Chinese leader Xi Jinping will walk onto the red-carpeted stage in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing next week, applauded by 2300 delegates representing the 90 million members of the Chinese Communist Party.
The 20th National Congress of the CCP is not, however, just about pageantry and dry speeches and rubber-stamping on the leadership’s plans for the next five years.
It is also the most important event in the Chinese political calendar – and it will have outsized influence this year, when the Congress is set to confirm Xi for a third five-year term.
This will make him the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, the Communist leader who oversaw some of the most devastating events in modern Chinese history: from the Great Leap Forward, a misguided industrial policy that led some 20 million people into starvation, to the brutal Cultural Revolution, when party apparatchiks – including Xi and his parents – were “sent down” to work in the fields in an effort by Mao to weed out his opponents.
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Despite suffering at the hands of Mao, Xi has adopted some of the tactics of “The Great Helmsman”, including fostering a personality cult that requires Chinese to study “Xi Jinping thought” and reintroducing “self-criticism sessions” for the Politburo.
Xi will take another step in Mao’s authoritarian direction when the Congress begins on Sunday.
“It’s an open secret that Xi is going to extend his stay in office,” says Nicholas Khoo, a China expert at the University of Otago and past visiting scholar at Peking University.
Xi laid the groundwork for this change in 2018, when he revised the constitution and overrode the safeguards put in place after Mao’s death in 1976, designed to ensure that no one person could amass too much power.
The real question now is not whether Xi, who is 69, gets a third term. It’s whether he’s positioning himself for a fourth, or even a fifth, term.
A clue will come in the six other men – always men – who comprise the party’s Politburo standing committee and will follow Xi on to the stage. If there’s a relatively young – say, under 55 – new face in the line-up, that’s the sign that Xi has anointed a successor.
But few China-watchers are expecting to see a new, fresh-ish face on the stage. Xi shows no sign of going anywhere soon. He still has work to do on his plan for "national rejuvenation" and ensuring that China returns to what he sees as its rightful place at the top of the global order.
“The regime as a whole has to face the prospect of a lifelong leader which they haven’t faced since the death of Mao. It’s quite existential,” says Minxin Pei, an expert on Chinese governance at Claremont McKenna College in California. “The regime has to live with the consequences of a dominant leader who has made up his mind about where the country should go.”
Xi’s vision puts the CCP-led China at odds with democracies around the world, including New Zealand.
An incomplete list of the hallmarks of Xi’s decade in power includes:
Eliminating space for dissent and opposition.
The extensive use of artificial intelligence and surveillance technologies to monitor almost every aspect of the Chinese population’s lives.
Widespread persecution of ethnic minorities, especially Tibetan and Uyghur peoples.
The elimination of political rivals through an anti-corruption campaign.
The rapid expansion of China’s military capabilities, including the militarisation of large parts of the South China Sea that are claimed by other countries.
The almost complete erosion of the "one country, two systems" framework that allowed Hong Kong to enjoy a level of autonomy.
Threats to invade Taiwan, a democratic island of 25 million people.
Repeated use of economic retribution and hostage-taking in diplomatic arguments, and the rise of aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomacy.
New Zealand’s economy remains overwhelmingly reliant on China: a full third of our international trade is done with this increasingly affluent market of 1.4 billion people, who prize our meat and dairy in particular.
The growth since 2008, when New Zealand signed the developed world’s first free-trade agreement with China, has been phenomenal.
New Zealand exported $2.5b worth of goods to China in 2008. Last year, exports to China topped $20b, more than double the value of New Zealand’s next biggest export market, Australia.
The Labour-led Government that has been in power since 2017 has been more circumspect about China than the National-led one before it, issuing statements expressing concern about Beijing’s actions in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and, more recently, Taiwan.
For all the differences in our political systems and the increasingly authoritarian trends of Xi’s tenure, New Zealand’s relationship with China has barely changed.
The Government has not made any headway on pledges to diversify New Zealand’s markets to avoid having so many of our trading eggs in China’s basket.
New Zealand’s trade with China has actually grown since before Covid, with both exports and imports rising by a quarter between 2020 and 2021. “The decision to keep things as they are is also a decision,” Khoo says.
This shows the weight of trade in New Zealand’s foreign policy decisions.
“For all our talk about having a values-based foreign policy, one of our strongest relationships in the world is with China. That is a pure statement of fact,” Khoo says. “This policy is because of trade. This is not going to change much, it just seems like our economic growth and our economic model is tied to China.”
