Ozymandias (Imgur guide to current intrigues in the CCP)

Like a giant statue that dominates the horizon, President Xi Jinping imposes himself upon Asia; a colossus, his policies and every utterance almost impossible to ignore. He seemingly fits the model of every despot ever; the cult of personality around him appears to grow daily.

But stare a little closer and you can see not all is how it seems. How not everyone besides him seems to be smiling. Gaze deep enough and you begin to spot cracks in the foundation of this imaginary statue. For the first time in his Premiership there seems to be dissent towards Xi from high ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party. Not a rebellion, no, but something…

In about 4 months time the Chinese Communist Party is going to hold their 20th National Congress. This will decide if President Xi gains his third time as ruler of China. But it also decides so much more than that. Which means that the battles behind the scenes to decide what will happen then?

They are happening now.
Most Vital Edit: Thank you UserSub for the kind words and smart feedback. Happy Birthday America.

The aim of this post is to examine the case of actual dissent within Party circles that is causing raised eyebrows, as well as try and work out what could be driving it. It also rambles over broader issues, looking at more widespread signs of disquiet in China today. I don’t think we are looking at any kind of new revolution here, but there is stuff which is fascinating to study.

But I would say that. I’m a geek. Who writes overlong posts on Imgur. Anyway, grab a coffee/refreshing beverage of choice, get comfy on the sofa/train/toilet and I will try and explain the situation. As always, there will be many, many links, providing sources to back up what I say.

Added to that, there will be references and links to all the previous posts on China I’ve done over the years, in case you see me say something and go ‘Wait? Where you get THAT from?’. Oh and a nice jaunty little TL;DR to stick in your bonnet (located at the end, just scroll down if you can’t be bothered to read the substantive). Anyway, onwards and upwards.

THE Meeting

While the date is not set officially at the moment, at sometime in October or November we will see the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/China-to-hold-party-congress-in-November-report I explained away the whole inner workings of the CCP once in a separate post two years ago (go read this here if you fancy it https://imgur.com/gallery/rj8hnzN), but basically the National Party Congress (NPC) happens once every five years, and is where around 3,000 of the main CCP members will come together for two weeks. Here they will basically decide what the Party should be focusing upon as it rules China over the next five years. That’s its formal role. Informally?

It is where the Party very quietly resolve their internal differences (not that they ever admit they are having internal differences). It usually reveals these tensions during voting. See, while the NPC decides what China should focus on for the next five years, they also decide WHO should be in charge of delivering it.

It does this under the guise of electing the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The Central Committee is the Party’s ‘Board of Directors’, 370 core members (and alternates), whose usually made up of a mixture of government ministers, senior regulatory officials, high ranking military officers, and the regional and provincial leaders.

Basically the whole thing is MOSTLY a rubber stamping exercise, as the ‘agenda’ the NPC tells the Party to focus on for the next five years has already been decided by the elite of the Party, who usually also decide the membership of the Central Committee beforehand. It’s just that, every so often, rarely it must be said, but now and then, what we see in the room is a manifestation of some hidden shenanigans. Sometimes the elite of the CCP do not always sing from the same song sheet. And sometimes the voting reflects this (a few years ago for example, there was a backlash against ‘Princelings’ (the sons of high ranking Party members), and some barely made it onto the Central Committee (including, it should be said, Xi Jinping)).

What this all means is that, in its own draconian, convoluted way, we are in Presidential Election season in China, and there is much to play for. (Technically it is ‘General Secretary of the Party’ election season, https://www.chinausfocus.com/2022-CPC-congress/prelude-anticipated-major-leadership-changes-at-chinas-20th-party-congress ) Because while Xi is THE leader and is the power supreme, it is right now that IF he is going to face any opposition, he will face opposition. Not openly. But quietly. With the possibility of surprising moments in the big room being the only sign of INTENSE action happening out of sight.

So am I saying we should expect sudden surprising moments over the next few months? Yes and no. It’s a possibility. The reason its a possibility is down to the schism in the CCP. One that has been brewing for a few years now. One that appears to be manifesting itself in some acts of defiance towards Xi. That’s right, we are seeing small signs of dissent towards Xi in his own party. And these could be really significant. Or they could not be significant at all. Yeah, it gets like that.

The CCP Schism

At it’s simplest and easiest to understand (and there is always wayyyyy more to this issue, and every issue I describe in this post, please keep that in mind), the CCP is roughly split into two camps at the moment. These are not like opposing parties, or even actual factions. Consider the CCP as a large group of people who all happily agree the way they run China is awesome. They just disagree as to how the CCP should run itself

The first camp are roughly a generation of leaders who came up in the Party during the tenure of the previous Presidents, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. These are all loyal to the Party, but the Party they were grew up with was really the ‘Post-Mao Era’ version of the CCP. Mao Zedong had dominated the CCP for decades, making sure he remained in power no matter what the cost. It’s a bit more complex than this obviously. As the above article says “In the CCP’s official narrative, political generations have long been based on the distinct collective political experiences of the Party elite. They were the Long March generation, the Anti-Japanese War generation, the Socialist Transformation generation, and the Cultural Revolution generation. Recently, however, a more commonly used way to describe… generations (regardless of whether referring to elites or non-elites) is based on decades: the post-1950s generation (wulinghou), the post-1960s generation (liulinghou), and the post-1970s generation (qilinghou)”.

