The long game in Xi Jinping’s presidency

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IN 25 years, thinking on China has undergone a transformation. After the end of the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama predicted China’s inevitable turn, though gradual, towards democratisation, but by 2016 Graham Allison of Harvard University could write of a probable conflict between the Asian giant and the US.

It is against this anxious backdrop, at least in Washington, that the ruling Communist Party of China recently announced a review of its presidential term limits.

China is perceived to be on a path to unseat the current hegemon, the US, and reshape the global order of the past 70 years. Despite official claims to the contrary, China is set to be the dominant power on the world stage by 2049, the centenary of the People’s Republic of China, which is Beijing’s main objective.

It is this perception of China which has motivated policy gymnastics by the EU to refuse China free market status. The EU claims China has too many state-owned enterprises at its behest and is therefore not viable.

The EU, however, maintains an agricultural subsidy along with quotas and tariffs which has a crowding-out effect for African producers.

China’s 2049 grand plan cannot be sabotaged and these machinations only bring out the most vigorous safeguards.

First, the party and the state have undertaken a push for internal discipline in an anti-corruption campaign targeted at both high- and low-level officials – or “catching tigers and flies” as it has been branded.

Second, China has sought internal economic growth so as to cut reliance on global markets, which can be swayed and politicised by the status quo power bloc.

China has also sought to forge “globalisation with Chinese characteristics” through the One Belt One Road initiative – the largest trade association in the world, stretching from Scandinavia to South-east Asia – with all roads leading to Beijing.

As the tensions over the South China Sea between China and Us-allied states – predominantly the Philippines and Vietnam – show, flashpoints and even the outbreak of war is a distinct possibility.

Further catalysing Chinese suspicions is the US and Nato’s proven penchant for conflict. Iraq and Syria are all reminders of US warmongering and its allies’ complicity – and China is surrounded by US allies, from South Korea and Japan in the east, to nuclear-armed India in the west and Vietnam on its southern border.

Further afield to the east are Taiwan (a critical US ally and a runaway province according to China) and Guam, and further down are Australia and Indonesia.

Nato’s post-cold War expansionism into the Eurasian neighbourhood is a further incentive for heightened selfpreservation and responsiveness by Beijing.

In light of these, China has undertaken a modernisation of its army and navy, increasing its military budget over the last 20 years from less than $20billion in 1998 to around $150bn by 2017.

Though small compared to the US’S military budget of $570bn, this figure is likely to increase in proportion to China’s GDP growth of around 7% a year, which will make it the leading economy by 2028.

China has also sought to upset the global financial balance by forming the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, threatening the hegemony of the Us-controlled World Bank’s unparalleled sway over international developmental financing.

Not for nothing, therefore, has the US gone so far as to identify China as a threat in its latest National Security Strategy documentation. But by far the clearest indicator has been the bid to have permanent leadership in place to look beyond the 10-year terms.

The thinking behind this is to allow the big plans to fully germinate without interruption. From this, they have the benefit of history – China’s greatest transitions have been managed by semi-permanent party chairmen Mao and Deng.

Much of what China seeks to be is predicated on this. Underlying this is the fact that more than 60% of Chinese people said they think that China is democratic.

President Xi Jinping’s move to prolong his captaincy over the Chinese state and society should be read in light of these terms.

If observers are aware of this, many would avoid the pitfall of simplistic interpretations of the events currently unfolding in Beijing.