...
By Didi Kirsten Tatlow
Senior Correspondent, International Affairs
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Fourteen years—that’s how long Xi Jinping’s lopsided smile has sought to replace U.S. leadership in the world with his Communist Party of China-informed vision of good governance.
There could be 14 more.
Xi is only 73, and nobody expects him to step down as the general secretary of the CCP next year when the 21st Party Congress convenes in Beijing to appoint a leader for the next five years. Xi already broke the mold in 2022 when he took a third term.
Read More on World
Still, next year’s party congress is a moment when leadership can change, and that raises the question of succession.
So as Xi was feted in Washington, D.C., by President Donald Trump at their summit this week, people were watching, trying to figure out a possible succession based on who he brought. Who sat near him; who is close to him politically, physically, even emotionally. Who he trusts. These may not all be the same thing. Because protocol is not the same thing as power.
But even if he may not want to step down, and if 73 is not especially old, there's always the wild card of health which may force him.
...
We were watching the succession issue too. But some of the answers may surprise you. For one, just how short the true short list is:
- Chief of Staff Cai Qi. The grim-faced Cai is the director of the CCP General Office and thus in a position of institutional power, as well a member of the seven-man (they are always only men) Politburo Standing Committee. He is in charge of Xi’s security, too.
- Premier Li Qiang has a more avuncular appearance. He has been with Xi since earlier days in Zhejiang province. Li took the political heat for sealing off Shanghai during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was promoted to Beijing in 2022. Li is No. 2 in the Politburo Standing Committee.
- Peng Liyuan. Xi’s wife and a former military singer. She is a shrewd political operator. He is believed to trust her.
- Xi Mingze, Xi’s daughter. Aged 34, she went to Harvard University and keeps a low profile. Again, the trust.
...
There are other candidates: Li Xi, the CCP discipline chief. Ding Xuexiang, the first-ranked vice premier. Both are Politburo Standing Committee members who were promoted at the last congress. One other notable inclusion: Zhou Hongxu, Cai's deputy and the director of the Central Guard Bureau. In Xi's China, the security guys are always especially important.
There is the wild card in the succession. Someone in China who is not known outside of the country.
Being feted by Trump will have boosted Xi's standing at home, though in truth it served both men: Xi got to show China that he has the world hegemon under control, that it gave him serious "face."Trump got to show America before the midterms that he's big toward China and can still outshine it in tech and business, with those leaders packing the guest list at the state dinner.
Xi is continuing to purge. This week alone, he expelled two top generals, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli. Plenty of Chinese are afraid that by centralizing power in his person and hanging on so long, Xi has created a Louis XV situation: Après moi, le déluge. After me, the deluge. Or, after Xi, the deluge.
...
Ordinary Chinese and even officials worry that China may be engulfed by destabilizing political competition as people fight to fill his shoes when he does eventually leave, or even ursurp his legacy. That legacy may be tainted by a sense that economically China is weakening and politically it grew too harsh—despite its successful outward facing image, growing global popularity, and some genuine areas of strength.
Is Xi were smart, perhaps he’d appoint a successor to assuage those fears. And maybe he’ll surprise us all and do it.
But there is a long tradition in China, reaching back before the Communists, that the closer a person is to you the more dangerous he is. Xi’s power may have painted him into a corner.
That could affect those closest to him, such as Cai and Li Qiang.
I asked an experienced observer of the CCP scene, Li Hengqing, for his assessment. Li is an economist and part of the Congress on China’s Future, a group of Chinese people in the U.S. who try to work out the future of the country that they fled. The group includes the well-known dissident Wei Jingsheng. They are not CCP supporters, so clearly they have a particular view, but their analysis is still notable.
Li pointed to the extreme lack of trust in the system and, since Xi took power, internal political stability issues, not least because the president has conducted purge after purge of top civilian and military leaders.
Talking about Cai in particular, Li quoted a Sung dynasty poem that translates as “it’s lonely at the top.” In the Chinese tradition, the person closest to the leader often doesn’t survive his passing.
Here's the poem by Su Shi: “I long to ride the wind and return, Yet fear that those fine jade palaces, So high, would be too cold for me” (我欲乘风归去，又恐琼楼玉宇，高处不胜寒).
The only thing that could force him to exit may be his health, said Li. He has been a smoker and drinks alcohol. Rumors of ill health have dogged him, flaring again recently.
But they’ve dogged him since 2012, when he first rose to power. A prompt, first round of speculation said that he’d had a stroke. At the time, the former Hong Kong leader, Tung Chee-hwa, said he’d hurt his back swimming.
We just don’t know. Planners would probably do well to assume he will die in the job.
For deeper, expert-led insights into China and its relationship with the United States, sign up to Newsweek's China Decoded newsletter.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines