Steve Tsang is the Director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London. He is the co-author of a new book with Olivia Cheung titled The Political Thought of Xi Jinping, which offers a lucid analysis of China’s official political doctrine since 2017. In this lightly edited Q&A, we discuss the importance of studying Xi Jinping Thought, its shortcomings, and what Tsang’s findings reveal about Xi’s vision for China’s economy and relationship with the world.
Q: Previous Chinese leaders have each come up with their own ideologies or ways of thinking. Why is it important to understand Xi’s?
A: We need to take Xi Jinping Thought seriously because it is not like any other leader’s since Mao Zedong, not even Deng Xiaoping. People like Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao claimed to have made ideological contributions, but they were really vanity projects. They came and went with very little impact. For all intents and purposes, Mao Zedong Thought was China’s ideology from 1949 until arguably when Deng Xiaoping took over in December 1978.
When Xi unveiled Xi Jinping Thought at the 19th Party Congress in 2017, it seemed to me that he was going to make it into something that was at least comparable to Mao Zedong Thought. At the time there wasn’t much in the substance of Xi Jinping Thought that could confirm that: it was more that having seen his first five years in government, it was clear that he saw himself as a transformational leader, not a managerial leader. As a transformational leader he could put something forward to be used as the state ideology. And that’s why I thought Xi Jinping Thought was something that needed to be taken very seriously when it was released.
BIO AT A GLANCE | |
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BIRTHPLACE | Hong Kong |
CURRENT POSITION | Professor of China Studies and Director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London. |
Many followers of Chinese politics argue that it is more important to track the decisions and behavior of the CCP than its ideology and words on paper. This approach applied fairly well in the Deng era, but you argue that Xi’s politics have rendered this “Dengist pragmatism” a relic of history. Can you say more about that?
The Deng Xiaoping era consisted of two parts. You had the core of the Deng era, when Deng was very much in charge, mostly in the 1980s and to a slightly lesser extent, the early 1990s. The period between when Deng’s death in 1997 and Xi becoming leader in 2012 was the second part of this era, when Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao were in charge. These two were clearly managerial leaders. Such leaders try to keep things going, they do not make fundamental changes. Therefore, tracking actions provided an accurate indication of what was actually happening.
LENINISM | |
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The Chinese Communist Party is often referred to as a Leninist organization. According to Tsang, the key features of Leninism are:
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When you look at a transformational leader, if you only look at what he has done, you are at best a step behind. You have to look at what his vision is, what his ambitions are, what his plan is, and that is where it becomes useful to have a leader who is a bit of a megalomaniac and puts forward his ‘thought’ as a guide for the whole country and the Party. Why would you not study that and see what he actually intends to do? What he wants he may not be able to deliver. But what Xi Jinping Thought provides us is not only a vision but a plan, and the plan is to use the Communist Party as an effective, revitalized Leninist instrument of control to deliver changes. Xi Jinping Thought provides a good basis to view the direction of travel he has set for China and the way he intends for it to be executed. It doesn’t mean that you don’t look at what he has done — you do. But you have two sets of facts, if you like, to corroborate with each other.
Has Xi Jinping Thought been implemented more faithfully by the Chinese government than the ideology of previous leaders?
There are two components to implementation. There is the component of people embracing Xi Jinping Thought in principle, which is pretty much happening. People in China have no choice in the matter. Then, you have implementation in terms of delivery, which is a different story. The delivery element has not been anything like as complete as the formal embracing of Xi Jinping Thought.
The issue is that not all of his ideas are practical. So even if his thoughts were tightly conceived, coherent and consistent — which they are not — to deliver them is a lot more difficult. For example: Xi Jinping said he’s a Marxist and that the Communist Party is Marxist. Marxism stipulates social justice and social equality, and the eventual goal of delivering the communist utopia in which the state withers away. It stipulates that each person contributes according to one’s ability, and each gets according to one’s needs. Xi is in control of the most powerful party-state in human history. If there’s one state in the world that can deliver social justice and redistribution, it is the Communist Party controlled PRC. If Xi claims the Communist Party is Marxist, that means it should be delivering that. But that’s not actually happening — there’s no attempt to do that. Instead, he came up with a common prosperity program, which does not deliver social justice but merely narrows the gap slightly between the super rich and super poor. How is that consistent or coherent?
One of the main conclusions of your book is that Xi Jinping Thought is committed to forging “one strong country, one patriotic people, guided by one ideology and led by one party with one leader at the top.” Could you say more about this?
