Xi Jinping’s mission to be China’s indispensable leader has been set in stone for some time, at least in his own head. And indeed, it is hard to see anyone in the immediate top circles around him who might emerge as even a remote threat to his position before the Communist Party is due, sometime towards the end of 2022, to hold its five-yearly Congress —  a big moment when its elite will either be changed, or reconfirmed in their roles. 

Despite a rocky start to this year, the overwhelming expectation is that Xi will be granted a third term as party leader — something that was not accorded to either of his two predecessors, Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao. There are potentially positive and negative reasons for this. Perhaps the Party is so wildly enthused by the unceasing successes of Xi’s leadership that it simply wants more of the same. Or perhaps Xi — a defensive politician of almost genius-level powers — has simply made sure that even the remotest source of opposition to his continuation in office has been neutered, leaving no alternative. 

To deal with the potential positive reason first. At least until the early part of this year, Xi was riding on a reasonable wave of success. China’s approach to managing COVID had resulted in fatalities and infections far below that of any other major country. Its economy was looking in good shape, despite the hits of the last two years as the pandemic spread. The hundredth anniversary celebrations of the party’s foundation in 2021 had given it an opportunity to do what it does best — trumpet its own ‘unlimited’ success and propagate positive messages about itself domestically. Chinese people might not care much for communism, or Xi Jinping Thought, despite its inscription in the country’s constitution as an official ideology. But nationalism is a gift that never ceases to keep on giving for Chinese politicians, and as the United States and Europe continued to deliver self-inflicted wounds on themselves, China’s moment of national rejuvenation looked more real than ever. 

But 2022 has not gone according to plan. Partly this is because of the actions of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, with whom Xi agreed a ‘limitless friendship’ in early February. Putin’s reckless, brutal and incompetent invasion of Ukraine launched later that month has not caused China to shift its stance of trying to appear neutral while at the same time doing what it can, short of direct military help, to assist Russia. But Xi is not someone who shows much appetite for failure, and perhaps the greatest shock of the last few weeks in Beijing has been the chaotic, poorly executed, and so far ineffective attempts by Russia to cow its former satellite. The result is that Putin has done few geopolitical favors for his only significant international friend. For Xi, it must be galling that a year once marked down as being all about his triumphal reappointment will instead be dominated by the appalling tragedy unfolding before the world in Ukraine, as its people continue to put up their defiant resistance. 

There are issues at home too. The Chinese leadership’s zero-COVID approach once had some merit. As China’s own government body for the control of infectious diseases made clear late in 2021, were the country to have suffered the same levels of infections as the U.S. or Europe, its highly uneven health system would have collapsed. 

The Omicron variant, a usually milder form of the virus which spreads far more rapidly and easily, has proved to be a game changer. A lockdown in Xian in early 2022 has become a precursor of worse to come: Xi’s edict in March to the city of Shanghai to go for similarly harsh measures to those used in Xian has led to 25 million people effectively becoming prisoners in their own homes, causing widespread and ongoing anger. The panic-stricken inflexibility of local officials, alongside the almost daily stories of families being separated, others going without food and water, or pets being destroyed while their owners get taken into quarantine, are all warning signs that a policy is no longer fit for purpose. The economy, too, is being pummeled by the uncertainty created by the constant threat of lockdowns and other disruptions. Some longer-term economic plans have been derailed: The phrase `common prosperity’, used by the Xi administration in the last few months to show how it intended to address China’s wealth inequality, has reportedly been suspended. Yet there has been no respite from the government’s two-year long onslaught on its own hi-tech and entrepreneurial companies, as it tries to enforce more political loyalty and obedience from them. 

By October or November, when the Congress is most likely to be held, a combination of these negative issues might well give wind to an attempt to shift Xi aside and have someone else play a more leading role. There is one major problem with this scenario: So far, no single figure in the elite looks close to viably offering this kind of option. The current premier Li Keqiang is due to retire. Wang Yang, Hu Chunhua, and other successful co-leaders are simply not at the level that Xi is in terms of profile, networks and hold over the party. One can gaze hard and long at the central committee list, where any leaders need to come from, and still see no names that stand out. Seemingly, Chinese party members can have any leader as long as their name is Xi Jinping.

The China of today is not much like the China that existed under the Great Helmsman. Even so, it would be a tragedy for China, for Xi, and for the world, were he to duplicate Mao by staying on far too long.

This is where the example of Putin, and the commitment to inflexible lockdown policy, becomes illuminating. Xi and Putin are almost contemporaries. And while Putin has been in power far longer than Xi, it has only been in the last ten years that the true scale of his autocratic instincts has been on show. There is no easy exit for Russia from its Ukraine debacle: The hugely negative impact on its economy, global position and future stability, provide a sobering example of what happens when an all-powerful figure has no one around them pointing out they are about to do something very dumb. For sure, the system in China is different. But the question of who among China’s elite might dare to tell Xi he needs to change his tack is a good one to ask. Clearly no one has done so yet on the lockdown issue. 

It is pretty clear Xi would prefer to be reanointed Party head in triumphantly positive circumstances: to make clear that he is getting a third term, not because there is no one else in sight but because he is the best option, and one the country actually wants, rather than is forced to have. Even so, the brute fact is that the Communist Party has no real easy alternative. Once more the case of Putin comes to mind. As in Russia, there is no potential alternative leader in the People’s Republic who has the current incumbent’s domestic political stature and networks, or, for that matter, authority. It is a sobering thought — but even if Xi were to want to step aside, it is hard to see a route to do so without risk. Ironically, he is as much a prisoner of his situation as those who have to serve upon him. 

That does not change the uncomfortable fact that China under Communist rule knows about the problems of an inflexible leader who went on too long, with no opposition to temper his excesses. We should remember the famous phrase of a former Communist leader in the 1970s, Chen Yun, who reportedly said that had Mao Zedong died after a decade in power in 1959 he would have been remembered as a great leader. Instead, he went on another 17 years, creating larger and larger problems. Xi has been compared to Mao a great deal in the last few years, sometimes fancifully: The China of today is not much like the China that existed under the Great Helmsman. Even so, it would be a tragedy for China, for Xi, and for the world, were he to duplicate Mao by staying on far too long. That, alas, looks a real possibility as we approach the 2022 Congress.

---