During the rulership of the next three Presidents of China then, the CCP changed the way they ran their party. The ‘qilinghou’ have never had one man dominate the Party as Mao had done. It became an era of collective responsibility, and collective actions. The various leaders would work together, running their own groups of loyal underlings, and focused on finding consensus to bring on board many differing ideas as to how they should be doing things.

It was during this era that the Party changed on the surface; while always calling themselves Communist, they basically dumped it as a policy and opened the country up to capitalism. China, in turn, underwent some big changes. But the Party itself didn’t change at a base level. Bottom line, they were still ALL about control over the nation and unity within the Party.

And then along came Xi… who, we discovered, was a very different creature from many of the members. The difference was in how he perceived the Party. Xi holds to Mao’s way of thought. Maoist belief isn’t just a political position on economics; Maoism is about the CCP being permanently in a state of Revolution, with a strong leader guiding this revolution. It is based on the belief that it is only by being in that kind of state, that the Party can remain strong.

Understand also, Xi didn’t seize this power. He was given it. See, back in 2010 the CCP realised it needed to do something profoundly risky- they had to utterly change their economic model to become one that could compete with Western Developed nations. This eventually led them to create the dramatic blueprint for this change in 2015, the radical decade long economic plan, ‘Made in China 2025’.

Introducing such a dramatic change economically, however, would cause social tensions. They knew this was coming. So it was felt a strong guy in charge would be ideal to keep the ship steady. Hence Xi got the top job. (The whole Made in China 2025 plan and why Xi was given the power he was, is explained here https://imgur.com/gallery/pdCsSOQ dear Lord I wrote this 3 years ago; I’ve been posting about China for way too long).

The key to his consolidation of power within the Party (and something that if I was to try and explain in proper detail would require an entire separate post or five), was his all-important ‘anti-corruption’ campaign. It genuinely did allowed him deal with actual cases of corruption and abuse that were taking place within China by members of the CCP sure, yes it did that. But it also allowed him go after those who opposed him or who he perceived as a threat (and that includes anyone in China who has wealth and power who isn’t beholden to the Party) https://www.npr.org/2021/03/04/947943087/how-chinas-massive-corruption-crackdown-snares-entrepreneurs-across-the-country?t=1656932837694
“I am a jealous God and thou shall worship none but me…”

As this campaign went on, Xi also sought to consolidate power towards him and his way of thinking. He marginalised Premier Li (covered in the post I did 2 years ago, not the one from 3 years ago); he elevated people who thought the same way he did and/or were loyal to him and he was made the ‘Core’ leader (which means he is President AND Head of the Party AND de facto Head of the Military). He is copying Mao (without the famines hopefully). He has pushed China in new directions economically and diplomatically. And this is causing push back from the folks who are use to the collective ‘we are all in this together’ way of running the CCP.

That’s it really. It isn’t that much I know. Xi on his side, with his people, being opposed by those who were use to not having anyone be so draconian with them (as they were busy being draconian upon everyone not in the top echelons of the CCP lest we forget).

So, that’s the schism in the Party. It’s not much by way of ‘viable opposition to President Xi’ but it is all we’ve got right now. And if you were to ask me last year is the ‘anti-Xi’ element of the CCP any threat to him’, I would have said no. But then 2 years ago I also wrote this about Xi on Imgur…

“It’s all on him now. Every success China has in the current era reflects upon Xi, making him more entrenched, more a symbol of China’s growing success globally. But every failure, every mistake, every misstep, also falls on him now. Making him the focus of any negativity felt about those things.”

The thing is… there HAVE been some mistakes and missteps. Things that are not glorious events for China to celebrate. And this is on Xi. This is entirely on him. And as such we are seeing… well more signs of dissent lately than we have seen in a while.

Still with me? I know, it’s a lot. I don’t want to give you a books worth of materials on the actual dynamics of the many facets of the CCP, and as long as you remember that EVERYTHING I am saying here is a simplification then we good to go. I ain’t a journalist. I don’t present things with a voice of authority claiming my simplification is ‘da truth’. Always show your workings out I say. Anyway, so lets look at the unexpected dissent towards Xi and way they are manifesting. And to get there we need to talk about someone else for a minute.

The Legacy of Zhou

I’m gonna mention Chinese foreign policy a lot in the bits coming up but for good reason. Foreign policy in China is a different beast to how we see it in the West. The reason for this is down to a man called Zhou Enlai. Who dat? Zhou Enlai is a leviathan in modern Chinese diplomatic circles. He served as the first ever Premier of China, holding the positions from 1949 until 1976. He survived Mao’s Cultural Revolution and was seen by many in China as the guy who saved several high ranking officials from the wrath of the Red Guards. He was also, in all ways, the father of modern Chinese diplomacy.