As proof that China is too big to assail, Khoo points to New Zealand’s swift moves this year to condemn another increasingly authoritarian regime.
“We have no problems with criticising Russia,” he says. Russia is New Zealand’s 27th-largest export market. “To me, actions speak louder than words.”
The big question for New Zealand now is whether we try to reconcile these contradictions between our values and our foreign policy.
“The answer depends whether you want to be morally principled or whether you want to be pragmatic – not just for New Zealand but for all democratic countries,” says Pei. “You can still find a balance.”
Aotearoa might have to thread this needle sooner rather than later, with Beijing issuing ever more shrill threats about taking control of Taiwan.
“Everyone is going to be watching very closely to see if there are any signals in Xi’s Congress speech about Taiwan,” says Anna Powles, an expert on China and the Pacific at Massey University.
“Will there be anything more concrete than the usual statements? Will he mention any timeframes?”
The good news for New Zealand is that we are very competitive in agricultural products and there is no shortage of demand from other countries, especially during a global food crisis.
“China probably needs New Zealand more than the other way round. There are only so many countries in the world with a surplus of dairy and meat,” Pei says.
“I think New Zealand needs to conduct a serious examination. Can they do a little bit more? New Zealand can do a lot more on the issue of human rights.”
Doing a little bit more – like speaking out more loudly against China’s human rights abuses or its threats to take control of Taiwan – could become much easier as the Chinese economic juggernaut shudders close to a standstill.
China is a long way from the double-digit growth that propelled it to becoming the world’s second-largest economy. Even before Covid-19, the economy was slowing sharply. China’s zero-Covid policy, which has seen long and harsh lockdowns all around the country, has depressed growth even further.
Now the World Bank forecasts that China’s economy will expand by a measly 2.8% this year, barely half the rate of the rest of the Asia-Pacific region and, crucially, half the rate the CCP estimated in March.
This has led Xi to return to the centralised economic approach of 20th-century Communism – with big implications for Aotearoa.
The CCP has cracked down on key drivers of growth – especially those it doesn’t directly control, like the dynamic private tech industry – while trying to strengthen state-owned enterprises.
Meanwhile, with China’s debt-to-GDP ratio doubling to more than 300% since 2008, the CCP’s efforts to rein in debt have triggered slowdowns in the property market, causing a ‘’slow-motion financial crisis" and triggering widespread anger in the burgeoning middle class.
“The CCP is trying to double down on state planning and industrial policy in the 21st century – that’s a big experiment,” Khoo says. “The fact that New Zealand’s economic future is tied to an experiment should give us a little pause when we consider our economic and foreign policy.”
But John McKinnon, who served as New Zealand’s ambassador to Beijing twice and is now chairperson of the New Zealand-China Council, says we should stay the course, whatever Xi might do over the next week or so.
“China is one of our major economic and political partners, and its decisions, whatever we think of them, have a major effect on our region and on the world,” McKinnon says.
“For New Zealand, that means continuing what we have always had to do with China – balancing interests and values – in a world which is not sure how it should respond to this China, but is more anxious about it than in the past.”
The past five years had been turbulent, and the next could be too.
“China has many challenges – demographic, environmental, economic,” he says. “Its leadership is resourceful and powerful but will be tested. The outcomes of the party congress will give us pointers as to how China will manage these challenges.”
The key constraint on New Zealand aligning its values and foreign policy has been its fear of economic retaliation. Beijing has shown no qualms about punishing democratic countries, including Canada and Australia, with trade bans.
The Australian example is particularly alarming for New Zealand. China responded furiously when Scott Morrison’s government called for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus, slapping huge tariffs on Australian products including bottled wine, barley, sugar and lobster.
But overall trade between China and Australia has nevertheless remained strong – Australian exports to China in fact increased by 24% in the year after the tariffs were introduced, although they have since cooled – and many exporters adapted and are diversifying their markets.
While new prime minister Anthony Albanese has tried to reset relations with China, many Australians have bristled at Beijing’s bullying tactics and the increasing prevalence of cyberattacks.
The risks of economic retaliation are real, says Pei, but New Zealand should look at why China picked on Australia.
“Australia went ahead of the pack, before the United States, on the Covid inquiry. It was the nail that stuck out. If you just follow other people, China will react differently, it will interpret New Zealand as following the US.”
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