In the book, we have been very careful in describing what constitutes one country and what constitutes one ideology, one people, one party and one leader.
“One country” is very clear. Not only is this about the one China principle, which is about Taiwan, but it’s about every bit of China’s territory. If you are defined by the Communist Party as Chinese territory, you are Chinese territory — no discussion or debate about that.
“One people” is about everybody deemed by the party-state as Chinese being “properly Chinese,” which means following the mainstream Chinese meaning of Han culture, fully subscribing to the leadership of the Communist Party, its ideology, and the leadership of Xi Jinping.
This is not fundamentally racist in intention, because it applies as much to ethnic minorities such as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang as to the ethnically Han Chinese people of Hong Kong. In this conceptualization, Xi Jinping is changing the Uyghurs and the Tibetans and others into Han Chinese, and from his perspective he is elevating them to become proper Chinese citizens. So they can still call themselves Uyghurs and subscribe to Uyghur cultural traditions, but they first and foremost have to identify themselves as Chinese, subscribe to mainstream Chinese culture, support the leadership of the Communist Party, subscribe to Communism and be totally loyal to Xi Jinping.
The same applies to people in Hong Kong, who are seen as an ideological minority who are “contaminated” by misguided Western ideas of democracy and human rights and do not understand the “proper” idea of people’s democracy and the superior Chinese human rights conceptualization. If they do that and embrace the leadership of Communist Party and Xi Jinping, they will be fine too.
“One ideology” means Xi Jinping Thought is treated effectively as the state ideology, wherein everybody from kindergartens to graduate school, from street sweepers to chief executives, enlisted soldiers to three star generals, all have to learn Xi Jinping Thought. There is only one ideology and no alternative. The Communist Party has its role as the vanguard party reiterated, so other parties can exist, but only as supportive parts of the Communist Party of China.
While Xi is ideological, when he sees a threat to his hold on power, he takes a step back and deals with it as a priority.
“One leader” means the core is so important that a successor can not only not be named, but cannot even be in the zone of potential secession. Nobody is being groomed to be Xi’s successor. Nobody is being put in a position of even being able to be identified as a successor.
Doesn’t the lack of a loyal successor imperil the sustainability of Xi’s ideology in the long run?
That’s why we describe Xi Jinping Thought in the book not as an ideology, but a “proto-ideology.” Xi Jinping Thought it isn’t fully developed as something that can be a proper ideology. It spells out clearly what Xi’s vision is for China by 2049, but there’s nothing beyond that. What happens beyond the fulfillment of the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation? Nothing.
A selection of propaganda posters in support of the ‘Chinese Dream’, 2013-2015. Credit: BG E37/724, PC-201b-l-004, BG E37/834, BG E37/932, BG E37/937, BG E37/946, (chineseposters.net, Landsberger, Private collection)
That’s not what an ideology is: an ideology does not normally have a termination date. It may become irrelevant, but it doesn’t expire. Xi Jinping Thought effectively has an expiry date, because it doesn’t actually have anything beyond that date. And the man is only 70 this year. 2049 is 25 years from now. Somebody who believes that he has a mission — a Marx-given mission that is larger than life — is not an individual who thinks much about his mortality. With the best healthcare, 95 years old in the 21st century is not unachievable. So I don’t think he is thinking about him not being able to live to see the fulfillment of the Chinese Dream. I have not seen any evidence that Xi thinks the lack of a successor is a problem.
What are the origins of Xi Jinping Thought? To what extent were they formulated in response to the shortcomings of Xi’s predecessors?
Xi’s rise and ability to consolidate power so quickly had to do with the weaknesses and problems the Communist Party was facing by the tail end of the Hu Jintao era. It is somewhat ironic because the ten years of Hu and Wen Jiabao as leaders were arguably a very good time for China, but was also a time when corruption was rampant and hugely undermining the capacity of the Communist Party to function effectively as a Leninist instrument. The CCP’s corruption provided the scope for Xi to flex his muscle quickly and in a very politically astute way.
Xi Jinping Thought did not exist in 2012 when he became General Secretary. He didn’t start talking about it really until 2016 or 2017. It was something that developed in a process. Xi’s ambition for China would exist, even without the problems that the Communist Party was facing. He was not there just to fix those problems. He is about making China great again. That is very different from the kind of mission that Hu Jintao had. Hu was holding the reins, keeping things going. It’s based on that ambition and commitment that Xi developed his body of thought. He could see that if he was going to be the transformational leader, he would have to look back into history to Mao Zedong for a comparison.
