MICHAEL SHERIDAN
THE TIMES
AUGUST 31, 2015
Chinese President Xi Jinping is facing fierce internal opposition to his policies as he prepares to take the world stage at a military parade this week to mark the end of World War II.
As China’s economy runs into trouble, there is “a fierce struggle beyond imagination” against him inside the Communist Party, said the People’s Daily, its flagship newspaper.
It appears to have burst into the open following the annual conclave of the party’s grandees at the beach resort of Beidaihe.
This is normally an occasion for lobbying and compromises forged over banquets and on seaside walks, after which the leaders emerge with understandings over policy later communicated through the state media. This year, by contrast, there was a resounding silence.
Chinese journalists privately believe something went wrong for Mr Xi at the meeting, which coincided with growing unease about Chinese economic management.
Stock indexes lurched up and down as party bureaucrats tried to control share prices, while a surprise devaluation of the national currency shook global trade. Censors banned Chinese editors from telling their public the full story about the stockmarket crash, fearing the ire of 90 million small investors, who now outnumber the party’s 87 million members.
The hardline Global Times blamed its favourite villain, saying the Western media wanted to see the end of China’s political and economic model and thus exaggerated things.
Yet it is China’s own media that has revealed the extent of the resistance to Mr Xi inside the party. This month, an extraordinary sequence of articles in the People’s Daily criticised retired cadres for wielding patronage behind the scenes.
It was a clear reference to former president Jiang Zemin, 89, and people connected to his successor in 2002, Hu Jintao. Some are identified with a faction linked to Mr Hu’s power base in the Communist Youth League, a group that includes Prime Minister Li Keqiang.
Last week, somebody in Beijing briefed foreign journalists that Mr Li could take the fall for the economic trouble. Those media hints were mild compared with an article that was given prominence by the People’s Daily and reproduced in other outlets.
Written under the pen name “Guoping” — thought to signify a high-level commentary group — it said Mr Xi’s reforms to the economy and his drive against corruption had met “immense difficulties”. “There is a fierce struggle beyond imagination against the reforms,” it declared.
Bureaucratic inertia, greed and resistance by vested interests in state-owned enterprises were all singled out by commentators interpreting the piece.
Its greatest significance, however, lay in its acknowledgment of something inner circles in Beijing and dissidents in Hong Kong have talked about for more than a year: fear and loathing of Mr Xi in the party’s own ranks.
“Chinese politics at this level is a zero-sum game and there’s deep worry about how much power this guy has accumulated in his own hands,” said a source in Hong Kong with elite connections.
“They all fear he’s going to turn into another Mao and never leave power. There is a sense that they are turning on each other and nobody is safe.”
Some of the party’s 250-strong central committee disapproved of the purge of Zhou Yongkang, the former security boss and rival to Mr Xi, who was given a show trial and a life sentence for alleged corruption.
Others were appalled when the party’s internal discipline department seized Ling Jihua, who was private secretary to Mr Hu, drew up a list of charges and expelled him from the party.
The net is also closing around a key powerbroker, Zeng Qinghong, who still has a coterie of supporters.
When Mr Xi welcomes luminaries such as Vladimir Putin to the podium on Thursday to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, however, he will exude his usual air of regal calm.
THE SUNDAY TIMES
