Under Xi Jinping, a return in China to the dangers of an all-powerful leader

David Shambaugh says Xi has proven himself to be a visionary leader, but by systematically dismantling the institutions and rules set up by Deng Xiaoping to protect the country from the excesses of strongman rule, Xi is setting a dangerous precedent for the future

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President Xi Jinping’s actions and the clear concentration of power in himself reveal a return to the patriarchal mode of strongman politics that was characteristic of the Mao era. Illustration: Craig Stephens

Published: 5:45pm, 1 Mar 2018Updated: 10:36pm, 1 Mar 2018

The revelation that the National People’s Congress is likely to strike the constitutional clause limiting China’s president and premier to two five-year terms has rightly triggered worldwide speculation that Xi Jinping will remain in office far after the 20th party congress in 2022.

This now seems entirely likely – unless he unexpectedly succumbs to health problems or is overthrown. Both of these possibilities are unknowable, but stranger things have occurred in Chinese politics in the past (and even during Xi’s tenure) and should not be ruled out.

What are the consequences of this revelation – which was actually anticipated by a number of China watchers – for understanding Chinese politics today and into the future?

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In terms of China’s political system, this move is one more in a series of Xi’s “de-institutionalisation” and “deconstruction” of the political reforms Deng Xiaoping initiated nearly four decades ago, beginning with the third plenum of 1978. Deng very clearly concluded that the madness and tragedies that China endured under Mao Zedong, primarily from 1957 to 1976, were in large part due to the steady erosion by Mao of the institutions and procedures the Communist Party had built in the mid-1950s.

Deng himself did much to build these party and state institutions, which were intended to lodge policymaking firmly in a collective leadership and institutional environment. In this regard, Deng was a true Leninist. But Mao was not, as he deeply distrusted bureaucracy and bureaucrats.

A portrait of Mao Zedong is displayed at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Mao deeply distrusted bureaucracy and bureaucrats and, for the last 20 years of his life, waged war against China’s bureaucracy and other senior leaders who sought to build the People’s Republic on a strong institutional foundation. Photo: Bloomberg

For the last 20 years of his life, Mao waged war against China’s bureaucracy – and against Zhou Enlai, Deng, Liu Shaoqi, Peng Zhen and other senior leaders who sought to build the People’s Republic on a strong institutional foundation. The Cultural Revolution was the epitome of Mao’s anti-institutional impulses and nearly destroyed the country.

The Cultural Revolution was the epitome of Mao’s anti-institutional impulses and nearly destroyed the country