It was Zhou who got China and America to co-exist with one another after the Korean War; Zhou who helped bring Nixon to China in 1972; Zhou who set China’s overall long-term foreign policy goals towards Taiwan, India, the Soviet Union and Vietnam. When he died in 1976 there was a genuinely huge and real outpouring of public grief. He was a political giant.

And it was Zhou who established THE golden rule in Chinese foreign policy- “Nothing is trivial in diplomacy”.

You ever wonder why China gets all jumpy over comments by any politician anywhere? Zhou’s maxim. NOTHING is trivial. Someone has a meeting with Chinese dissidents? Someone insults the Chinese economy? Criticises the CCP? It’s suddenly a big thing. The biggest thing. It’s not that some members of the CCP have thin skin (although honestly? Some DO have thin skin), but it is driven by Zhou’s maxim.

In many ways Zhou’s idea is simply the ‘broken windows’ concept applied to diplomatic relations. You remember that idea right? That if you allow a broken window take place in an abandoned building it starts a chain of events that will lead to escalating crime and a breakdown in social cohesion? It was how the NYPD policed New York for a while back in the day?

Yeah, that theory. Zhou’s maxim is basically the same- never ignore even the smallest stuff, because if you do, folks will then take that as accepted, and push for something more. Fight tooth and nail over the small stuff, so you don’t have to fight over the bigger stuff later down the line. It kinda makes sense.

Thus, by extension, foreign policy is something the CCP takes way more seriously than most Western parties ever do. However, there is a side effect of this which is often overlooked. It also means that the policy decisions made by their leaders to do with foreign policy are subject to more judgment. Their decisions are amplified and reflect upon internal political discussions. Which means that China’s foreign policy really does have an impact upon Xi’s standing within the CCP and in China. And Xi has some problems in this area.

When a rivalry isn’t a problem: China and the USA

This seems to be Xi’s biggest issue right now. The United States has taken a significantly harsher position towards China lately. This has empowered those who wish to identify China as being a big a threat to the world as the Soviet Union ever was, who have began using elaborate theories that China are going to start taking over the world. Any day now. Just you wait… it’s gonna happen soon… give it a moment… wait for it… waittttt for it…. (repeat endlessly).

This, coupled with far less conspiracy theory based concerns about the economic transparency and human rights, have made it so that China is feeling the weight of American hostility in the form of attempts to build up alliances in Asia (the Quad) and Pacific based nations being invited to NATO meetings in thinly veiled hints about China. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-28/embrace-of-nato-in-china-s-back-yard-stokes-xi-s-worst-fears

We also see trade sanctions enacted by President Trump which President Biden completely supports and has maintained. Current economic sanctions on China from the USA include banning Huawei and ZTE (and various affiliates and subsidiaries) from selling their equipment to the US Federal government; financial sanctions and visa restrictions on four members of the 25 person Politburo over the Uyghur situation; similar sanctions on 14 Vice Chairs of the NPC for China’s actions in Hong Kong, and, as of November last year (and Executive Order 13959) 44 separate companies were placed on a big ‘no-no’ list due to their links to the Chinese military.

The reality is, however, that in many ways, this has helped Xi domestically. He has matched the suspicion towards his nation with equal suspicion and disdain. He remains unrepentant, and sees Western condemnation of China as them seeking to keep the country weak. This narrative has worked for him. It is shared by many. The endless attacks upon China has caused a re entrenchment of opinions- you know that old American adage ‘My country, wrong or right’? It is being used by the CCP and is working. The average Chinese citizen _does_ feel under attack by America and also feels the attacks are unfair and unjustified.

In many ways having the West BE belligerent about China works to Xi’s benefit. It’s just that… it’s just that they actually don’t want it. Being able to spin this stuff is about making the best out of a bad situation. China doesn’t want to be friends with America, but they could do without the endless geopolitical tension.

Which is why we are seeing things like the ambassador to Australia offering an olive branch and the offer to ‘re-set’ relations between Australia and China recently. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-27/new-china-ambassador-wants-reset-diplomatic-relations-australia/100785202
The West hating on Xi’s China is an inconvenience for them, so they want to change it, but it isn’t bad for his reputation at home, so its not a big problem for him domestically.

When a friendship IS a problem: Russia

THIS however is a much, much bigger issue. So, lets put this in perspective- China under the CCP has always had a soft spot for Russia. This stems from the Soviet Union basically bankrolling the CCP during the earliest days of the Chinese Revolution and the ‘big brother’ attitude towards the Soviet’s many early Chinese revolutionaries held (including, it must be said, the father of Xi Jinping).

