China’s Search for ‘National Rejuvenation’

Domestic and Foreign Policies under Xi Jinping

Jabin T. Jacob, The Anh Hoang, Jabin T. Jacob, The Anh Hoang

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9789811527951
• eBook ISBN:
  9789811527968
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política asiática

This volume discusses a range of key domestic forces driving the current Chinese growth ranging from economic reforms to governance practices to analyze their impact and influence at home as well as on China's foreign and security policies in its near and extended neighbourhood. At the same time, the volume also looks at specific themes like technology, agricultural development, reform of state-owned enterprises and the use of Party bodies to engage in foreign propaganda work among other things to offer examples of the merging of Chinese domestic political and foreign policy interests. In the process, the book offers its readers a better idea of China's place in the world as the Chinese themselves see it and the implications over time for China, its neighbourhood and the wider world.

Part IIntroduction

© The Author(s) 2020

J. T. Jacob, T. A. Hoang (eds.)China’s Search for ‘National Rejuvenation’https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2796-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. ‘National Rejuvenation’ as Panacea for China’s Domestic and External Challenges

Jabin T. Jacob^{1, 2} and Hoang The Anh ³

(1)

Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar University, Uttar Pradesh, India

(2)

National Maritime Foundation, New Delhi, India

(3)

Institute of Chinese Studies, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Hanoi, Vietnam

Jabin T. Jacob (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Hoang The Anh

Keywords

Political ideologyEconomic developmentCentralizationForeign policyReforms and modernization

End Abstract

The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October 2017 is by all accounts a landmark event in the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and of the ruling CPC. The Congress saw the solidification of CPC General Secretary and PRC President Xi Jinping’s personal political authority within the Party as well as set the direction for a series of domestic reforms that have long-term consequences both internally and externally. The Congress is a culmination of the recentralization of power under Xi in the sense that it gave an official stamp to the process by enshrining ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ in the Party constitution. At the same time, it is as much a beginning—hence, also the reference in Xi’s Report to the Congress to a “new era” in Chinese history—in the sense that the CPC will need fresh measures to both continue and stabilize this process of recentralization of power.

Recentralization has been marketed by the CPC as being necessary for the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” (Xi 2017) but “national rejuvenation” is not possible without China tackling both domestic and foreign challenges. In Xi’s words, this requires the CPC to:

… conscientiously safeguard the solidarity and unity of the Party, maintain the Party’s deep bond with the people, and strengthen the great unity of the Chinese people of all ethnic groups and the great unity of all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation at home and abroad. We must unite all the forces that can be united and work as one to progress toward the brilliant future of national rejuvenation. (Xi 2017)

In this statement to the 19th Party Congress, Xi also highlights what he sees as the challenges—maintaining Party unity, the relationship of the Party with the masses, social and ethnic rifts within the population and the need to tap the resources and reach of ethnic Chinese beyond China’s borders. Thus, the reasons and directions for this ‘national rejuvenation’ are derived from internal debilities and contradictions just as the means and ability to sustain the rejuvenation are derived from strengths and competencies built up by the CPC over the course of decades both within the country and outside. What needs to be underlined is the intimate connection between Chinese domestic policies and its external policies and outreach. To underestimate the influence and importance of domestic politics and considerations for the CPC in the formulation of the country’s foreign and security policies as well as the impact of external events on China’s internal political dynamics would be a mistake. This volume attempts to explain each of these aspects if not comprehensively at least substantially across several themes and geographies.

The challenges outlined by Xi and the CPC are not new for China and nor is the search for national rejuvenation in the country a new phenomenon. At least in the modern era, it traces its roots to the ‘self-strengthening movement’ during the Qing dynasty in the middle of the nineteenth century. As the CPC neared victory in the civil war on mainland China in 1949, Mao Zedong declared that the Chinese people had “stood up” and that they had “friends all over the world” (Mao 1949), but, of course, there was much that remained to be done in order for China to find what it considered its legitimate place in the world.

The reference to “national rejuvenation” in this work refers to this continuing effort by the Chinese Party-state with a focus on the renewed attempts by Xi to carry this process forward. As he puts it, the ‘new era’

… will be an era for the Chinese people of all ethnic groups to work together and work hard to create a better life for themselves and ultimately achieve common prosperity for everyone. It will be an era for all of us, the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation, to strive with one heart to realize the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation. (Xi 2017)

Thus, the CPC is once again talking about the need for the Chinese people to make sacrifices at the national and individual levels to ensure that China converts its domestic strengths to global standing and leverage. And these sacrifices will be necessary because of the economic difficulties that China faces on both the domestic and external fronts.

Continuing Economic Challenges

The global economic situation today is one in which countries appear to be turning inwards and protectionist. This is the result of the global economy slowing and the experiences of a series of economic shocks over the past decade starting with the global financial crisis of 2008 and including such country- or region-specific events such as the anti-corruption campaign in China and demonetization in India. Together with social stresses created by issues such as the flow of migrants/refugees to Europe, for instance, this has resulted in a series of conservative, right-leaning governments taking power or threatening established political consensus on free trade and democratic rights in even many developed economies. A prime case in point is the United States (US) where Donald Trump was elected president with the slogan “Make America Great Again” and under which the US is threatening to wall itself off against immigrants.

China has tried to take advantage of the moment by launching the BRI and by attempting to fill the vacuum being created by American/Western withdrawal from the provision of various global public goods.