To be clear, Xi Jinping is not trying to attempt a Maoist restoration. The reference to Mao is quite simply that between Mao and him, nobody was worthy, not even Deng Xiaoping. That shows you the scale of his ambition. When Xi was coming up with his vision he reiterated that he is a Marxist and is committed to Marxism, but most of the time he really is referring to Leninism. The problem here is that he didn’t even see Lenin as worthy of being mentioned. Marx is different, as the one who founded it, not Lenin. So even though Xi is a dedicated Leninist and was doing all the things that Leninism requires and teaches, he describes it as Marxism.
But Xi draws his real inspiration by going back into Chinese history, and trying to make Marxism fit with his version of China’s history. Now, his understanding of Chinese history is highly problematic, underscored by Document Number Nine of 2013, which proscribed normal history as historical nihilism. There’s only one permitted version of history, and that is his version. In this reconstruction, the greatness of China came from an emperor who was all knowing and all wise, representing positive energy and goodness, as the center of ‘all under heaven’. It’s a version of history in which China was the center of the civilized world. So it was meant to be universal in its application, limited only by the lack of globalization in the pre-modern era.
This is where Xi Jinping comes up with his ideology. That’s the oneness side of those descriptions, which come from Marxism-Leninism. But the Sino-centric dimension of its greatness comes from Xi’s understanding of Chinese history.
Does Xi Jinping Thought offer insight into how he wants China’s economy to look in practice?
Yes it does. The Deng approach was almost whatever it took, whatever worked, that’s okay. As long as whatever works and whatever it took would not challenge the political leadership of the Communist Party, you could do almost anything with the economy.
The Xi approach is that the planned part of the economy must be the mainstay of the economy. And it is there that the real national champions should be groomed and developed and supported. But the reality of the Chinese economy is that the private sector is much more vibrant and profitable, and arguably also more innovative. So Xi is choosing an economic model which puts more emphasis on the less efficient part of the economy at the expense of the more efficient part.
Xi Jinping visits the headquarters of Huawei UK, and meets Huawei’s founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, October 21, 2015. Credit: CCTV via YouTube
Xi does not prohibit private enterprises. They can exist and even be encouraged to flourish, but they must follow and embrace the leadership of the Party to be allowed the privilege. You can have a company like Huawei, which is a private enterprise and enjoys a kind of support and privilege that even most state owned enterprises with ministerial rank don’t enjoy. Which other company in China enjoys the full weight of the state when the daughter of its founder is detained by a foreign country? Huawei got that, because Huawei in its own way has always done what the Communist Party would like to see a private enterprise do. It’s genuinely innovative in many ways and has always looked after the interests of the Communist Party and China. Huawei is the ideal representation of what a private enterprise under Xi Jinping’s conceptualization would be like. But apart from Huawei, we haven’t seen any other private enterprise being given that recognition or level of support.
One can extend that basic approach towards Xi Jinping’s conceptualization of engagement with foreign businesses, which are welcome in China as long as they are delivering what the Communist Party wants them to deliver. When they cease to do so, they lose their value and therefore would no longer enjoy support from China. We’ve seen exactly that happen with, for example, companies like Volkswagen. Once upon a time it was the darling of the Chinese state, but now that China has leapfrogged from traditional automobiles to EVs and become a leader, Volkswagen can swim or sink.
Does Xi Jinping Thought offer any clues into how the government intends to respond to the country’s current economic woes?
While Xi is ideological, when he sees a threat to his hold on power, he takes a step back and deals with it as a priority. That was very clearly articulated in 2012, right after Xi became leader, when he talked about the collapse of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the emergence of a ‘traitor’ like Gorbachev in the CPSU, and how the rest of the comrades in the CPSU were not man enough to stand up against him.
We shouldn’t assume that Xi will only go in one direction because of his ideological focus on enhancing the Party’s rule and control. If Xi sees the economy getting into a tailspin that could potentially destabilize the system, he will come out and reverse himself. We saw that happen with the reversal of zero-Covid; that can also apply to how he manages the economy.
Xi’s approach to economic stimulus is a more old fashioned Communist Party approach, as opposed to a more creative alternative. A creative alternative would focus not on building hard infrastructure, whose marginal return in China is by now very low, but soft infrastructure like investment into healthcare and education. Because investments are not made in health and education services, Chinese families are still much bigger savers than they are consumers, which is a major source of the Chinese economic slowdown.
Why do you think it is that Xi is so reluctant to embrace a greater welfare state in China?