You can see this in the willingness to make good with post-Soviet Russia by the fact that every single leader of China since Deng onwards have always made nice with whomever was in charge of Russia (this includes Yeltsin). But things changed a lot of late. The measure of the change can be seen as recently as February 4th 2022.

This was when Vladimir Putin came to Beijing to celebrate the opening of the Winter Olympics; a huge things was made of his friendship with Xi; their meeting was the 38th personal meeting between the two men. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60240762 The trip coincided with the start of the Year of the Tiger, and the friendship between the two nations was celebrated by a whole bunch of deals signed between China and Russia covering oil, gas, grain, satellites, IT, and more.
https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-tells-xi-new-deal-that-could-sell-more-russian-gas-china-2022-02-04/
& https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2022/729349/EPRS_BRI(2022)729349_EN.pdf

Xi even got one of his protégées, the director of the CCTV Group, Shen Haixiong, to run a big interview with Putin, allowing the world see China calling their northern neighbour a ‘strategic partner’.
https://english.cctv.com/2022/02/03/ARTIxt177cp5FrcotcCB0x8X220203.shtml

At the same time an article in Jiefangjun bao (the daily newspaper of the People’s Liberation Army) ran, praising the close relationship between the two nations. On the 24th of February, Russia invaded Ukraine.
The accusation thrown about since the war started is that China knew Russia was going to invade beforehand.

There is no evidence for this and it must be said an awful lot (but not all) of the people who made the accusation also swore blind China was going to invade Taiwan soon after Russia started on Ukraine… they still maintain it… any day now… just wait… it’s coming… hang on…

As I’ve speculated elsewhere (and perhaps went into way too much detail as to my reasoning here, posted on day 1 of the Russian invasion https://imgur.com/gallery/HURntdO), the evidence suggests China didn’t know Russia was going to invade. They believed Russia when it said the accusations they were about to, was just American propaganda. It’s why when everyone on Earth was telling their ex-pats to get out of Ukraine fast, China didn’t. “It’s nonsense,” they said. “Don’t panic,” they said. “Russia won’t invade,” they said.

Remember China’s foreign policy maxim- ‘NOTHING is trivial’ yeah? Losing face like this? That’s not trivial. You don’t get caught out. You look like you know what you are doing at all times. The Russian invasion took China by surprise. It’s a small thing, but nothing is trivial.

Still, aside from that, Xi was able to ring Putin on February 25th and give implicate ‘go do what you need to do’ vibes to his friend in Russia.
https://www.mfa.gov.cn/zyxw/202202/t20220225_10645684.shtml

Of course back then, the day after the invasion, Xi believed what most of the world believed; you know that Russia was a big bad military power and it would sweep up Ukraine.

Obviously, THAT was a huge miscalculation.

As Russia has struggled to capture cities six months into a war they projected capturing six hours into their war plan, the actual biggest surprise for China was the West suddenly appearing to have their crap together. Their unity against Russia took China by surprise. As did the nature of the sanctions, many of which terrify China because if China ever faced them- they’d be screwed!

Since then Xi and official Chinese policy has remained one where they blame the West for provoking Russia, but they have not supplied a single troop, weapon system or financial help to their ally. They have remained just this side of the line. They know other nations are watching them. So much so, for example, that India is happily buying Russia oil and paying them in Roubles, and everyone is ignoring the long term Indian-Russian ties, so busy are they watching China.
https://theconversation.com/want-to-know-why-india-has-been-soft-on-russia-take-a-look-at-its-military-diplomatic-and-energy-ties-181133

What is more, there has been surprising dissent being expressed from CCP linked officials towards Xi’s policy towards Russia. This isn’t much but remember- ‘nothing is trivial’. The fact that there HAS been dissent (which I will describe below) and that those who expressed the dissent have not been crushed by Xi, suggests his position on Russia is an area of weakness for him, that his rivals in the CCP are seizing upon.

The Dissenters

So this dissent I keep mentioning- how serious is it?
Well, to be blunt, not significantly by OUR standards of dissent. Not even close. But remember the maxim of Zhou- “Nothing is trivial” right? So in many ways this dissent IS significant. And what is more it is based around the schism mentioned earlier- where loyal members of the Chinese Communist Party seem to be asking, “How much is this policy serving the national interest, and how much is serving the leader’s interest?”

The dissenting voices began to emerge soon after it became clear, that Ukraine was kicking Russia’s ass. The slow attritional rate of withdrawal, the willingness to fight for every inch, the ability of Ukraine to expose every weakness in the Russian arsenal? This is part of what drives this.

The other element in the criticism is one of pride; for many in the CCP one of the reasons they feel they CAN condemn the West is because the West have done things like invade other nations. A lot. For those members of the CCP, China are clearly the global good guys. They’d point out how since 1980 China had invaded no one, ever, while the United States has used their military to engage in hostilities in Grenada, Libya (three times), Panama, Iraq (also three times), Somali (only twice), Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Yemen, north-west Pakistan, Uganda, and Syria.

