China's Communist Party elite hold key talks on governance
Beijing (AFP) – China's President Xi Jinping opened a key meeting of Communist Party elites in Beijing on Monday, state media said, which observers will be closely watching for clues as to the country's direction and future leadership.
Roughly 300 members of the ruling Communist Party's Central Committee in attendance at the meeting, called the fifth plenum, will be looking to tighten discipline within their ranks, according to state media.
That includes measures to reduce corruption and make cadres more effective and loyal.
Xi opened the session on Monday, presenting a draft decision by the Central Committee that "sets out strategic plans for strengthening full and rigorous Party self-governance", state news agency Xinhua reported.
Few details from the closed-door gathering, held under tight security, will be made known until it concludes on Thursday, but the timing of the meeting is crucial.
The fifth plenum comes ahead of a major party congress next year, where 73-year-old Xi is almost certain to secure a historic fourth term and oversee a leadership reshuffle.
Previous plenums have represented key moments for Xi to cement his authority.
The Chinese leader has waged a 14-year campaign against corruption that has purged thousands of officials, including dozens of the Central Committee.
Yet he remains frustrated with cadres he deems are not implementing his orders.
State media published an article ahead of the plenum, based on a speech Xi gave in January in which he railed against "two-faced" officials who appear to comply with central directives but "inwardly resist", pursue "individualism" and are "politically opportunistic".
Analysts told AFP that Xi is trying to maximise efficiency and loyalty among cadres by imposing more supervision and rules.
But as a result of his expansive purges, this year's plenum is expected to have the lowest turnout since former leader Mao Zedong's death in 1976.
Eight of the Central Committee's seats lie vacant, with another 15 members under investigation and at risk of being replaced.
Xi's anti-corruption drive has also targeted the military, toppling five of the seven members of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the party's top armed forces body.
Of 44 military members appointed to the Central Committee in 2022, only two have not been purged or disappeared, according to the Asia Society Policy Institute.
The plenum could see new members appointed to the CMC; the party could wait until next year's congress to replenish it; or Xi might even restructure party control over its vast military.
The talks also come at an unsteady time for the world's second-largest economy, which has struggled to address persistently sluggish domestic spending and a protracted crisis in the crucial property sector.
Turbulent political and economic ties with the United States are also weighing on China's leaders.
Authorities are expected to release a summary of the outcomes after the meeting concludes on Thursday.
6 replies
Party elites? Whatever happened to classless society? 🤔
"Party elite" isn't a class in Marxist terms, classes are relationships to ownership of the means of production and therefore party members are members of a broader class. The CPC is overwhelmingly proletarian, and does have single digit percentages of capitalists but said capitalists are barred from the highest levels of party membership. Classless society is a descriptor of a society where production and distribution is so advanced that planning the economy scientifically is the most efficient, and thus everything is collectively owned and planned. China isn't there yet, so it still has classes.
Billionaires and communists cannot coexist
Why is an arbitrary level of wealth incompatible with working towards a society where production and distribution is so advanced that collectively owning and planning the economy is the most efficient, and bringing about that fully collectivized society? China has a lot of developing industries, and marketization does play a helpful role in stitching these together into something that can be effectively planned, this is a traditional Marxist analysis.
The question is tangential. The issue is more about altruism. Especially of key figures. You can't have a perfect system without perfect people.
Wealth inequality is virtually always a symptom of greed and an indicator that actors are working for a deliberately lopsided system, not a highly functional communist or even socialist system.
The purges against "corruption" shouldn't be taken at face value. Authoritarian systems purge rivals and perceived threats in power games and label it as fighting corruption. Without the details of who did what and when, there is no way to know if Xi is pursuing altruism and purging actual corruption, or just playing power games and is the corruption himself.
Authoritarians often mistake dissent for disloyalty and purge even well meaning competent and ultimately correct voices, though it's never so black and white. Everyone makes mistakes, and no one is always altruistic, and even the corrupt do good on occasion even if by accident.
My question is not tangential, it's key to the question at hand, and the relevance of it to this conversation makes itself apparent in your later paragraphs. My point is not that China has a "perfect system," but instead that it has a good system, in that it is regularly improving and puts the people first. No more and no less than this do I claim.
The wealth inequality in China exists because it has private property. As I already stated, China has private property because it marketizes the underdeveloped sectors of the economy, where markets play a remarkable role in centralizing production and distribution. At the point of centralized production, markets have played their role to completion, and planned economy overtakes it. Planning production and distribution at an underdeveloped scale is remarkably difficult. This is the path to development in China based on Marxism.
What is an "authoritarian?" Is that a label we put on someone, or is it an existing category of people based on intrinsic qualities?