September 3, 2024
BEIJING – Deng Xiaoping is not only widely regarded as the architect of economic reforms in modern China, but also respected for his views on the need for collective leadership in the Communist Party of China (CPC).
So when it comes to honouring his legacy today, Chinese President Xi Jinping – who has systematically amassed political power since coming to office in 2012, representing a break from the latter principle – had to be selective.
This was what he did in a major speech on Deng’s life and contributions to China and the CPC at a symposium to commemorate the late patriarch’s 120th birth anniversary on Aug 22, China watchers said.
Deng died on Feb 19, 1997 at the age of 92. There have been three such party symposiums studying his legacy held every 10 years since then: In 2004 under former president Hu Jintao, and in 2014 under Mr Xi, in addition to the Aug 22 event on Deng’s birthday.
In his 5,500-word speech on Aug 22, Mr Xi called for the continued study and application of Deng Xiaoping Theory, for instance in deepening the reform of the system of party and state leadership, and promoting intra-party democracy.
He said that, learning from Deng, “the party must have a core; the party central committee must have authority”, a line which was absent from the speeches given at previous symposiums.
The emphasis on a leadership “core” – a term used to refer to Chinese leaders who enjoyed unparalleled power such as Mao Zedong, Deng, Mr Jiang Zemin and Mr Xi, but not Mr Hu – was in stark contrast to 2004’s symposium, when his predecessor Mr Hu quoted Deng as saying that “the individual is a member of the collective; nothing can be done by one person”.
Deng’s political reforms included setting age limits for senior officials and a two-term limit for the state president and vice-president.
“Comrade Deng Xiaoping advocated the abolition of the lifelong tenure of cadres and took the lead in putting this into practice, playing a decisive role in the smooth transition from the second generation of the party’s central leadership to the third generation,” Mr Hu had said.
Former president Jiang – who was the third generation’s paramount leader from 1989 to 2002 – then handed over power when he stepped down as party secretary in 2002 and state president in 2003 and relinquished the post of chairman of the Central Military Commission in 2004 in favour of Mr Hu.
Since Mr Xi became the CPC’s general secretary in November 2012, however, he has abolished the state president’s term limit, broken unwritten rules on retirement ages for top party leaders and pushed to codify party leadership into law.
While the reformist Deng said in June 1989 that “any leadership collective needs a core”, he also emphasised the need for a small group of political elite.
Noted American political scientist Susan Shirk saw a key Deng legacy as his efforts to decentralise authority, check dictatorial power and institutionalise regular peaceful leadership succession, after the excesses of the Mao era.
But Mr Xi has been widely viewed as implementing one-man rule, a break from the post-Mao system of collective leadership. Mr Xi now heads multiple powerful party committees, created during his term, with coordinating functions from national security to economic reform.
Assistant Professor James Char from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore said Mr Xi was cherry-picking from Deng’s speeches and omitting Deng’s other important dictums to support his current stance on Chinese elite politics.
He noted that Deng was famous for saying that “building a country’s fate on the prestige of one or two people is very unhealthy and dangerous” in June 1989, a quote that can be found in Volume 3 of the Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping.
“As we know, Xi Jinping has long done away with the previous two-term limit set by Deng,” said Dr Char, whose specialisations include Chinese politics.
“Xi has also defined himself as the Party’s ‘core’ leader and cemented his ideas as the guiding principles for the country’s future development,” he said, although he noted that Deng himself was a strongman leader, and the Tiananmen incident of 1989 would not have taken place without his authorisation.
In Mr Xi’s Aug 22 speech, he said that China experienced “severe political turmoil” in the “spring and summer of 1989” – a clear reference to the incident, where months-long student-led demonstrations in the heart of Beijing culminated in a violent crackdown by the Chinese military.
References to the incident remain heavily censored in China, but clearer official references have been made in recent years, for instance in a landmark CPC resolution on history in November 2021.
Mr Xi said: “Comrade Deng Xiaoping led the Party and the people in firmly opposing the chaos, resolutely defending the socialist state power, and ensuring that the Party and the country withstood a severe test of turbulent storms.”
Mr Manoj Kewalramani, who heads China studies research at Takshashila Institution in India, said that Mr Xi is essentially arguing that Deng’s takeaway from the 1980s reform and Tiananmen was – quoting from Mr Xi’s speech – to “focus on party building, strengthen ideological and political work and education on fine traditions, improve the party’s leadership level and governing ability”.
But these are Mr Xi’s agenda items, he noted. “Yes, patriotic education was launched in the mid-1990s, but so was there actually a move towards greater economic freedom and less party control over people’s lives. Therefore, Xi is reinterpreting the moment to suit what is his policy agenda.”
Mr Jiang initiated China’s first “patriotic education campaign” in the 1990s, which aimed to boost nationalism as well as the CPC’s legitimacy. But Mr Jiang and Mr Hu were also seen as pragmatists who sought to reduce the influence of ideology on economic development.
Mr Kewalramani added: “That’s the really fascinating thing about Chinese political discourse; one can identify elements and interpret them very differently to suit one’s agenda while also demonstrating continuity. But practice is eventually what matters.”
Yet history may also provide more context for each leader’s political ideas. Dr Char said Deng and his cohort had experienced the excesses and disasters stemming from Mao’s unchecked powers.
“So there was elite consensus and popular support that the regime move away from a ‘strongman’ leadership model,” he said.
“In Xi’s case, the collective leadership he had witnessed under his immediate predecessor caused Hu’s inability to impose his personal authority on the rest of the regime – leading to political gridlock and opportunistic power struggles. As well as believing he is the best person to lead China for the immediate future, Xi obviously prefers to avoid Hu’s ‘reign without rule’,” Dr Char added.