For those members of the CCP, you look at the above and go “Dah! Of COURSE we are the good guys!” (I am NOT saying I agree with this line of debate; I am merely saying what the line of debate is).

The CCP have been running with the argument ‘respect other nations sovereignty’ for decades, always taking the moral high ground (caveat: China, along with the entire world, gave the green light to the invasion of Afghanistan- 9/11 was THAT big a deal and anyone who says it wasn’t really doesn’t get it).

However, here is Russia clearly engaged in an act of violating another nations sovereign rights, using what amounts to crude Imperialism (‘It use too be ours, we wanna rule it again’) an excuse not even old Imperial powers like France and Britain could get away with, and China isn’t condemning it? Why? Just because it’s Russia? What happened to our principles?

It is easy for us to see politicians in the West and go ‘Of course what they say is just bullshit’, but out of the 90 million or so members of the CCP, even if only 20 million are true ideological believers, that’s still a lot of folks who care DEEPLY about this kinda thing. This is also driving the undercurrent of dissent.

The first dissent then appeared on March 5th, written by one Hu Wei. Hu is based out of Jiaotong University in Shanghai, whose most famous alumni was the former CCP general secretary and PRC president Jiang Zemin. Hu’s article, however, refers to his affiliation with the State Council and with the Charhar Institute, who are usually seen as a “a white-glove organization of the Ministry of State Security”. So he is not an outsider. He clearly has ties to upper echelons in the Party.

Basically Hu is a well connected expert on Sino-US relations, who urged Xi that China should “accurately analyze and assess the direction of the war and its potential impact on the international landscape,” (suggesting that Xi’s analysis was NOT accurate), and that "in order to strive for a relatively favorable external environment, China must respond flexibly and make strategic choices that conform with its long-term interests.”

The COUNTRIES, not the leaders, long term interests mind.

Finally he just bluntly says, “China cannot be tied to Putin and it must cut itself off [from Putin] as soon as possible.”
https://uscnpm.org/2022/03/17/e-wu-zhanzheng-de-keneng-jieguo-yu-zhongguo-de-jueze/

Just over a week later, on March 14, an essay with a similar argument and authored by one Wang Huiyao, appeared on the Chinese webpage of the New York Times; The Times introduces Wang Huiyao as director of the Beijing-based Center for Globalization and China, which “provides suggestions regarding globalization to the Chinese government.” His article followed very similar lines to that written by Wu, and called for China to “offer the Russian leader an offramp” to end the military conflict in Ukraine.
https://cn.nytimes.com/opinion/20220314/china-russia-ukraine/dual/,

Both pieces stressed the possible negative outcomes of the war for Russia, predicting a new rise of the West and highlight how Russia’s military failure and the Western responses to the war might have a disastrous effect on the Chinese regime. They were not alone. Additional elite dissenting voices continue to appear lately, as in the cases of Yan Xuetong’s article in Foreign Affairs and the former Chinese ambassador to Ukraine public comments on Putin’s failures.
(Both have been removed so no links alas)

Now, this stuff IS censored by the CCP. Of course it is. Yet even that is interesting… because aside from sticking the foreign hosted stuff behind the banhammer of the Great Firewall, and removing the comments… that’s it. No condemnations, no arrests. No sly insinuations of corruption. No 50 Cent army pro-regime activists all over them with negative comments. Which in itself is quite significant. This is a very muted response given the CCP’s playbook. In fact the CCP has seemingly allowed quite a bit of dissent of late.

On general Chinese social media, we have started seeing even more blatant criticism of the CCP’s position on Ukraine and overall Sino-Russian relations. Anonymous online commentators have started suggesting wild things such as saying that if Russia can use the ‘we use to run it’ excuse to justify its invasion of Ukraine, maybe China should take the opportunity to send troops to the Siberian region of Russia to seize back territories that were long historically part of imperial China, and occupied by Tsarist Russia in the late 19th century. Some even pointed out that such a military action would be more beneficial to China’s national interest than ever invading Taiwan, as the Siberian region Tsarist Russia stole from China is roughly the size of Alaska, as opposed to Taiwan at a paltry 36,000 square Kms.

As well as stuff like this you also have expat-Chinese citizens who are painting a picture of the Ukrainian War fundamentally at odds with the CCP version. Most prominent is Wang Jixian, a Chinese computer engineer living in Odessa. With 116,000 followers, this former resident of Beijing started to gather both Western and Chinese mainstream media attention (which activated the CCP banhammer of course). https://www.youtube.com/user/hellojixin/videos

This, while not much, represents surprising voices of dissent from Xi’s line. And this by itself would be a minor thing. But its happening when a couple of OTHER things are happening in China.

The Covid Disaster

On top of this, the biggest possible change in regards to Xi’s standing in China, however, has been the ongoing Covid Pandemic. Xi’s record on this has been interesting to witness. When the initial outbreak happened in Wuhan, Xi allowed the Regional Government’s reassurances that ‘everything is fine… it’s all fine… just a few problems… how are you?’ placate him until he realised everything WASN’T fine and this left him scrambling as he introduced the first draconian lock down on Wuhan.

