The leadership’s annual sojourns in Beidaihe have
been key to many of the most momentous changes in the country’s history – so
the frenzied speculation that surrounds them should come as no surprise
Last week, US President Barack Obama hit a
milestone in golf – his 300th round since taking office. He did so in Martha’s
Vineyard, a favourite summer haunt of American presidents and the rich.
At the same time, the top
Chinese leaders were probably swimming in polluted seawater or lounging on an
exclusive stretch of beach in their favourite summer retreat of Beidaihe, 280km
east of Beijing.
The difference is that while
Obama achieved his dubious honour trailed by reporters and television cameras
as he enjoyed the last summer holiday of his presidency, the Chinese state
media made no mention of their own leaders’ holidays despite the disappearance
from public view of President Xi Jinping (習近平) and
Premier Li Keqiang ( 李克強 ) since the beginning of
August.
The only sign the Chinese
leaders had begun their holidays came on Friday when Xinhua reported Liu
Yunshan ( 劉雲山 ), the propaganda tsar and
one of the Communist Party’s seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, met a
group of scholars invited to holiday at the resort. Xinhua emphasised Liu was
there on Xi’s behalf.
When the Chinese leaders
return to work on Monday, state media are expected to resume their fulsome
coverage of their meetings and instructions by pretending the two-week lull
never happened.
It has never been clear why
Chinese leaders – in contrast to their overseas counterparts – do not publicly
acknowledge their summer holidays. It is as if doing so would somehow make them
less statesmanlike or harm their self-inflicted propaganda images of working
tirelessly for the people.
The Chinese leaders’ annual
holidays in Beidaihe have never been a quiet affair, judging by the history
books. Many of the momentous changes affecting the course of the People’s Republic
since its founding in 1949 stemmed from the closed-door meetings where they
strategised, connived, and fought one another to gain the upper hand. All these
meetings took place in utmost secrecy, leaving ordinary mainlanders clueless
about decisions which would upend their lives.
From 1953, the party’s
leadership began meeting in Beidaihe each summer, following in the footsteps of
the rich Chinese and foreign diplomats of the former era to escape the summer
heat of the capital. Mao Zedong ( 毛澤東 )
reportedly spent at least four months there in 1954.
The tradition ended with the
outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, but resumed in 1984 when avid swimmer Deng
Xiaoping (鄧小平) started spending summers
there.
In 2003, it was reportedly
suspended again by Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) – who had just become
president – supposedly on the pretext that moving the government apparatus of
the party, government, legislature, and military to the resort was a waste of
public money. But the edict did not seem to cover the retired leaders who
continued to holiday there.
In 2013, after Xi assumed the
leadership, the ritual was apparently revived once more.
Despite the secrecy, the
Beidaihe meetings have long been the subject of intense speculation in overseas
media, particularly Chinese-language publications.
That’s especially the case
this summer, as the retreat comes in the run-up to a key plenum of the party’s
central committee, scheduled for October, when the leadership will meet to
discuss and approve a new code of conduct to regulate its members, particularly
senior officials, as Xi continues to push his anti-graft campaign to
consolidate his power.
More importantly, speculation
abounds on whether the leaders will discuss the leadership line-up to be
unveiled at the party’s 19th congress – expected late next year – when five of
the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee (all bar Xi and Li) will
retire.
There are also suggestions
that Xi plans to force Li to give up more of his power over economic decisions
following a rift over the direction of the economy.
It will probably take days, if
not weeks, for the tidbits of their discussions, mixed with frenzied
speculation, to make their way into overseas media. Inevitably, such reports
will infuriate the leadership as they will add to international concerns over
the perceived intensifying political infighting and the leadership’s plans to
steer the world’s second largest economy forward.
For that, the Chinese leaders
have no one but themselves to blame for failing even to publicly acknowledge
the Beidaihe meetings take place.
Wang Xiangwei is the former
editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post. He is now based in Beijing as
editorial adviser to the paper
SCMP
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