Nevertheless, not only does the US remain a formidable economic, military and political power in the world today but China’s attempts to claim the mantle of No. 1 are limited against the backdrop of its own considerable economic challenges, even if Xi (2017) claims that China is “closer, more confident, and more capable than ever before of making the goal of national rejuvenation a reality”.

Some of these challenges are old and persistent. Inequality is a major challenge at multiple levels. There is the inequality between the different regions of China—the coastal east, the interior provinces, the western provinces and the northeastern industrial rustbelt—as well as within provinces themselves. Then there is the inequality that exists between urban and rural areas, as well as the huge gaps in income between individuals. While extreme poverty is expected to be eliminated by 2020 (Xinhua 2019), in time for the centennial of the founding of the CPC in 2021, the problem in China is now of relative poverty—of the sense of deprivation that those without too many means feel while observing the lives of the rich, the prosperous and the connected in China. Regional inequalities even play into admissions to China’s top universities (Fu 2018).

Meanwhile, despite the Third Plenum Decision of the 18th CPC Central Committee in 2013 which talked about giving a “decisive role in resource allocation” to market forces (Xinhua 2013), Xi has subsequently focused on strengthening state-owned enterprises (SOEs) instead and both promoting them as “national champions” and calling on them to become leaders internationally (Cai 2017). Currently, SOEs hold the greatest amount of unproductive assets and debt and yet get most of the credit from state-controlled banks (Wang and Leng 2018). What is more, Xi has also strengthened the Party’s presence in Chinese private enterprises (Chen 2019; see also The Conversation 2019) as well as foreign ones located in China (Martina 2017) calling into question the distinction between private and public in the Chinese economy.

All of this has implications for the efficiency of the Chinese economy, including the viability of the BRI—note that most Chinese companies involved in BRI projects abroad are SOEs and if they carry forward the same lack of environmental standards or business practices from China, then there are reasons for host countries to beware of Chinese investments. Add to these, there are problems within of Chinese officials exhibiting a ‘go slow’ attitude to work, for instance, which has required ever more exhortations from Xi to the CPC to reduce what is euphemistically referred to as “bureaucratism” (Xi 2017).

On the positive side of the ledger is the Chinese leadership’s farsighted focus on gaining leadership in both basic and frontier-edge technologies from telecom hardware to mobile payment applications to social media and artificial intelligence-based big data applications. This is a new ‘Great Leap Forward’ in Chinese economic history and likely to be far more successful than the first iteration in the late 1950s–early 1960s.

At the same time, the coercive economic measures and plain stealing that China has practised in this technological race has invited strong reactions with the US finally reacting to this mercantilist Chinese approach in the form of the trade war and restrictions on technology transfers to China.

If the CPC under Xi appears to have some handle on the problems of political unity and reform of governance structures and mechanisms within the country and the Party, resolving the domestic economic situation is a harder task given China’s close integration with the world economy. It could be argued that while transforming the pattern of economic development has been a strategic focus in China’s economic reform process since the 18th CPC National Congress, success has eluded the Party primarily for political reasons of control and incentives available to local leaderships. It is at least partly to address these challenges that the anti-corruption campaign, Xi’s recentralization of power and the renewed emphasis on strengthening of state-owned enterprises as ‘national champions’ have taken place.

Several chapters in this volume underline the centrality of the Chinese economy to domestic developments as well as the importance of the economy to China’s larger global ambitions. The Chinese economy is today a major player globally and any impact whether negative or positive on its economy—brought out by political processes and considerations at home and abroad—will have corresponding impact on the global economy.

The ‘China Model’

The grand CPC strategic vision melding the domestic political agenda of unity and maintaining Party supremacy with the goal internationally of increasing Chinese economic might and political influence is exemplified by Xi’s statement at the 19th Party Congress where he defined “socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era”, as that which “offers a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence; and it offers Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind” (Xi 2017).

What this also underlines, however, is that where once the CPC thought it could learn from the outside world and control the consequences at the same time or at least that the consequences would not fundamentally threaten its own existence, today the measures undertaken by Xi suggest that such confidence no longer exists. From the heavy-handed anti-corruption campaign to the ever increasing number of directives and instructions underlining limits to debates in universities to the constant drumbeat of state-driven propaganda and adulation of Xi to the extreme surveillance measures used against its own citizens, the Party looks less like it is in charge and more like it is fire-fighting.

In fact, under Xi, the CPC has sharpened its battle against Western norms and ideas and is taking this practically to the level of an existential issue. To this end, the CPC is combining its Marxist-Leninist heritage with supposed Chinese traditional values that favour hierarchy and order in society and abroad to try and prevail against Western liberal ideals and the international order dominated by the West. Hitherto, this conflict with the West was evident usually only when reading between the lines of Chinese statements and actions. At the 19th National Congress of the CPC, even if a supposedly domestic affair, Xi appears to have more formally and explicitly acknowledged this challenge to the West by, among other things, “offer[ing] Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind” (Xi 2017).

Xi appears to believe the centennial goals of building “a moderately prosperous society in all respects” and “a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, cultural...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. Introduction
• Part II. Domestic Developments
• Part III. Neighbourhood Policies
• Part IV. CPC Propaganda Abroad
• Part V. Economic Development and Foreign Policy
• Back Matter