A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel (47 page)

Before his death in 2002, Xi’s father had an unassailable reputation for being open-minded and liberal. Because he was banished from the power center back in 1962, Xi’s father did not participate in the brutal power struggles of the Mao era, and was well respected by all political factions. In the 1980s, he was credited for supporting Deng Xiaoping’s economic reform policies that helped lift millions out of poverty. He was one of the few senior leaders who voted during the 1980s for political reforms and was sidelined after leading reformers, such as Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, fell from power. He strongly condemned the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protest. Those who worked with Xi’s father remember him as a devoted official who lived a simple life. An official who visited him in the late 1980s recalled eating a bowl of noodle soup and a piece of bread in his sparsely furnished home. Xi’s father was generous with poor villagers who supported him in the early revolutionary years. Every now and then, he sent them money saved from his pension.

Xi Jinping’s mother was said to have shared similar qualities. Over the past five years, the matriarch reportedly called two family meetings, strictly forbidding her children to use Xi Jinping’s name to engage in business transactions. However, Xi’s siblings did not seem to follow their mother’s advice. In June 2012, Bloomberg carried an investigative report about Xi’s family. The article claimed that Xi’s extended family, such as his sister and brother, had invested in “companies with total assets of US $376 million; an 18 percent indirect stake in a rare-earths company with US $1.73 billion in assets; and a US $20.2 million holding in a publicly traded technology company.” Even though Bloomberg acknowledged that none of the assets had any immediate link with Xi and his wife, and there is no indication Xi
intervened to advance his relatives’ business transactions, the report tainted the Xi family’s clean image. As usual, the Chinese government immediately blocked Bloomberg’s website and a week later, Xi’s supporters supplied
Mingjing News
with a meticulously researched article to dispute the Bloomberg report, claiming that most of the assets belonged to his brother-in-law.

Despite Bloomberg’s negative report, the overseas media have largely focused on Xi’s own record. China observers say he gained a deep understanding of grassroots politics when he worked as county chief and district chairman in poverty-stricken regions and presided over booming provinces in the coastal region that have been at the forefront of China’s market reforms. In all of these posts, though he might not have created an attention-grabbing “Chongqing model” that emphasized Maoist egalitarianism or a “Guangdong model” that advocated a freer market and political liberalization, Xi stayed true to his own nature. He was practical and low-key, a trait that made him acceptable to all sides, not so much a compromise candidate but one open to ideas from all sides and prepared to change his position if an argument was convincing. He was a pragmatist, fully aware of the complexities that a country as vast as China required to be governed and led. Xi has broad access to political resources and a broader spectrum of support, all of which will enable him to experiment with new ideas and initiatives.

Xi and many members of his leadership team grew up during the Cultural Revolution, a sensitive issue that previous regimes have chosen to put behind them, and lived in the rural areas as “sent down youths” in the late 1960s and 1970s. People living in the bottom rung look up to Xi as a compassionate leader who is more sympathetic to the predicament. A peasant who used to share a cave apartment in his early hardship days told the Chinese media he was struck with a severe form of bone disease when Xi was the deputy governor of Fujian province. Xi personally arranged for the villager to have surgery in a major city and offered money to support his family. Moreover, the public likes a party chief who loves soccer games and enjoys Hollywood movies. He has popular appeal and is recognized as being in touch with the people, not above them.

Whereas his predecessor was cautious to the point of inaction, Xi’s supporters maintain he has sharp political instincts and can weather any political crisis. When authorities in Hubei province banned a symposium on Marshal Lin Biao, whose mysterious death in the early 1970s in a plane crash was still a sensitive political issue, Xi gave permission to move the symposium to Beijing, effectively giving it more prominence, especially to the foreign press corps. Moreover, because Xi’s father sustained years of suffering under Mao due to his involvement and support for a banned book, scholars speculated that he might be more sympathetic to freedom of expression. That is yet to be demonstrated.

