In recent decades, it has been normal to consider the tenant of the White House, the President of the United States, as the most powerful person in the world. However, things may be changing. Donald Trump himself, in statements collected by the Washington Post, described the Chinese President Xi Jinping as the most powerful leader that China has had in the last century. So much so that more and more analysts are wondering if he is not, in fact, the most powerful political leader in the world. Both China’s economy, as well as its army, are still on a second level if we compare it to the United States but, while Trump seems to be consistently losing his influence over the world and, indeed, his own country, the situation is quite the opposite for Xi Jinping.
Protectionism, nationalism, and Donald Trump’s mistakes have allowed Xi Jinping to present his candidacy as a kind of global political leader.
It is definitely no surprise that the United States is losing its influence over the world. In past few months, Trump has gone from nuclear war to schoolyard fights. The fact is that although Xi Jinping is not the President of the world’s leading power, he does control China’s leadership tightly; a country which is one of the most important economic engines on the planet. Protectionism, nationalism, and Donald Trump’s mistakes have allowed Xi Jinping to present his candidacy as a kind of global political leader. In January 2017, at the Davos Forum, Xi Jinping promised that China would become nothing less than the champion of globalization, free trade, and even the fight against climate change. Thus, Beijing aspires to put its grasp on the terrain that Washington has been losing in international politics.
The New China
With celebration of its 40th anniversary of reform and policy in 2018, China is no longer a low-income country, but a middle-income one. In fact, taking price differences into account, it would have purchasing power parity of about 16 thousand dollars, which is bigger than both Colombia and Brazil. Also its economy has changed, and nowadays services are the most important activity. For example in electronic commerce, a sector in which this country is beating Europe and even the United States, China represents no less than 40 per cent of all global transactions. The same can be said of mobile payments, which are so popular in this country, that its market reached 5.5 trillion dollars in 2016 which is 50 times more than the United States.
Things are changing very quickly, and we can no longer think of China as we did 20, 10 or even just five years ago.
Their growth has been so large, that just in the last six years, China’s private consumption has grown by 2.5 trillion dollars, an amount that equals India’s entire GDP. Therefore, when visiting one of these big Chinese cities, it is not odd to find a landscape full of skyscrapers, billionaires and high-speed trains. But because China’s poverty continues in general, there is a rather large difference between the country’s cities and rural areas, which remain poor. So much so that 43 million people, almost the entire population of Spain, still live in extreme poverty, earning less than one dollar a day. And not only that, almost 40 per cent of Chinese people still live at a fairly low economic level, although the situation is much better than a few decades ago. But things are changing very quickly, and we can no longer think of China as we did 20, 10 or even just five years ago. China has fought against poverty by creating new businesses and cooperatives in the poorest communities. To this end, the government has granted almost 400 billion dollars in small loans to help launch several companies. Xi Jinping and practically every country leader talks a lot about ‘Chinese-style socialism’. But, let us first look at the leader himself.
Xi Jinping – The Leader
Born in 1953, he is the Chinese leader who has had the most contact with the West. His daughter studied at Harvard, his sister lives in Canada, and he has visited the United States several times. In 2012, when he visited the United States as Vice President of China, he made a peculiar stop in Iowa. The fact is that when Xi Jinping was a young party county-secretary in China, he travelled to Iowa to investigate agriculture-related issues. So in 2012, he went to see the family he had stayed with and gave them presents.
But there is also another side to this. Since he became China’s highest authority five years ago, his government has been characterized for having the most censorship and repression for a very long time. Taking a look at the latest cyber-security law. It seeks to control even more internet in China by restricting anonymity and this is to such an extent that all social network accounts have to be backed by an identified citizen. Further, it has been decades since China saw such a strong a leader.
This Congress lead to the decision that ‘Xi Jinping thought’ should be included in the Communist Party Constitution. This may seem a bit strange, but it actually means that Xi Jinping is no longer just another leader, he is ‘the’ leader; a leader whose words form the party’s own ideology.
The fact is that in these five years, Xi Jinping has made several changes in China starting with the army reform and their very active foreign policy. Xi Jinping has diverted national resources towards foreign policy. A good example is the New Silk Road macro-project, which aims to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in several countries. But generally, their greatest commitment has definitely been the fight against corruption. Since Xi Jinping came to power, over one and a half million members of the Communist Party have been sanctioned and nearly 300,000 have been prosecuted, including 43 members of the Central Committee. Within the framework of this fight against corruption, 13000 army officers have been dismissed and more than 50 have been generals imprisoned.
The 19th Congress
This nineteenth Chinese Communist Party Congress, held between October 18 and 24, 2017, was quite particular especially because it may have been the most austere Congress that the Chinese Communist Party has celebrated in many years. On this occasion some amenities were removed. For example, the fancy buffet was abolished, as was hairdressing, facials and tailoring services, which used to be offered for free to all participants and which had almost become a tradition. But above all, this was the Congress at which Xi Jinping’s adoration reached its highest point, something that, as you can imagine in China, means being put almost on a Mao-like level.
This Congress lead to the decision that ‘Xi Jinping thought’ should be included in the Communist Party Constitution. This may seem a bit strange, but it actually means that Xi Jinping is no longer just another leader, he is ‘the’ leader; a leader whose words form the party’s own ideology.
So far, only Mao Zedong had received such an honour in life. But that is not all. Currently a President’s mandate is limited to 10 years, which means that this would be Xi Jinping’s last term. But because no successor was considered during the Congress, Xi Jinping may be aspiring for at least a third mandate.
Beyond the Chinese border, this Congress helped define major priorities for the Chinese government for the upcoming years: First – the economy – fighting poverty and opening up more to the world; second – launch an even stronger foreign policy; third – start worrying about the environment, and fourth – consolidate the Communist Party’s power. Whatever may change in the future, two things the world can be sure of are: on the one hand, Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party will stay for a long time. And on the other, China will reclaim its role as a superpower.
