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For decades, Ho Pin made accurate predictions about China’s next leadership line-up — no small feat, given the black-box nature of Beijing politics.
But now, days before the opening on Sunday of China’s most important political meeting in a decade, the New York-based journalist said there’s little point, given the power amassed by leader Xi Jinping.
“It’s not about who’s going to be in the Standing Committee any longer,” he said, referring to the handful of people who will be named to lead the ruling Communist Party for the next five years. “No matter who they are, they all have one thing in common: They all have to listen to Xi.”
It’s a sharp contrast from an earlier era, when jostling factions leaked salacious details to the foreign press, and a reflection of a consolidation of power that has swept away competitors and stifled internal dissent.
Ten years ago, scandal after scandal rocked Beijing’s political establishment in the run-up to a prior Communist Party congress, the one that brought Xi to power.
Most damaging was the murder of a British businessman by the wife of Bo Xilai, a brash and rising political star. Bo was expelled from the party and sentenced to life in prison for bribery and corruption — eliminating a chief rival to Xi.
The run up to this party congress, by comparison, is hushed. Gone, Ho said, are the factions, pluralism and open political differences that once existed within China’s one-party system.
“Chinese politics is entering a completely new stage,” he said.
Even in the days of Chairman Mao Zedong, who founded communist China in 1949, there were competing factions. During his reign, many politicians were purged, then rehabilitated, then purged again, as Mao encouraged factional struggle to enhance his own power.
After his death, leader Deng Xiaoping loosened controls dramatically, sparking an economic boom and some liberalization. He also instituted term and age limits for party leaders, meant to prevent the rise of another strongman like Mao.
But Xi has swept those rules aside. The party has loosened age restrictions, stopped naming obvious successors to the Standing Committee, and scrapped term limits for China’s presidency — paving the way for Xi to retain power for a third five-year term, and possibly indefinitely.
That has made it more difficult to guess new appointments, Ho said.
