12.11.2021
As reported by the “South China Morning Post”, historic resolutions are official summaries of the party’s history up to the date of a resolution’s publication. The documents address leading political figures, key achievements, lessons learned, and directions for future policies. The “People’s Daily” (November 9th) declared, “the 100 year history of the CCP: revolution, construction, and reform has come to an end” and now a new era has started, named the period of building a complex modern socialist country. Taking these assumptions as a starting point, the commentary aims to answer the following questions: why are the people back on the CCP agenda? What is the political context in which the 6th Plenary Session is being held? And who is responsible for (re)writing China's history for Xi Jinping?
Why and how will the people be put first?
The recent socio-economic transformation in China, which has led to a select number of people, such as Jack Ma, to become extremely wealthy has given rise to a feeling in the party that the last 40 years of reforms has exacerbated income and wealth inequality inside the country. Furthermore, the party views this development as a source for potential social instability. According to the CCP, this process has undermined the legitimacy of the party. At the beginning of 1990s, the Fudan University professor, Wang Huning (now a member of the Standing Committee), called for a more centralized pro-people government. His arguments were supported by the Qinghua University group including Hu Angang and Wang Shaoguang who led the “new left movement”. Although the CCP advocates that the people are the core of the country, the party believes that the country requires institutions to govern society.
A recent article in “The People’s Daily” (November 8th) recalled Xi Jinping’s writings and speeches on the “people are the master of the country” subject. Since 2012, the Chinese leader has reminded the public of the old communist mantra, “people are the master of history” that was taken by the CCP as key in shaping the understanding of China’s history – from feudalism to socialism and communism. In 2016, Xi also reminded the public that “The people’s position is the fundamental political stance of the Communist Party of China, and it is a significant principle that distinguishes a Marxist party from other parties”.
The dominant role of the party over the people is also underpinned by Xi Jinping’s statement that socialist democracy embodies the will of the people, protects the rights and interests of the people, stimulates the people’s creative vitality, and uses an institutional system to ensure that the people are the masters of the country.
Although President Xi did not introduce methods that could be used to institutionalize the system, digital technologies can and are playing a decisive role here.
In Xi’s vision, the structure of society fails to follow Mao’s permanent revolution and class-less society but rather follows the hierarchical model of governance embodied in China’s political culture of feudal Confucianism and Legalism. In the future, however, the CCP’s goal of regaining control over society may be possible through the country’s social credit system.
Why a resolution now?
Because he has positioned himself as the towering figure in Chinese politics, Xi Jinping needs to create a solid basis for his theoretical contribution to the history of the Chinese Communist Party. Two previous resolutions, Mao’s "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party” in 1945, and Deng’s “Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China” in 1981, both came after a political and ideological purge within the party. The first, after the Yan'an Rectification Campaign that saw thousands of intellectuals killed before Mao was eventually put into power. With Deng’s resolution, the Gang of Four were put on trial and convicted of anti-party activities before Deng Xiaoping and his group ascended to power in the country. So new resolutions were preceded by a power struggle within the party. In both cases, conflict was triggered by relations among powerful policymakers, between Mao Zedong and Zhang Guotao in the 1940s, and between Deng Xiaoping and Hua Guofeng in the late 1970s. In other words, these resolutions played a purely political role in supporting the position of the paramount leader within the structure of the party.
More recently, when Xi Jinping took power in 2012, a massive anti-corruption campaign was launched that swept the country on central, provincial and district levels. The campaign started with a crackdown on high-ranking officials and local bureaucrats, dubbed “tigers and flies”, who were mostly accused of abuse of power and bribery. At the top level, several senior executives of state-owned companies and five national leaders were also brought down by the campaign.
Similarly, to Mao and Deng’s resolution, Xi Jinping also won the battle for control of the party against the other major political figure of that time, namely Bo Xilai.
Both were sons of prominent revolutionaries and reformers, Xi Zhongxun and Bo Yibo, respectively. Both men had hopes of leading China. Bo Xilai promoted a “Maoist-like” campaign as party secretary in the city of Chongqing with his actions swiftly being labelled the “Chongqing model”. This experiment was supported by the Qinghua New-Left group and its leader Cui Zhiyuan. However, this threatened the prospects of the other rising star in the party, Xi Jinping. By 2014, Bo had been branded by some media outlets outside of China as part of a "New Gang of Four '', along with Zhou Yongkang, Xu Caihou and Lin Jinhua. Ultimately, Bo Xilai was expelled from the party, and after being put on trial for bribery and embezzlement, was sentenced to life imprisonment. For the next seven years, Xi Jinping implemented and cemented his successful road to power by eliminating political rivals at the top, and instructing those at lower administrative levels.
Who is (re)writing the history of China now?
The fact that the Qinghua New Left group supported Xi Jinping’s political rival left a space for groups from different academic units to fill, with Fudan University coming to prominence. Wang Huning, a professor from Fudan university had been an advisor to former chairmen, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, and as a consequence, ascended into the higher echelons of the political establishment. He served as the head of the Central Policy Research Office (2002-2020) and as a secretary of the CCP Secretariat (2007 and 2012). Wang Huninng is believed to be the chief ideologue of the Communist Party and the main architect behind the official political ideologies and propagator of the “Chinese Dream” as well as "Xi Jinping’s Thoughts'' and quite possibly the “Common prosperity” slogan. As argued by Joseph Fewsmith in Subchina, Wang sees stability as a prerequisite for political modernization, and all roles by the People’s Congress, the Party, and technocrats should play the role they are alloted.
Wang Huning’s views emphasize the importance of unitary values to conform to the Party Center’s strategic interests regardless of domain – as Matthew D. Johnson says, "his role as an official is not confined solely to propaganda or ideological education".
The chief ideologist’s thinking can be seen in his writing. Wang Huning in his paper, “The Structure of China’s Changing Political Culture”, argues that the "Chinese political culture has traditionally been "culturally oriented,” which is different from Western political culture, which is "institutionally oriented." This, however, should not limit Chinese policy makers to place the institutions at the core of the country’s development of society. After 1949, when China took the Western path of Marxism, the country did not completely eliminate the historic structures which continued to cause occasional challenges, some of which were serious.
The transformation of China is seen basically as a process of transition from a culturally oriented political culture to an institutionally oriented political culture. In the long term, this goal may well clash with the Chinese culture of relying on cultivating interpersonal relations rather than law and regulations.
But under Xi Jinping’s reign institutionalism, as the “People’s Daily” has stated, is taken as a key part of his new legacy in the Chinese Communist Party.
Historic resolutions mark the end of huge political campaigns and signal that the leader is strong enough to pursue their vision of the country. In the current context the resolution also symbolizes that through changing the narrative in favour of “common prosperity” and “benefit for the people”, the Chinese Communist Party legitimizes its position in China. Throughout the new resolution, Xi Jinping promotes his place in China’s history as an innovator and a pioneer of political transformation goals. Following the revolutionary approach of Mao Zedong and the entrepreneurial approach of Deng Xiaoping, Xi Jinping’s institutional approach promotes the National People’s Congress as the institutional model of China’s consultative democracy. Xi Jinping’s model of socialism with a Chinese characteristic in the new era will be supported by digital technologies and will be seen as “taking up the torch” from Mao and Deng with regard to the continuity of China’s development.