China enters a new era with Xi Jinping in full command

Xi Jinping has cemented his status as China's most powerful leader in a generation by securing an unprecedented third term as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the twice-a-decade party congress that concluded this weekend in Beijing.

By extending his rule for at least another five years, and surrounding himself with allies, Xi has deviated from decades-long CPP tradition, which had emphasized regular leadership succession while avoiding an over-concentration of power.

The Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), China's top decision-making organ, is now packed with Xi loyalists, including Shanghai Party Secretary Li Qiang, who is expected to take over for Li Keqiang as premier and become China's second-most powerful official.

Xi also moved military commanders and officials with national security and engineering backgrounds into top leadership positions, a move that reflects his determination to prioritize China's military and technological advancement.

The new members of China's inner leadership circle followed Xi onto a red-carpeted stage inside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday, where he thanked the party for "placing their trust in him."

However, Xi's consolidation of power has created a CCP where loyalty to him takes the highest political priority. Xi now has no obvious rivals or opponents in top positions of power.

For example, Premier Li Keqiang, considered to be more moderate than Xi, was removed from senior leadership during the party congress.

And on Saturday, Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao was unexpectedly removed from the congress, ostensibly due to "ill health." 

"All members of the Politburo are officials groomed by Xi Jinping and this outcome proves that political loyalty is very important," said Hsin-Hsien Wang, an expert on Chinese politics at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan.

"The result shows that personnel reshuffling is no longer bound by any precedence or existing rules in the Chinese Communist Party," Wang told DW.

It was all but certain that Xi would secure a third term after Chinese lawmakers abolished presidential term limits in 2018.

Xi, at 69 years old, also changed rules on age limits for top officials, which had required officials aged 68 or older retire by the time of the next party congress.

"It seems that the purpose of doing this is not only to have a political dominance at the PSC but also to retain a magnitude of purity in terms of political loyalty at the PSC," said Li Ling, a Chinese politics and law expert at the University of Vienna.

"I can only imagine that such a costly choice is made in order to ready the PSC to roll out some radical policies during the new term, which may risk being stymied otherwise," she told DW.

China's future under one-man rule

More than 300 senior CCP members endorsed Xi's core position in the party's leadership while passing changes to the party charter that will ensure Xi's vision remains central to China's future.

Since Xi took over in 2012, he has pursued a hardline agenda across all fronts from within the CCP and Chinese domestic politics, redefining China's place in the world.

Ongoing "anti-corruption" drives over the years have purged CCP ranks at all levels. 

Under Xi, Beijing has modernized its armed forces, militarized the South China Sea and doubled down on pledges for the "reunification" of Taiwan, using force if necessary.

Domestically, Xi's policies have cracked down on press freedom and civil liberties. Xi has also maintained draconian "zero-COVID" policies, which lock down entire neighborhoods and disrupt economic production over a handful of infections. In the far western Xinjiang region, Beijing has cracked down on the Uyghur Muslim minority group with an iron first, forcing millions of people into "reeducation camps."

With few to none guardrails on Xi's power, China's future is more and more in the hands of one man.

Along with allowing Xi to remain in power indefinitely, the CCP congress added several important resolutions and amendments to its party charter, which call for establishing "Xi Jinping Thought" as the party's guiding political philosophy.

"The outcome is pushing China's party-state further towards one-man dictatorship," said Alfred Wu, an associate professor from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.

"There are no checks and balances and information reaching Xi will favor what he already assumes. It will look like an echo chamber," he told DW.

Patricia Thornton, an associate professor of Chinese politics at Oxford University, told DW that as the PRC descends more into autocracy, its policies could see less favorable outcomes.

"As PRC history has shown, when officials are under tremendous pressure to comply with central demands, they have failed to feed back important information about negative impacts and unintended consequences of centrally crafted policies at the local grassroots," she said.

"The emphasis on political loyalty over other values, such as expertise or commitment to social welfare, greatly raises the risks of avoidable and correctable political disasters moving forward," she added.

 

What could come after Xi?

Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, told DW that rising nationalism within China is creating space for more hardliners to emerge in the image of Xi.

However, as there is no clear succession mechanism in the party, when Xi eventually leaves,  "there is likely going to be a power vacuum," he said. 

Potential leaders "would be competing on increasingly nationalistic terms and that could end very badly for China's relations with the rest of the world and stability in Asia and beyond," Chong added. 

However, in the near term, every decision in China for at least the next five years will come down to Xi, and that portends both risks and rewards.

"Decisions may be made more quickly, but everything will rely on Xi not making a mistake," he said. "It's unclear what will happen or what sort of fallback mechanism exists should Xi make a major policy misstep," Chong added. 

Edited by: Wesley Rahn