China has issued a newly revised “The Chinese Communist Party Disciplinary Regulations (the Regulations),” effective on January 1, 2024. The Regulations has been revised in 2015 and 2018 respectively since the 18th National Congress. The 2018 revision listed “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinses Characteristics for a New Era” as a guiding ideology and added the content of maintaining Xi’s “core position.” In the latest revision, it further reveals Xi’s ambition toward the dictatorship path of “Xi Emperor.”
First, in the second article of the Regulations, it mostly proclaims a format declaration, but after a closer look, the previous phrases “resolutely uphold General Secretary Xi Jinping’s core position in the party and core status in the whole party, and establish and maintain the party’s authority and collective leadership” have been revised as “resolutely uphold the party’s authority and centralized leadership cored on comrade Xin Jinping.” The phrase “collective leadership” was changed to “centralized leadership.” It echoes the gradual transition from collective leadership of the Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau to the dictatorship by Xi Jinping one person in recent years. Xi’s ambition to control the power by himself solely is evident.
Second, the Regulations increases several misconducts of violating political disciplines, including “to read, browse, and listen to materials with serious political issues privately,” and “to engage in departmental or local protectionism regardless of the overall situation of the party and the state.” It also adds punishments for conducts like “seeking political cliques, and making friends with political swindlers,” and, for the first time, it elevates the violation of work discipline to the violation of political discipline for behaviors that only express support for central decisions but not truly implementing them. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) also claimed that the revised Regulations is instrumental in enforcing the strict discipline. However, the definition of disciplinary violation has remained unclear, leaving a high flexibility, that could further facilitate Xi using it as a legal means to purge dissidents.
It is anticipated that China’s future operations even all the decision-making will be on Xi alone. Centralization of decision-making could make it difficult to include diverse opinions within society and the party. Power concentration might prompt faster decision-making and stronger execution, but as time passes the limit of a leader’s ability may become the upper limit of the innovation and flexibility of a system, decreasing its fault tolerance. If the decision goes wrong, it might cause irreparable harms that could even jeopardize the party’s legitimacy of rule and lead to impulsive actions to its diplomacy. When the power is highly concentrated on one person, it would become a “zero-sum game” situation, and power competitors would be fully motivated for high risky competition, sowing the seeds of instability inside the party.
Even Singapore, a state relying on its one-party dominance to ensure prosperity and stability, has tried to avoid over-centralized power on one person to achieve admirable economic performance and international visibility. Since China’s reform and opening, Singapore has been the only country that China openly acknowledged as a model to learn from. China’s four generation leaders and officials of various levels all mentioned about learning from Singapore. The China Central Television (CCTV), China’s official media, made a series of documentary about learning from Singapore in 2012, presenting Singapore’s unique miracle and China leaders’ hope to promote the prospective reform through Singapore’s mode of governance. Xi Jinping rarely mentioned his preferred model of state development in open talks, but he expressed approvals to Singapore experience several times before and after taking office in 2012. He once said that China could learn more from Singapore than the US. And the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, China’s official newspaper, in the Study Group of WeChat official Accounts, published an article titled "Xi Jinping, Lee Kuan Yew, and the Singapore Model” in 2015, praising the Singapore model that has maintained long one-party rule while keeping economy thriving. It revealed what Xi has longed for. However, it has created the phenomenon of “Re-Maoization” and “gradual dictatorship” because of power concentration on Xi, that would make the future economic development more unpredictable. It might need to operate power control tighter to suppress disagreements within people and the party, forming a vicious cycle. Xi Jinping has obviously deviated from the “Singapore model” that he once admired.
Under the circumstances, Taiwan must be vigilant against any irrational actions from Xi in the lack of careful thoughts, trying to shift attention from governance failure, and eagerly founding his place in history. The occasions of irrational actions include centenary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in 2027, the 21st National Congress of CPC, the realization of socialist modernized strong country by 2035, the centenary of government founding in 2049, or a critical power struggle within the party.
(Huang Yi-Wei, researcher of Association of Strategic Foresight)
(Translated to English by Tracy Chou)
