Last month, Xi Jinping might have become the world’s most powerful man. The Chinese Communist Conference that takes place every five years has granted him a historic third term, making him the first president since Mao Zedong to rule for over a decade. Nonetheless, his notoriety does not match his power outside of China, despite his influence stretching far beyond his country’s borders. He does not have the status of an American president, nor the media attention of Vladimir Putin, yet in the years to come, he might become more important than both. If you are wondering why we should bother getting to know the man better, this article should give you a few reasons to care about who China’s leader is.
China’s Rise and the CCP
It is a secret to no one, that since 2000, China’s position on the world stage has constantly grown bigger. Up until 2006, the UK’s economy was larger than that of China. Today, a mere 16 years later, China’s economy is seven times that of the UK. Enabling and overseeing this rise, was one institution, which despite all the change has remained central to the country: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Party which counts almost 100 million members has ruled China since the end of the civil war in 1949, and as much as it was responsible for the millions of deaths during the famines of the “Great Leap Forward”, it has also provided the stability that enabled the most recent growth. In the last decade, one man became the face of the party and the country: Xi Jinping.
Xi Jinping has been the president since 2012, and for the first time since Mao, a Chinese leader will go onto rule for more than a decade. The two-term limit (of 10 years) was scrapped in 2018, allowing him to essentially rule for life. During his premiership, China has changed immensely. Xi’s first goal was to end corruption in the party and administration at all costs, and therefore he went after the “tigers and the flies” in the CCP.
In total, over a million people have been arrested, imprisoned, or sentenced to death. This includes ministers, high ranking military officials, as well as local civil servants. This anti-corruption campaign not only cleaned up the CCP but also conveniently eliminated all political opposition.
From Ruling China to Ruling the World
Xi has also been working towards the “Great Rejuvenation” of the Chinese nation: A desire to unite China culturally, territorially, and ideologically. This is the basis for the persecution of the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, the crackdown on democracy in Hong-Kong, and it is certainly the motivation for the increasing tension surrounding Taiwan. As Xi has repeatedly put it in his vision of the “Chinese Dream”, the Chinese people should “stick together like the seeds of a pomegranate”. To achieve this, Xi has repeatedly claimed that if force was needed, he would not hesitate to use it. He cracked down on Hong-Kong’s freedoms, and we have heard much of the Uyghurs’ persecution. Taiwan, I fear, may be next.
Lastly, Xi has promoted Chinese interests abroad more vigorously than his predecessors. He invested over a trillion dollars in the “new silk road”. This project involved more than 65 countries in Asia, Africa, and eastern Europe and made Europe more dependent on China than ever before. In effect, Xi wished to demonstrate that China was now a global superpower.
Indeed, China has already expanded its influence on more than half of the African continent by sponsoring major infrastructure projects. It has built military bases throughout the South China Sea, and it has even gained the support of European nations such as Portugal, Hungary, and Greece. This has allowed China to secure votes in its favour both in the UN and in the EU. It is through this influence for instance, that in 2018 any debate surrounding the Uyghurs’ persecution was rejected at the UN, as many nations supported China.
China’s influence on Western countries is growing day by day as Xi continues to promote a “Chinese World Order”. We are in a situation, where China is outwardly stating that human rights do not apply to their system. Xi, therefore, is able to reject all criticism when he and the CCP violate them. Unfortunately, Western powers are so dependent on China economically, that they are powerless to act in the face of these gross violations. Criticism of China’s human right record has become difficult everywhere since no one can afford to offend their biggest trade partner.
Sanctions on China, like those the West has imposed on Russia since their illegal invasion of Ukraine, would be impossible to impose on China. Xi is aware of this, which is why he has stopped pretending that he cares about human rights, international laws, and indeed all other agreements, including the 1984 Anglo-Chinese treaty guaranteeing a degree of independence in Hong Kong.
Dissent Allowed?
Even at the individual level, speaking up against China has become increasingly difficult in the West. A few weeks ago, China physically infringed on free speech in Manchester, when pro-Hong-Kong demonstrators were beaten up by employees of the Chinese Consulate.
