Jakub Majmurek: Is Xi Jinping Is he the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao?
Michael Sheridan: No doubt. Piasts the 3 most crucial positions in China – Head of the Party, Army and State as Secretary-General of the Communist organization of China, president of the Central Military Commission and president of the People's Republic of China respectively. Mao never performed these 3 functions simultaneously. His power was mostly behind the scenes, not full formalized. Xi's power has a strong organization base.
In your book Xi does not impress either a charismatic leader or an inspiring ideologist or a large reformer – what actually enabled him to scope the heights of power?
Just due to the fact that he seems like a humble man, convinced the Chinese elite to bet on him. They weren't looking for a charismatic individual or a extremist reformer. They were convinced that China had already had adequate of the regulation of super strong authoritarian leaders. They wanted to defend their interests first – and felt that Xi was a safe choice from this point of view. He was an establishment candidate from the beginning.
Why didn't all the fuses the elite built into the strategy after Mao died to prevent the arrival of the fresh “red emperor” halt the concentration of power in Xi's hands?
It is interesting how small opposition Xi marched through subsequent institutions in China. A real power conflict took place before he took over the highest state positions in 2012. After that, he could already freely organize the purges among his rivals and destruct all likely to endanger the factions in the party.
Let us remember that Xi is simply a convinced Marxist-Leninist who learned to regulation the state and organization on the example of how Stalin ruled the russian Union. Like Stalin, Xi was able to change the nature of power in the state, formally without changing the system, but hollowing out the content of organization institutions.
There hasn't been a single minute in the last decade that anyone could halt building Xi's sole power?
Nope. The Communist organization of China has a strong culture of forced consensus, established in organization discipline. On the tombstone of Father Xi – Xi Zhongxun, a veteran of the revolution and for any time 1 of Mao's closest associates – the inscription “party interests are in the first place”. Xi formally enjoys fundamentally absolute power and since 2012, no 1 has openly challenged him. There are, of course, rumors about plots and possible coups, but so far no have confirmed.
In the book, you have repeatedly stressed how crucial it was for her hero's career and career was the origin of the red aristocracy and how crucial the network is to the Chinese strategy of power. Xi's sole power will strengthen even more the character of the Chinese strategy as "inherited communism"?
I wouldn't describe the Chinese strategy that way. The only "inherited communism" in the planet is the Kimian dynasty's North Korea – a government Xi, as it all points to, simply despises.
It is actual that Xi Jinping owes much of his career to his father – who, which is besides crucial to the knowing of China's current leader, at 1 point fell victim to cleaning in the party, was rehabilitated at the end of Mao's regulation and then held crucial roles in China's Deng Xiaoping.
The modern Chinese nomenclature is mostly based on a network of very vague household ties and political alliances of respective "red dynasties". Xi Jinping, however, has no heir and is not curious in dynastic transfer of power like North Korea. His only child, Mingze's daughter, is not active in Chinese politics. Xi besides resembles Stalin in this respect.
Why did the inefficient, highly cost-effective and social anti-covid policy not weaken Xi politically?
Journalists in China during the pandemic reported that people were simply besides tired and terrified to be able to organize any resistance, and most were simply grateful erstwhile pandemic sharpens were yet lifted. Xi then announced a “great victory”, and people no longer wanted to return to the subject of the pandemic.
So Xi will regulation for life?
I think so. An American authoritative who saw secret intelligence material about China shared with me his prediction that Xi would die of natural causes, constantly exercising power – like Stalin.
Why does Xi let you to build a cult of individuals around you on a scale unknown in China since Mao? Is that a pragmatic choice for power technology? A question of vanity? Is he not afraid of the rebellion that this may cause?
Apparently not. But why the state cultivates this cult remains a mystery. Xi doesn't seem vain. In my opinion, the chief ideologist of the regime, Wang Huning, is behind this. He is simply a erstwhile prof. of Fudan University in Shanghai, which present forms part of the strict leadership of the party. Wang resembles the characters of the American althright. He believes in cultural chauvinism and the authoritarian form of government.
Xi is over 70 years old. He grew up during the cultural revolution, which young Chinese seem most likely as distant as opium wars. Doesn't that make political tension between young Chinese society and power? Or even possible for rebellion?