You can tell Xi was taken by surprise by how bad things went there because he did the ‘Mao has screwed up’ routine. The what? Oh it’s a thing Mao use to do. Whenever Mao screwed up (and trust me, he screwed up a lot, including causing the largest famine in human history), he always responded the same way. Which was?

Hide.

Basically, send an underling to be the point man in dealing with whatever huge mess was going on, wait for things to calm down, and then show up again, to claim all the glory. So when Wuhan went into lock down? Oh look, Premier Li Keqiang was sent to be the Standing Committee's point man for the crisis (below), being ‘THE’ guy in charge.
https://www.scmp.com/video/china/3047851/china-coronavirus-premier-li-keqiang-takes-charge-wuhan-death-toll-and-new
Xi waited until the initial craziness blew over and then turned up and took credit for handling it all now that people had calmed down.

After that, China rolled out their own ‘pretty good but not AS good as the Western ones’ vaccines, and introduced the Zero Tolerance policy towards Covid. China was able to open up as the West was getting hit hard. And basically Xi was all front and centre about the Chinese response, gloating about how effective the Chinese approach was, and how well they were in dealing with it all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/business/china-covid-19-beijing.html

And then the Omicron variants arrived. And the Chinese vaccine isn’t as good at dealing with those variants. So Xi ended up green-lighting the massive shut down of Shanghai and things started to go wrong. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-60893070

Simply put, China wasn’t ready for shutting down a city as large as Shanghai. Not even close. The weaknesses of the Chinese response became apparent. People were starving. People were left bewildered and shocked; the system, the Party was failing. What is going on?
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Shanghai-lockdown-disaster-prompts-Chinese-to-eye-move-overseas

On Friday, April 22, 2022, a video was shared on Chinese social media and when the evening fell, it suddenly was on everybody’s smartphone. “Voices of April” (四月之声) was a compilation of real audio snippets from conversations recorded in Shanghai throughout the lockdown, interspersed with epic music from the soundtrack to Akira to begin with (see above). It was an emotional and heart-wrenching account of what residents in Shanghai have gone through, while aerial footage of the city was played over the top.

It went up on that Friday evening. By early Saturday morning, it had seeped into every corner of WeChat. It laid bare the visceral rage and upset Shanghai residents felt towards the badly handled situation. Of course it was banned. By Saturday afternoon? It had disappeared. But it had been seen by millions. And it was perceived as a genuine screw up.

How did Xi respond to the SNAFU in Shanghai? That’s right, he hid. Lowered his profile. He sent Li Keqiang to be the point man (again), having to deal with the Shanghai issues. Leaves it to Premier Li to tell people, with a straight face, that the two month lockdown of the City was ‘completely correct’. Front it up, say they had ‘won the battle to defend Shanghai’, name check the glorious leader, but only after case numbers had fallen. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/shanghai-heading-out-lockdown-china-still-lost-economic-gloom-2022-05-26/
I always find it amusing that the way China responded to Li’s ‘victory’ announcement by the way. Apparently Shares in the stocks of Chinese liquor companies surged.
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2022/06/shares-leap-for-chinas-kweichow-moutai/

It would be fair to say that Xi has tried to distance himself from what was basically a total screw up in how they handled Covid in Shanghai and maybe an ongoing screw up in how they are handling it across China. But this is happening at the same time as something else is going on.

Economic Changes

On top of all of this, there have been some sly acts of rebellion taking place across China, especially on social media, most of which are being ultimately caused by changes in China’s economy. Remember the CCP knew this was going to happen as they transitions their economy under Made In China 2025’s broad blueprint, and it seems to be hitting now. Yet, knowing it was coming in principle cannot hide the fact that China’s economy is not firing on all the cylinders it traditionally has, and there have been some big impacts.

Partly this is directly due to the CCP under Xi’s direction. I did an entire post about the Evergrande saga (see here https://imgur.com/gallery/g4Njgx5 ) but at its heart what happened to Evergrande is a great example for how Xi’s version of the CCP is changing the economic situation lately. Evergrande, a huge building conglomerate/car manufacturer was running unsustainable debts a bit like what happened to Enron in the United States. The difference here is that unlike Enron, which collapsed because no one was paying any attention until it was too late and regulators were asleep at the wheel, Evergrande was taken out BY the regulators who changed things so as to prevent companies like Evergrande from taking the economy down with them if they ever did risky stuff.

