China’s Communist Party gathering set to empower president

The official agenda for a key Communist Party plenum, which begins in Beijing today, will focus on discipline in the ranks. But the conclave looks set to hand Xi Jinping the kind of power not seen since the days of paramount leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

Xi, whose titles include general secretary of the party, chair of the Central Military Commission and president, could be endorsed as the "core" leader of the Communist Party, something that has not happened since Deng transferred power to Jiang Zemin in November 1989.

The four-day meeting, which is officially called the Sixth Plenum of the Communist Party Central Committee, is a closed-door event in Beijing’s Jinxi Hotel. Up to 400 top cadres will discuss issues on how to manage the party, which has 88 million members.

Since his ascent to power in 2012, Xi has clamped down on rival factions in the party and has spoken of his desire to achieve the "Great Rejuvenation" or the "China Dream".

One rule that looks likely to be written into the party code will effectively ban cadres from “wantonly making inappropriate comments on policies set by the power centre”.

Power sharing

During his period in power, Deng shared his power with several Long March veterans, often referred to as the “Eight Immortals”.

Xi, however, "has been manoeuvring to focus all aspects of national political authority in the office of the presidency. China's Communist Party tradition of collective leadership is evidently drawing to an end," said Charles Burton, an associate professor of political science at Ontario's Brock University.

Previously, senior cadres could challenge the top leader’s politics in the meetings of the standing committee of the politburo and other political gatherings in the leadership compound at Zhongnanhai, or particularly at the annual leadership summer retreat at Beidaihe.

“Today, Xi Jinping will not broach any criticism on the basis that any criticism of his programmes is ‘groundless’ and therefore ‘anti-party’,” said Burton, a former diplomat at the Canadian embassy in Beijing.

Speculation doing the rounds for nearly a year now is that Xi will stay on after 2022, when his two five-year periods in office are up and a new standing committee of the politburo is appointed.

Founding father Mao Zedong retained his chairmanship until his death at age 82. Mr Xi is only 63.

"As Xi has been prepared to flaunt established party practices on sharing power and inner-party debate, there is no reason to think that he will abide by the informal term limits that came into play 20 years ago after the demise of the Eight Immortals, who had remained politically active into their 90s," Burton told The Irish Times.

However, it would mean a big departure from the "two-periods-only" convention as it would create severe frictions among China's political elite, said Sebastian Heilmann, president of the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin.

Third term

“The most likely scenario is that Xi will nominate one or two heir-presumptives next year,” Heilmann said in a research note. “There could be one possible exception: I can imagine a scenario in which Xi could use a national economic or security crisis to stay in power for a third term.”

This restructuring of the power base has had a particular impact on premier Li Keqiang, who is technically in charge of putting economic growth on track, but has seen much authority shift to Xi's office.

One of Li’s tasks has been to reform the state-owned sector. But Xi with keen to keep party control of the state sector, Li could be left marginalised.

“Only by upholding the [Communist Party] as its core leadership and managing the party can China withstand challenges, overcome difficulties and achieve the ‘two centenary goals’ and the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation,” ran an editorial carried by the state news agency Xinhua.