀胱癌一直在軍方301醫院治療的徐才厚，去年就被傳遭中共紀檢部門調查。但今年春節期間習近平慰問軍方老人時，他赫然出現習近平身後，向外界釋放了紛亂信息。

直至3月中旬香港媒體報導徐3月15日被中紀委調查人員帶走，中共內部傳達相關消息，隨後中共18位軍頭4月集體表態效忠習近平，才讓外界看清山雨欲來的動向，也看出習近平在軍中團隊的精心操作，顯示軍中反腐比政界反腐更複雜、更險峻，即使黨政軍大權緊握的習近平也不敢馬虎。

徐才厚1999年成為中共中央軍委委員，被認為是江澤民安插在胡錦濤身邊的「監軍」。他2007年成為中央政治局委員及中央軍委副主席，直到2012年11月中共18大退休。他過去十餘年把持軍中人事大權，由於胡錦濤直到退休都未真正掌握軍權，中共軍中高級將領升遷都須經徐才厚之手。而這十餘年恰是解放軍腐敗成風，買官賣官嚴重，連當兵升士官都要交上人民幣幾萬元，升上校團長更須行賄200萬元。

徐才厚如今倒台留下一個巨大懸念，即現職解放軍高層將領不少人是徐的「門生」，他們中多少人是靠買官升遷，這些人對習近平而言是否靠得住？如果全面清查，將在軍中造成大震盪；而若聽之任之，這樣一個自上而下腐敗的軍隊，大敵當前時刻，又如何面對日本、越南挑釁，做到「召之即來，來之能戰，戰之必勝」？

細察中共對周永康案和徐才厚案處理，可發現習近平對軍中反腐仍投鼠忌器，小心翼翼。迄今凡與周永康有關的政界人士包括「石油幫」蔣潔敏、王永春；「四川幫」李崇禧、郭永祥和李春城；「政法幫」李東生等，多達300人已被抓。但與徐才厚相關的人被抓者還只有谷俊山、葉萬勇等數人。

儘管軍方反腐口號喊得很響，但軍隊畢竟是中共穩定政權的專政機器，習近平需要軍隊的全力支持，如何避免反腐後座力傷害自己，將是習的挑戰。接下來反腐利劍指向何方，每一步都將是政治算計、步步驚心。不過從中共宣布徐才厚案時也宣布周永康黨羽蔣潔敏、李東生和王春生被開除黨籍看，周永康案收網已是順理成章，指日可待。

【2014-07-02/泰國世界日報】

http://mag.udn.com/mag/world/storypage.jsp?f_MAIN_ID=364&f_SUB_ID=3482&f_ART_ID=522503