What has changed is that Xi has become way more directly interventionist towards the economy. He has began to limit the amount of foreign investment, which has buggered up several IPO’s, and seen big Chinese companies withdraw from floating on things like the New York Stock market, business leaders have their wings clipped hard and more.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/china-halts-scores-ipo-plans-amid-probe-into-underwriter-law-firm-2022-01-28/

Graduation, lying down and let it rot…

Basically, anyone talking of China’s economy being ‘about to collapse’ gets to join the queue of people who have been saying this since 2004 every year without fail (aka- the crank file), but clearly China’s economic climate is not as strong as it was. And the proof of this is rising unemployment rates. Which is never a good sign.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-31/china-unemployment-rate-for-young-people-hits-record-highs

Chinese companies are making cuts in their work force. And this has led to some wry moments of Chinese humour. Recent layoffs at the ecommerce group JD.com caused an outcry when employees showed they had been told the news of their redundancy with emails that said “Congratulations on smoothly graduating from JD!” 

Graduation, or ‘I’ve just graduated’ is now apparently being used as a sly term for being fired. It joins a growing number of terms which get sudden hashtag attention before being banned. One of the more high profile ones was ‘tang ping’, roughly translated to lying flat.

Started as a social media post by a Chinese writer about how he had not held a regular job in two years and was enjoying his life rejecting the cultural pressures placed upon how he should behave, Lying Flat seemed to capture the mood of the young in China. Singer Zhang Xinmin composed a song about it (link below); “Lying flat is good, Lying flat is wonderful, Lying flat is right, Lie down so you don’t fall,” he croons, as he lies on a sofa strumming a guitar. It’s sentiments echo beyond China ans hit home globally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=corZx0a1yRU

The term, however, became the name of a supposed trend amongst young Chinese to opt out of stressful jobs; it represented the antithesis of the CCP’s demand for the maximum effort from its people. To this has recently been joined by the phrase bailan, roughly meaning “let it rot”. This has also become popular among China’s youth to describe how they have given up trying to change things because the effort is useless.
https://radiichina.com/let-it-rot/

The origins of this youthful rebellion lies in harsh statistics that speak for themselves; as the Bloomberg article above reports, the unemployment rate for young workers aged 18 to 24 rose to a record 18.4% in May 2022. On top of that, more than 10mn graduating university students will soon join the ranks of these young job hunters.

That’s not good.

Still, there are SOME growth opportunities in this job market. Apparently students who are graduating in the previously rather obscure field of ‘Marxist Studies’ are being snapped up and commanding huge starting salaries.
https://on.ft.com/3P0plqE

This came about because Xi let it be known he wants more companies to employ Marxist trained experts, to be able to make sure any company is working within the correct boundaries of Marxist ideology and ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’. That’s the excuse anyway. Some have seen this, and the uptick of graduates in Marxist studies commanding huge starting fees as creating a new class of ‘thought police’ for Xi to have to use against capitalist companies. But really the surge is down to something way less political and way more pragmatic…

Private sector companies are hiring Marxism majors as a short-hand way to stay in the Party’s good books. They look at the crackdowns on technology and property entrepreneurs such as Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba and China Evergrande founder Xu Jiayan, and blink. Xu especially worked hard to stay on the Party’s good side for years and even though he DID screw up, this hard work and charitable donations are probably the only reason he hasn’t been arrested and jailed right now.

This lesson is not lost on employers; as one said about hiring some graduate who just got his degree in Marxist studies, “It helps to have someone who speaks the Party’s language work for us.” Which when you think about it, REALLY encapsulates the pragmatic relationship most folks have towards the CCP in China.

They the boss, sometimes they change things, sometimes they are hard to understand, so hire someone who can tell us what they want. A factory owner summed it up even more pragmatically soon after; hiring a Marxist graduate means “The government will trust us more.”

So, in essence, and trying to make sure we all on the same page as I ramble across a whole heap of interesting things happening in China right now…

You have an undercurrent of dissent taking place across Chinese over a range of things. Partly it’s young net savvy people being, well young. And net savvy. And kinda feeling burned out as the promise of ‘Hey, of course you will get a job’ isn’t happening (banana for scale- at 18% it is a slightly higher rate of under 24 year old unemployment than the USA’s 15% but the USA and China are brutally high compared to Germany’s 3.5%).

To this has been added a sense of the Party dropping the ball on the Shanghai lockdown and doubts about the handling of the Covid crisis. And to THIS has been added some dissenting voices with genuine Party links over China’s position on Ukraine.

Yet time for a reality check; these are not big nation changing things. The CCP is still firmly in control and the majority of Chinese citizens remain supportive of them. So we ain’t gonna be seeing any Revolutions anytime soon OK?

BUT, the Ukraine stuff has seen some surprisingly well connected voices express dissent from the position taken by President Xi, which normally would be a minor thing, but given Xi is seeking a third term and Congress season is about the only time things can be shaken up… it means I am writing an article about it now.

So then… what’s gonna happen?

Well, all of the above can be seen in several different ways. And rather than act like some brilliant expert and tell you what I think is happening, how about I tell you all the theories and you can pick the one you prefer, knowing it’s chances of being wrong are equal to the others? Sound’s good to me.

