A king for life is born to empire

There will be no surprises. The historic XX Congress of the Communist Party of China, which begins this Sunday, will declare President Xi Jinping a virtual sovereign with lifelong rights.

It dissolves part of the legacy Deng Xiaoping, the pilot of Asia’s great capitalist transition, organized only two terms to avoid a return to Maoist personhood. Xi ignores that rule, and dresses like Mao, a sign of ambition or pragmatism, oblivious even to the brutal persecution the communist leader subjected his family to.

Xi places strict verticalism on curbing the political tensions that economic opening entails in a decision-making system without intermediary, union, judicial or institutional barriers. A Control criteria It increases in the situation of problems like current problems.

The Chinese head of state, who has been in power for ten years, is the second son of Deng’s central ally, Xi Zhongxun. This other Xi reached important positions in the party, but he was trapped Continuous refinement The Maoist cadre were confined to forced labor camps for their initial visions.

Rehabilitated after the Cultural Revolution, Deng commissioned this eccentric man to create China’s first free market experiment.

A capitalist test tube Launched with Special Economic Zone in Shenzhen. In time, that original eruption would absorb the entire national fabric, surprising the leader of the change with the depth and speed of that mutation.

These antecedents fill the current president with contradictions. Sidney Rittenberg, Mao’s translator and legendary North American journalist who lived in China for 40 years, welcomed Xi Jinping with joy. “The most democratic of the party’s old leadership”Sentenced.

Toughness and control

The truth is that during this decade in office, the president moved away from that moderation, Reinvigorated the computer’s compelling power and even saved Confucius, rejected by Maoism, by honoring the authority emanating from the ancient philosopher’s lyrics.

That rigor exists to preserve the political limits of a model that has deepened its relevance by building a large and dynamic middle class. Today it is the largest in the world.

As in the US economy, domestic consumption explains the bulk of China’s GDP. One dimension of this capitalist transformation was intensified nationalism as a means of maintaining the unity of the country, avoiding civil strife, and paving the way for occupying the new China. Planetary seatA target the Chinese could not deny.

In this frame, an aggressive and proud diplomacy is established, from another suggestion of Deng “a Prudent and cautious foreign policy”, Xi understands reflected another era.

For all this the President has not been the reformer expected not only in the West but also in his country and his party. A restaurant It exposes China’s right to be an empire for centuries since the first emperor, Ying Zheng. annexed the place in 221 BC

Those goals have now been filtered by the complex reality of the global economy stalling. An alliance with the US, an empire with which China maintains an unprecedented economic relationship, will facilitate this. Disasters The global system is suffering because of the pandemic and the costs of the war in Ukraine.

But there is no such alternative. The embrace of two capitalist forces, one democratic and the other autocratic, in any case occurs in a quagmire. Both structures lose their legs.

With his own share of protectionist nationalism, Joe Biden has had it threatening attitude and tariffs against the central empire by his predecessor, Donald Trump.

In a sign of the leader’s toughness in the face of a challenge from the Twentieth Congress, it has also expressed caution over the fate of Taiwan, based on the assumption that China might try to invade the island. Pressed by enormous challenges.

Challenges

The IMF reports that the People’s Republic will grow only 3.2% this year, and it will probably reach 4.4% in 2023. Magic numbers of the recent past. Inflation hit a two-year low of 2.8% in September. Unemployment has risen to 19.9% ​​among young people and the population is resistant to having children due to doubts about the future.

The coronavirus crisis continues to hold back the Silk Road, the magnificent investment framework that connects Beijing’s influence from Asia to Europe and Latin America.

That uncomfortable reality is fueling debate among influential regime bureaucrats, some of whom argue that China needs to open up more to the West, attract investment, and divest from other sectors. Russian war madness. That is not Xi’s view and does not allow for challenges.

A problem with the concentration of personality and power taught to the American George Kennan, the great observer of Stalinism, is that it translates negation. They threaten the leader As such, adding wealth to the decision-making process is not.

At the top of China’s power there is broad agreement on maintaining openness and boosting consumption. But frictions are strong over how deep the change should go. These differences of opinion were reflected Waves of Purification Since Xi took control in early 2013.

Prominent figures such as Zhou Benshum, party leader in the most populous province of Hebei, and General Guo Boxiong, who was arrested and expelled from the CP, fell into this political ruin. The highest censored military leader.

Zhou Yongkang, the party’s former national general secretary and member of the political committee, was recently arrested and added to the list of those deposed. A very important personality of the Communist structure since Mao’s death in 1976

Yongkang was a key ally of Bo Xilai, Xi’s main rival, in a bid for power that also ended He was imprisoned and humiliated. Both questioned the opening ceremony.

The process of liberalization and privatization of powerful state-owned enterprises and banking and financial institutions was opposed as predicted in the so-called China 2030 Report of 2012, in which the World Bank and especially Premier Li Keqiang had extensive participation.

It was recommended there It weakens the grip of the government Allows the market to determine interest rates among firms as well. Critics of these measures objected to Bo Xilai’s Songqin model, which aimed to transform these institutions into inviolable national values. This is unacceptable to Xi and Li Keqiang.

Although there have been changes. Li Keqiang, an economist from the youth ranks of the CP, was with Xi during his two terms. To be released at this XX Congress.

Relations deteriorated as the Prime Minister assumed Xi’s alliance with Vladimir Putin was a mistake And the zero-covid policies, along with shutting down cities, have added huge problems to the economy. But essentially, the president wants to have total control of the economy, a feud the prime minister manages.

In this attempt to consolidate power, Xi Jinping has just cleared the way for his permanent installation Another big refinement It has been shaking the country since last September. Classified by such mechanisms Guardian As the “biggest in years,” the purge has already wiped out relevant leaders.

One of them, the most notable, is former Minister of Justice Fu Zhenghua, however, in 2015 Great service to the President In order to bring down Yongkong and his ally Bo Chila. Evidence that immunity and less grace should not be expected in those Jacobean structures.

The intensity of these conflicts indicates both the depth and the current challenges Xi Jinping’s austerity Exercising his command, he wants to protect his plan of restoration — to what extent, with it — rather than set the rules in a chaotic world that will soon be seen as being in the hands of the Central Empire.
© Copyright Clarin 2022

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