Xi does not talk like Hu Jintao, who is good at memorizing jargon-filled speeches. In his years as China’s vice president, Xi showed more personality, even bluntness. During the Olympic Games, he encouraged officials to bravely face hostile foreign views by comparing countries critical of China to a flock of noisy birds. “If you take the birds out of the cage, it wouldn’t be fun anymore.”

More important, Xi has the military on his side. As the party chief, Xi also heads the party’s top military body, the Central Military Commission, which oversees the armed forces. Throughout history, the Chinese leadership has never allowed the military to interfere with state affairs. But when different factions jockey fiercely for power, the support of the military is crucial. Former President Hu Jintao had no military experience and showed no interest in cultivating relationships with senior military officers. His lack of talent left the military under the firm control of allies of his predecessor, Jiang Zemin. In China, it can be argued that the Communist Party exists so long as the military finds it useful. Loss of military support would be catastrophic. Xi is different. His father’s military roots and his three-year stint as an aide to a senior military leader make the generals feel he is one of them. Besides, his singer wife is also a serving high-ranking officer in the army.

A month before the Party Congress, Xi Jinping consolidated his leadership position within the military by placing his allies in key positions and bringing the country’s five regional armed chiefs to Beijing to staff the Central Military Commission, which supervises China’s large armed forces. Unlike President Jiang Zemin, who held onto the
top spot within the military for two years after he relinquished the presidency, President Hu handed over military control upon his retirement. “Xi’s advisers know very well that a bumpy ride was awaiting him,” said the son of a military officer. “He knows that he has to have the military firmly in his hands so he can weather possible storms from social unrests, power struggles, or instability triggered by his own political reforms.”

Still, Xi’s priority for the military underscores a disturbing trend: it might be pressed to take a tougher stand in territorial disputes with its neighbors. If a large-scale protest movement should occur, the government would rely on the military to intervene and suppress opposition, possibly in a more brutal way than that in 1989 at Tiananmen Square. The reasoning is simple—when its basic interests are threatened, the party will resort to any means available to protect itself. Fortunately, after 1989, the government has become more sophisticated in dealing with protests and has learned to use arms as sparingly as possible to avoid inflaming public outrage and international condemnation. However, when the situation grows out of control and armed police cannot handle the protesters, there is little doubt that Xi would follow the direction of his generals. He is a pragmatist.

So far, the public has high expectations for Xi, due to what experts said was “deep disillusionment with the inaction and incompetence of the Hu Jintao administration.” A week after the transfer of power to Xi, “The Field of Hope,” the song made famous by his singer wife, was on the radio and rising on the pop charts. It captured the public mood and helped dispel pessimism. It would not be a mistake to compare this song with the effect “Happy Days Are Here Again” had on the US public with the ascendancy of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the early 1930s and his promises of US prosperity.

To the public, especially Westerners, Xi has unlimited power at his disposal—he leads a party that has no opposition and rules the world’s most populous nation, a booming economic power inexorably headed toward the top position the US has held since the two great wars of the past century. But—and in China there is always a “but”—such high expectations of Xi may not have taken into account factors that limit what he can achieve.

Xi lacks legitimacy because he is not directly elected by the people he serves. Moreover, within the Politburo Standing Committee, each member represents a vast patronage network and a cluster of interest groups. Xi could no longer dominate the agenda like Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping did. On major policy issues, members operate by consensus, involving balancing the political and economic interests of all factions. Committee members might attend different public meetings together, but they seldom communicate or socialize with each other.

The current structure of the Politburo Standing Committee was part of Deng Xiaoping’s effort to promote collective leadership and ensure China’s stability. “The key to China’s stability is to have a good Politburo, especially a good Politburo Standing Committee,” said Deng in 1992. “As long as this decision-making body remains united and doesn’t go awry, China will be stable as the Tai mountain.”