So, explanation one: opposition towards Xi from within the party elite is growing, and what you are seeing is the start of a campaign to clip his wings a little. It’s not that he won’t get elected to a third term as General Secretary (that’s HIGHLY unlikely to happen), but more that the Congress will not elect as many Xi loyalists to the Central Committee as he would like. In many ways, this sends a message that Xi needs to work more with others and not be so much of an autocrat.

The dissent we are seeing then is happening because the dissenters are allowing increased grumbling to create a backdrop for them to move against him and proceed with the aforementioned wing clipping.

That is possible sure.

Explanation two; Xi is very aware of the tensions within his party, isn’t dumb and is allowing this stuff be said to a) project an image of ‘hey I am not THAT controlling’, b) show how he IS willing to listen (until the Congress that is) and above all c) scare the bejesus out of the dissenters by saying ‘Hey look, if we were not as strict as we have been? See how much stuff is happening now? If we take our strong hand of the wheel, then this is merely prologue!”

Which would mean that Xi gets ALL his people into the Central Committee, ends up being made ‘Chairman’ of the CCP (a post that hasn’t been used in decades), creates a whole new generation of supporters to dominate the Party for the next few decades, and a few weeks after this, all those dissenters above get quiet words in their ear to ‘shut the hell up or else’.

That also could very well happen.

Explanation Three; the dissent towards the Russian policy is being allowed by Xi, because he is looking for a possible out with Putin. The realpolitik of China is strong. If Russia is looking like a lame horse, whose leg just fell off, China needs to be able to pivot and dump Putin, without losing face.

Xi could well be allowing these small tendrils of dissent to be carefully dropped so he can do that if he needs to, which then gives him a bit more flexibility in foreign affairs. Not saying he will dump Putin like an unwanted puppy, but simply that he has allowed this to offer him a potential exit strategy for China.

That’s a distinct possibility.

Explanation Four; there is no actual dissent towards the Russia thing; Xi is fully aware of all this stuff and allows it be said. This allows some in the West see that maybe there is some diplomatic room to manoeuvre and that maybe they could tap China to fashion a ceasefire. This allows Xi act as a ‘peace negotiator’ and broker a peace between Ukraine and Russia.

If Xi could do that, play the historic peacemaker, it allows him symbolically stand atop a building waving a national flag and screaming ‘Screw you guys” at any passing Americas. Not that anyone in the West WANTS China to be the peacemaker, but with the need for someone to get the grain out of Ukraine so as to prevent a massive famine across much of the Middle East, and since no one in the West can run the Russian blockade without starting World War 3… China is looking like a possibility you know?

So, we can’t rule out that possibility either.

And if it is this, or the last, explanation, then the Shanghai Lockdown and Lying Down/Let it rot/Graduation stuff mentioned alongside this? That could be the CCP just allowing folks vent off steam a LITTLE, while they proceed with their long term plans for China, as a little venting is good for the soul.

So yeah. I can easily see all four of the above being true. Maybe all at the same time, with us only discovering the true outcome when the Party Congress finally ends and we start reading between the lines.

That’s the thing with China. It’s fascinating but never easily explained.
Ambiguity in China is an art form.

Still, bottom line, Xi Jinping has a lot riding on this Congress. Despite the accusations that he has changed the Party, as some studies have shown, with the exception of him lifting the two-term limit on holding the position of President, he hasn’t actually changed that much at all about how the Party works.

And he remains the guy in charge.

Like Ozymandias, we gaze upon his works and despair.

Like Ozymandias, time will, however, be as brutal with him, as it is all despots.

“I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
-Percy Shelley; 1818

TL;DR- Between now and October, everything in the Communist Party in China is getting ready for their once every 5 years Congress (think a Convention with shite Cosplay); the War in Ukraine and China’s friendly policy towards Russia is seemingly causing ripples which could spoil Xi’s plans for the Congress. Or maybe not.

Additional Sources:
The articles which really key’ed me into the dissent were written by the brilliant Guoguang Wu. Currently holding the position of Professor of History, and Chair in China and Asia-Pacific Relations, at the University of Victoria, Canada, his work is always authoritative, immaculately researched, and very hard to ignore. A former policy advisor to the CCP back in the 1980’s, he has since written about a dozen books in Chinese, four in English and edited a half-dozen more, and you want the smart versions of what I said? Try him. In particular two of his essays inspired this post.
“The Ukrainian Challenge to China’s Leadership Politics: An Emerging Divergence in Foreign Policy and Its Impact on the 20th Party Congress‘ https://www.prcleader.org/wu-3
And “Politics and Norms in Leadership Reorganization toward the 20th Party Congress: Preliminary Observations” https://www.prcleader.org/wu-2

A guide to all my previous posts (which cover China, the Middle East, Russia, history, science, more history…) https://imgur.com/gallery/aTASLQH

If you have come this far, and read this, thank you. If you enjoyed this, and feel like making a contribution to keep me hovering about posting stuff on Imgur, then you could always buy me a coffee, as this entire post was fuelled by strong caffeine. You have no idea how much of a difference your contributions make
https://buymeacoffee.com/thefeck