There must be a generational distance between power and society in China today. Various forms of passive resistance, e.g. the informal "movement of the pie", are seen in which young people reject the professional, financial or political ambitions on which Chinese society puts large emphasis. The movement was officially condemned by Wang Huning himself, but it is not very clear what the government would do with it. It can besides be noted that young women are increasingly opposed to the pressures of matrimony and motherhood.
Marxist ideologists working for the strategy wonder how to respond to these trends, which is part of a broader discussion on what modern China should be like.
How kleptocratic is the Chinese strategy today? Is wanting individual wealth crucial to Xi?
Wikileaks erstwhile published a dispatch from the U.S. Department of State, which states: "Xi knows precisely how corrupt China is." The full strategy was designed to facilitate extortion and bribery, resembling many post-Soviet regimes in east Europe. However, we must remember that in China power is more crucial than money.
Xi, under the slogan of combating corruption, conducted mass cleaning in the party. He made certain that his family's business activity and resources remained hidden from the public. I have no evidence that he's personally corrupt.
How would you describe Xi Jinping's ideology?
He himself describes it as Marxism-Leninism with Chinese characterization. If we want to realize what Xi and his supporters believe, we should take care of a serious survey of Marxism and Confucianism.
In the book you proceed to emphasize the importance of Xi, experienced by the cultural revolution, to political stability. On the another hand, his regulation is simply a continuous organization cleansing. Isn't that a contradiction?
Xi hates chaos. At the same time, he believes, behind Stalin, that cleaning is simply a way to renew and strengthen the party. So there is no contradiction in his politics – in the laninovian sense. Left-wing critics claim, of course, that this is simply a perverting of communist ideals and that the purges aim solely at strengthening Xi's power.
What is the essence of the political task Xi? Maintaining power in the party? Uniting all Chinese lands? China's substitution as a global hegemon?
All of the above. In short, Xi wants to make China large again.
Under his reign they became much more authoritarian, if not totalitarian, at the same time made large advancement in green technologies, artificial intelligence, electromobility. Why didn't turning the screw choke innovation, even causing experts to emigrate?
The West never appreciated the talent of the Chinese Communist organization to adapt to civilizational and technological changes. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton argued that the net would free the Chinese – while the government turned technology into the tool of its power. The pandemic has been utilized to further strengthen control and surveillance technologies.
We have evidence that the migration of specialists is simply a problem. But the Chinese state and technology companies there have invested so much money in technological improvement that it overbalances migration problems.
How will China Xi respond to Trump's actions? Are you expecting a deal, an open confrontation, something in between?
Xi will be patient with the States, balanced and determined. In the economical field, China will supply proportional responses to American actions. The political relation will look different. China has clear boundaries: Taiwan, emphasis on respect for human rights and "intervention" in their interior affairs. It's besides early to speculate on what Chinese politics will be like in Trump's second term, but I don't see much chance of a deal.
There are more and more voices in Europe that against Trump's background China is starting to look like a rational partner. How would you comment?
China is simply a rational partner, but only within the logic of Beijing's political goals. The confusion in Washington should not obscure the fact that Europe besides has conflicting interests with China in the area of Chinese exports and the threat it poses to European industrial production. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, pointed out this.
Europeans will so gotta balance between Beijing and Washington – which will possibly be the biggest challenge for the continent since 1945.
So what should Europe's policy towards the second decade of Xi's power look like? What are the chances, what threats?
If Europe cannot be provoked into foolish action, the consequence may be stableness and trade reducing tensions and allowing us to last hard times, provided that wars in Ukraine and the mediate East do not get out of control.
The biggest threat is the war between the States and China around Taiwan, which could easy turn into a 3rd planet war. This can be due to a mistake or hasty, unthinkable decisions. Europe must do everything possible to prevent this.
What can Europe do to reduce this risk?
To show China that democracy is united and that alliances are strong. Everything else in Beijing will be read as weakness. Let us remember that democratic countries are not just the West. It is besides Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand. It matters a lot.
As the Polish abroad Minister Radek Sikorski said late in the UN: we must behave decently now.
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Michael Sheridan – A longtime correspondent of Western media from China and Hong Kong, shows Xi Jinping against the background of a changing country: from the beginning of communism in the 1950s, through the Mao Zedong regime, the large Jump policy and an unimaginable hunger, to 1 of the largest and most efficient economies of the 21st century.