Ironically, this very structure, created ostensibly to prevent one-man dominance, has made it inherently easier for party elders such as Deng Xiaoping to control, because nobody within the committee has absolute control. In 1989 Deng, even though he had relinquished his political power, ordered the military to crack down on protesters against the wishes of a majority of the Politburo Standing Committee. Members who opposed his military action were purged.

After Jiang Zemin was designated party chief, Deng monitored Jiang’s every move. If it hadn’t been for his Parkinson’s disease, insiders said Deng would have deposed Jiang in 1992 because he was unhappy with the slow pace of the country’s economic reforms. To ensure that his legacy continued, Deng even designated Jiang’s successor.

In the aftermath of Deng’s death, Jiang’s authority grew rapidly. Following his retirement, he still held sway over the Politburo Standing Committee. President Hu Jintao reportedly consulted with Jiang on all major policy initiatives. Like Deng, he intervened in two succession plans—designating Xi as the crown prince at the 17th Party Congress and influencing the leadership makeup in 2012.

With Xi’s installation in November 2012, for the foreseeable future he will have to deal with two king fathers, former Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, as well as former premiers Wen Jiabao and Zhu Rongji. “The party elders will constantly call him and send him memos, telling him
how he should rule,” said Gao Xin, coauthor of
Chinese Princelings
. “If Xi strays too far, they can muster enough support to depose him. The interference could severely restrict what Xi can do.” Xi further faces challenges from other princelings, who feel entitled to have their opinions heard. “Both his friends and foes in the princeling group will try to influence his decisions,” said Gao Xin. “Considering their political and economic clout, they could cause obstructions if Xi does not handle these interpersonal relations well.”

Resistance to change comes as well from officials at different levels of the party and the government bureaucracy. Scholars and journalists in the West erroneously characterize the Chinese leadership with labels such as “conservative” or “reformist.” To a large extent, there are no true reformists or conservatives within the Communist Party. As beneficiaries of the current political system, Chinese leaders choose to be reformists only when the reforms advance or maximize their own economic and political interests—they can enjoy lifelong privileges and their children are in control of a vast amount of China’s wealth. They all turn into ultraconservatives when any reform initiatives disrupt the power balance and jeopardize their well-being.

The majority of party officials, including Xi and his fellow Politburo members, will publicly agree political or democratic reform is the only solution for China’s future, but no one wants it to happen while they are in power. The recent uprisings in the Arab world—the so-called Arab Spring—have made Chinese leaders keenly aware of their own fate should it come to settling political scores. Moreover, there is no apparent motivation for the leadership to engage in large-scale political reform. Internationally, China’s vast foreign reserves and real and potential market control can still attract a large group of money-grabbing investors, desperate politicians, and opportunistic scholars, who will cozy up to China for economic gain. Domestically, authorities can still maintain their grip on the masses through extreme means of suppression.

In such a context, there is little to suggest that Xi will be China’s Mikhail Gorbachev and steer the country in a sharply different direction and seek to loosen the ropes of one-party rule. Xi’s new initiatives will inevitably be limited to stopgap measures to aggressively combat
corruption, boost social welfare for the poor, and encourage the development of private enterprises, while temporarily relaxing political controls to regain the trust of the intellectual elite. The party could introduce experimental measures to broaden intraparty democracy by allowing limited elections for certain positions within the party and encouraging greater debate, but stability remains a top concern and one-party rule will be safeguarded. In handling relations with the US and its Asian neighbors, who are wary of China’s past belligerent style, Xi might be more conciliatory in settling trade and territorial disputes.

However, no superficial measures can solve China’s deepening fundamental social, political, and diplomatic problems.

After more than three decades of market reform, China has reinvented itself, growing from a broken sampan into a luxury cruise ship. The ship of state has been in choppy waters. The pace of China’s economic growth has slowed significantly. A bubble created by booming construction and surging real estate prices, and a shaky financial system resulting from irrational lending to corrupted officials at local government and mammoth state-run enterprises could be shoals that sink the ship.