Political
tensions are rising in China in a prelude of what is expected to be an all-out
battle between the country's top two leaders -- President Xi Jinping and
Premier Li Keqiang.
Relations between the two have deteriorated sharply in
the past year or so. This could be seen during the past two annual meetings of
the National People's Congress, China's parliament.
As they did a year earlier, Xi and Li this past March sat
next to each other during the plenary sessions. But they never shook hands.
They also spoke to each other only briefly. They even avoided making eye
contact.
Their behavior was highly unusual. Even last year, the
two at least glad-handed and smiled for the sake of the TV cameras, not to
mention all those around them.
"Relations between Xi and Li have seriously
soured," one political source in Beijing said during the closing days of
the Chinese parliament's annual meeting. "Their rivalry could even be
divined from a speech Li gave [during the most recent congress] and will become
even clearer in due course."
In a government work report that Li gave in speech form
on March 5, during the opening session of the annual meeting, he said, "We
will improve oversight and accountability systems, root out incompetence,
inertia, and negligence, and show zero tolerance for those who are on the
government payroll but do not perform their duties."
Li came down hard on paper-shuffling bureaucrats
immediately after referring to President Xi's anti-corruption campaign and
saying that the Chinese government will step up its fight against corruption.
Apparently, this was Li's way of highlighting the
negative effects of Xi's anti-corruption drive, especially the widespread
phenomenon of slacking off. It was also a veiled attack on the Chinese
president.
Sitting and
waiting
Since being inaugurated about three years ago, President
Xi has wielded an anti-corruption campaign against his political foes and as a
tool to consolidate power.
Even Li cannot squarely challenge how Xi has implemented his campaign;
doing so would put his own political fortunes at risk. But Li can play up the
issue of officials at all levels of government slacking off.
Hundreds of thousands of government and Communist Party officials at
both the national and local levels have been placed under investigation,
detained or punished for corruption.
While the officials caught in Xi's dragnet have been labeled by their
wrongdoings, it is also true that they helped to boost China's gross domestic
product, now the second largest in the world.
Without Xi's anti-corruption crusade, they might have continued to be
highly evaluated.
Xi has cracked down on both "tigers" and "flies" --
powerful leaders and low-level officials. But the drive has also left behind
officials who now are so afraid of being netted that they deliberately avoid
fulfilling their responsibilities.
Unlike in the past, Chinese bureaucrats now shy away from negotiating
public works deals while out at night; they fear being turned in, even by their
subordinates, for being wined and dined. Instead, they sit, hoping to wait out
the raging political storm.
Adverse economic effects
This has adversely impacted the Chinese economy, with numerous projects
in various parts of the country being delayed or stalled.
Before Xi became president, local governments would compete with one
another to bring higher growth to their economies. Their officials were always
ready to heap praise upon themselves.
After Xi took office, though, more than an anti-corruption campaign hit
China. The country's economy fundamentally shifted. Years of high-speed growth
gave way to a slowdown. Policy changed with the times. It now prioritizes
structural reforms that might lead to stable growth.
This, however, has made local government officials even less willing to
work hard.
It is a situation that Li, who is supposed to be China's economic czar,
regards as intolerable. But what is Li to do? Xi's aggressive consolidation of
power has left him with no real authority.
So he is relegated to giving pep talks, like the one he delivered during
the National People's Congress. Unfortunately for Li, most bureaucrats are
fully aware that the premier's authority is limited. "I will not change
anything unless Xi himself gives assurances that I will not fall victim to his
anti-corruption campaign," one local government official said.
But since Li's latest pep talk, China's political winds have been
shifting, though slightly. The Communist Party is even hearing calls for
someone to counterbalance Xi.
The shift reflects party concerns that:
·
Xi has concentrated too much power via his anti-corruption campaign;
·
there is a personality cult being built around Xi;
·
Xi's silencing of the media has gone too far;
·
his political campaign has adversely affected the economy.
Fully realizing how the political climate now favors him, Li has decided
to take a first step to counter Xi's unrivaled power.
"Li was also probably feeling a sense of crisis," a Beijing
intellectual said. "He apparently thought that if he does not demonstrate
his presence now, he could be removed from his post of premier."
On April 15, Li visited the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing,
Xi's alma mater, where he stressed the importance of education, especially in
science and technology. Later in the day, he visited Peking University, his own
alma mater.
It was a calculated move to visit Xi's alma mater first. Li was
accompanied by Vice Premier Liu Yandong and Guo Jinlong, the Communist Party
chief in Beijing who is close to former President Hu Jintao.
The entourage also included many members of the Communist Youth League
faction, Li's power base and a massive political force within the Communist
Party that comprises former officials of the Communist Youth League.
The faction, which boasts 90 million members, has been led by Hu and Li.
Hu has already retired, which leaves Li alone to secure promotions for as many
faction members as possible at the party's national congress in the fall of
2017.
Support base
"Li looks as if he picked a fight with Xi, who is unpopular with
intellectuals," a university official in Beijing said.
The aim of Li's visits to the two universities was to drum up support
among students and intellectuals. Many members of the Communist Youth League
faction at the two universities were mobilized for Li's inspection tour.
While lacking support among intellectuals, Xi initially won the hearts
and minds of many Chinese thanks to his crackdown on corrupt officials. This
fostered an image of Xi as "a champion of justice," though his once
astronomically high popularity now appears to be waning.
Xi belongs to both the princeling faction and the second red generation.
Princelings are the children of prominent and influential senior party
officials; the second red generation is a smaller group of children of
revolutionary-era party leaders.
Xi's late father, Xi Zhongxun, once served as a vice premier.
There are many members of the second red generation in the People's
Liberation Army, which Xi sees as a particularly reliable support base.
Intellectuals and the
soldierly
Highly alarmed by Li's gambit, Xi wasted no time in countering it.
On April 20, Xi made an inspection tour of the Central Military
Commission's joint operations command center, in Beijing, and delivered an
important speech stressing the results of his military reform drive.
Xi doubles as chairman of the commission, which commands the armed
forces. He made a big splash by wearing a camouflage uniform when he visited
the military facility, something his civilian predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu
Jintao, never did.
Images and photos of the top national leader in camo went viral. They
symbolized a warning of sorts: "The military is on my side. You'd better
stop going against me."
Xi's visit to the Central Military Commission's joint operations command
center may have also sent a message to another foe -- the U.S. China and
the U.S. are locked in an increasingly tense military face-off regarding the
South China Sea.
At any rate, Xi's inspection tour and photo op effectively checked Li's
move, though the two are expected to continue shadow boxing in the run up to
the quinquennial national congress, still a year and a half away.
So it's the intellectuals versus the soldierly as China's two top
leaders jockey for position.
KATSUJI NAKAZAWA, Nikkei senior staff writer
No comments:
Post a Comment