This unprecedented event shows that China is unashamed of its views and is not bothered about breaking diplomatic precedent and UK law. Worst of all, however, is the fact that whilst such behaviour from any other country would have provoked a diplomatic incident, probably resulting in expulsions if not sanctions, China will probably get away with this.
The Chinese sphere of influence is increasingly affecting all of our key institutions, which contributes to limiting our freedoms, in ways that are not obvious. In universities across the world, Confucius Institutes sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Education, have pushed universities closer to China. In sports, Chinese businessmen have bought clubs, which made it impossible for athletes to voice opinions about Xi’s politics. For instance, in the NBA, where the Boston Celtics player Enes Freedom’s career was essentially ended because he dared to show support for Hong Kong, the Uyghurs, and Taiwan.
Similarly, the arts have not escaped China’s influence either, with Chinese patrons of museums or concert halls making sure that strong opinions against China abroad remain muted. Just recently, the New York Philharmonic inaugurated its new hall where the main auditorium, the Tsai theatre is named after Joe Tsai, co-founder of Alibaba, China’s Amazon. He is someone who has repeatedly defended China’s crackdown on Hong Kong’s democracy and justified China’s human rights record. These are just some examples, of how Xi Jinping has managed to gain influence in the West, whilst securing its silence. Xi is without doubt the most powerful Chinese president ever, as even Chairman Mao did not exert such influence outside China.
The Best Surveillance State in History
It is with this agenda of stability, unity, and power abroad that Xi led China into new era: the Xi Jinping era. After the Mao Zedong era, where China stood up and the Deng Xiaoping era, where China became prosperous, China is now in the Xi Jinping era, where it is becoming powerful. To that end, Xi Jinping has been extremely concerned about securing his power by suppressing all dissent. The anti-corruption purges allowed him to suppress dissent within the party, but his control over the press, the internet, and people’s daily lives, has allowed him to crush all popular opposition before it even approaches the surface.
For the first time in history, a country is very close to being a total surveillance state. Technology has allowed Xi and the CCP to track every thought, every conversation and every movement. Even the Soviet Union and the East-German Stasti were incapable of that. A dystopian system of Social credits has been instated, where citizens can gain or lose points according to who they meet, what rules they break, or how they speak about the party. A “Xi Jinping App” has also been developed to teach citizens about Xi’s vision. The truth is that Xi, after seeing the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and USSR in the 1990s, is focused on maintaining his and the CCP’s power by any means necessary.
This determination to remain in power has never been more obvious than during the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has revealed just how far Xi is willing to go to maintain stability. When reports of the first outbreaks were coming out of Wuhan, the government did everything to suppress this information. The videos the doctors posted to warn the population and later express their anger at the authorities’ inaction were taken down, and the doctors arrested and accused of spreading false information.
When the spread of Covid was no longer containable, the government then did everything to cover up their own failure to react. Online, discussions in anyway related to Covid-19 were taken down within seconds. Criticism against Xi Jinping’s tyrannical and Orwellian Zero Covid policy was also suppressed. Instead, Xi constantly repeated that he had saved China from millions of deaths in comparison to Western democracies. In essence, Xi through his control over the internet and the press, has been able to rewrite the elements that did not suit his narrative.
What is there to do against the leader of the world’s most populous country, who does not believe in human rights, democracy, and free speech, and who is determined to bring a large portion of the world into his sphere of influence? It seems like no one has an answer to this question.
Just recently, when Russia was bombarding Kyiv, Sir Jeremy Fleming, head of GCHQ, maintained in an interview with the BBC, that the biggest threat to the UK’s national security was still China, despite Russia’s attempts to invade Ukraine. It seems like all major Western powers are trying to “be tough on China”, yet they seem to be short of options to do it without affecting their economies.
It seems like China has grown to be not only uncontrollable but also thirsty for power. At first, the West encouraged it. America and its allies were prepared to outsource their manufacturing to China. Now, with Xi as their helmsman, China believes that it is its time to lead the world. In Xi Jinping’s mind, the question is clearly not whether China will ever rule the world but how and when.