Xi Jinping Thought is based more on Chinese tradition and the Chinese past as Xi understood it than it is based on Marxism. He is trying to make Marxism dovetail with that Chinese tradition and the traditional Chinese economy was not one that involved the state playing a major social welfare role. Since the imperial times, the first emperor strove not to rely on government redistribution. During stable, peaceful imperial dynasties, local gentries performed philanthropy work so it was not the state that was responsible. There is this long standing anti-welfarism that predates even the modern anti-welfare language. And Xi Jinping is completely anti-welfare.
Does it still make sense for watchers of Chinese leadership politics to keep track of institutional norms like age limits, given Xi has abandoned them for himself?
MISCELLANEA | |
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BOOK REC | Sparks by Ian Johnson |
FAVORITE FILM | The Last of the Mohicans |
FAVORITE SINGER | Katherine Jenkins |
MOST ADMIRED | George Washington, the man who could have been king but chose to run for office. |
The kind of institutionalization we’re talking about is a very shallow form of institutionalization. It was a process that started in the Deng Xiaoping era and went on for two or three decades, before Xi came in and reversed that. So it was not a strong form of institutionalization to begin with. Had it gone on for another 50 years, 70 years, 100 years, then we’d be talking about a much more entrenched type of institutionalization.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that the Chinese system does not respect the rule of law. In a system not based on the rule of law, institutionalization is essentially a customary process and is weak. If you have a system which puts the rule of law above all, then your shadow of institutionalization would become a lot more robust more quickly, because people accept constitutional conventions as binding. There’s nothing to stop China’s Leninist system from transitioning into something else unless you have a dedicated Leninist who is prepared to do whatever it takes to reverse any deviation. Xi is such a dedicated Leninist.
But it is too early to abandon the study of age norms, because the norms have been broken for one but not for all. It’s only for Xi Jinping and whoever Xi Jinping says the retirement age doesn’t apply to. For everybody else, the conventions that were being established in the Deng Xiaoping era still apply. Most people still have to retire by the stipulated retirement age.
The convention that was broken with the greatest impact was actually the ending of absolute immunity for current or former Politburo Standing Committee members. That immunity ended when Xi Jinping took Zhou Yongkang down in 2014. This was the single most important change apart from Xi Jinping abolishing the retirement age for himself because it made it politically impossible for Xi Jinping to not stay in power until he dies. Having abolished that absolute immunity, Xi cannot be sure that his successor would not come after him should he retire.
What does Xi Jinping Thought teach us about Xi’s foreign policy ambitions?
If foreign governments think that Xi Jinping’s ambitions are big, they need to think bigger. His ambitions are much larger than the imaginations of Washington or London. Most Americans who worry about China see it in terms of Xi Jinping trying to compete against the United States and seize leadership from the United States of the existing U.S.-led liberal international order.
Xi Jinping is looking at transforming the existing liberal international order into something that is vastly superior from his perspective.
Xi Jinping does not want that, which is why he openly said he doesn’t want a Cold War 2.0. Cold War 1.0 was based on the liberal international order. Xi Jinping is looking at transforming the existing liberal international order into something that is vastly superior from his perspective. It is a return to the old Chinese tianxia paradigm, when China was supposed to be the most advanced and technologically sophisticated civilization, and therefore the strongest power on earth, to which everyone deferred, admired and wanted to learn from. It was Pax Sinica without China having to impose its military force on anybody else. After all, if everybody deferred to China and embraced Chinese leadership, why would you need to invade anybody?
In this conceptualization, China requests everybody else to pay deference to it, but it does not take on the responsibility of functioning effectively as the global policeman. It requires everybody to abide by that hierarchy without a mechanism to make sure that everyone is looked after and properly represented. Xi has explained that China will represent them because China is forever a part of the global south. Because the global south is much more numerous in absolute population terms and in the number of countries, China’s leadership of it would by definition be the most democratic in global governance terms.
Under the tianxia paradigm, autocracies could feel safe, because they will not be one narrative about the end of history and how democracy has prevailed, and how everybody must play by the rules of democracies and human rights. Autocracies would feel very comfortable in that world.
It’s about changing the order with the U.S. hegemony of the old order going with it, and not simply trying to outsmart the Americans on rules of the game set by the Americans. China under Xi Jinping wants to change the rules of the game.
Eliot Chen is a Toronto-based staff writer at The Wire. Previously, he was a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Human Rights Initiative and MacroPolo. @eliotcxchen