Introduction
Foreign Affairs magazine has exposed its anti-China capitalistic and nationalistic partisanship in its current 100th Year Anniversary issue. Since the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Congress will start on Sunday, October 16th, the magazine seems to think the moment propitious for criticizing Xi Jinping because of the attention the event will attract. [1] No “equal time” articles were published in this issue to provide balance, or to cast Mr. Xi in a more favorable light.
During the 20th Congress, the 2300 delegates will be asked to aprove of a third term for Xi as the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and civilian Commander in Chief of the military. There are no term limits for those offices.
China has TWO constitutions. One for the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and one for the CCP. Mr. Xi also holds the PRC constitutional office of the President of the PRC. He is in his second term. The President is elected by the PRC's constitutional body, the National People's Congress (NPC). (Unlike the US Presidentcy, the PRC position is largely ceremonial.) The NPC met last March, and probably won't meet again until next March. The two-term limit on the office of PRC President was lifted in 2018, so Xi could be elected for a third term when the NPC next meets. [2]
Fear Mongering
Mrs. Cai Xia, the author of this Xi hit piece, was once a teacher in the Communist Party’s Central Party School, which trains Party leaders. As the “Party school,” it is not the same as a public university. Its purpose is to teach Party philosophy, policies, history, and administrative principles to prepare future government officials.
Mrs. Cai had long used her status as a retired Central Party School instructor to garner attention to her criticisms of Xi Jinping. These included that he was incompetent and got to the top leadership position because of the help his mom and dad gave him. For example, she claims of Xi that in 1992 “his career took off” largely because “Xi’s mother wrote a plea” to the Party leadership. (88) Cai admits that on more than one occasion Xi received the most votes at leadership meetings to be advanced in Party ranks. But Cai claims the advancements were not for Xi’s competence, but because the leadership respected his father, a former comrade of Mao’s. (90)
Really? China never would have achieved the “Economic Miracle” it did, had advancement in the Party been due, not to performance, but to the influence of mom and dad. These claims are ridiculous.
Whether or not her attacks on Mr. Xi violated her employment contract remains to be shown, nevertheless, in 2020 she lost her retirement benefits as a penalty. She claims someone told her that her safety was in danger. She now lives in the USA. (86)
Not much empathy is required to understand how Mrs. Cai feels about having lost her benefits, etc. Indeed, the article is an example of the old saying, slightly modified, that “Hell hath no fury like a [Party School instructor] scorned.”
The thrust of the article is that Xi Jinping is the worst embodiment of evil since Godzilla. Cai’s argument is based entirely on speculations about what Xi might do if he is given a third term as General Secretary.
Cai suggests that in a third term, "Xi will likely tighten his [authoritarian] grip.” (86) China's political system is highly complex, with a plurality of power centers. [3] Mrs. Cai offers little evidence, aside from her own claims, that Xi is a one-man ruler with a "grip" on the entire system. Continuing her speculations, Cai writes that “As Xi’s rule becomes more extreme, the [Party] infighting and resentment he has already triggered will only grow stronger.” Reminiscent of “Wag the Dog,” to distract attention from himself, “he may even do something catastrophically ill advised, such as attack Taiwan.”
Of course, China has nothing to gain by “attacking Taiwan.” Taiwan is a major trading partner, and a source of many products needed by the mainland, such as specialized computer chips. Baseless claims about China's threat to Taiwan only serve the interests of the US arms industry, which sells their deadly products to Taiwan, and gives it military aid (at US taxpayer expense).
The CCP-Mafia Analogy
Playing on the images created in American movies, Cai makes the idiodic claim that people can think of “the CCP as more of a mafia organization than a political party.” (88) But this claim is unaccompanied by any explanation of how appointments to the CCP General Secretary position are given. There are over 2300 delegates. The Chinese custom is to seek concensus among them before their approval is given. There are alternative candidates, and the outcome cannot be known before the process is completed. As Cai admits, “opponents could succeed in ushering him out of office.” (106) Even the movies do not suggest that New York’s Five Families ever sought concensus among so many members to select a “don,” or a “Godfather.” Cai’s analogy is completely false.
Beyond that, no one in the USA regards the Mafia as a legitimate organization, like the Green Party, or the Mars Candy Company. Every American recognizes that the Mafia is a crime organization, outside the law. Contrary to Cai’s implication, the Communist Party has been respected by the Chinese people as a liberating, as well as a governing, organization since the Revolution of 1949. Indeed, the constitution for the People’s Republic of China states, in Article One, that the CCP is the leader of the country. And, as a measure of its legitimacy, the approval rating by the people for the Chinese Party-State during Xi Jinping's tenure is in the 90s. [See 3] While mafia movies are popular, the actual organization certainly has no such approval rating.
Thus, to liken the CCP to the American Mafia is a total and unconscionable smear.
Such is Cai’s wrath that she couldn’t care less about telling people the truth, as long as she thinks she can get her readers to regard the CCP as a criminal organization, led by the evil Xi Jinping. Small wonder she lost her retirement benefits.
But why would Foreign Affairs print such untruthful claims without at least giving equal exposure to the truth?
Xi's Anti-Corruption Campaign
Xi is widely respected in China for his aggressive reformist anti-corruption efforts, which began when he came to office in 2012. Corruption was wildly out of control in the previous administration. But at least one study found that under Xi, the CCP has brought down corruption. The Party accomplished this by punishing over 668,000 members (with a membership of over 90 million). 350 death sentences were carried out, including some top Party and government officials. [4]
But Cai twists this around and calls those reformist measures a "purge" of opponents, and a cover to hide the fact that Xi “has plundered assets from private companies and entrepreneurs.” (99) However, no one has ever produced evidence that Xi lives like a man of wealth, especially not Mrs. Cai.
CCP's COVID Policy
Western capitalists condemn the CCP’s “zero tolerance” COVID policy. The capitalists say that “business must go on,” and “damn the disease.” They are content to let the virus spread among the people, as long as the survivors continue to produce and to buy products. Cai sings this tune, too. She adds that the policy is also due to “Xi’s desire for control.” (100)
But the CCP’s public health policy, under Xi’s influence, is to prioritize human life and health over the profits of businesses, and even at the risk of slowing the continued growth of China’s GDP. Businesses were closed and folks ordered to stay home because the government wants its people to live, and be healthy.
Conclusion: Has Foreign Affairs Published War Mongering?
While Cai’s “List of Horribles” is lengthy, she concludes with what appears to be an ominous hint to the US military industrial complex as to what should be done to correct the course she says China is on. She writes, “The only viable way of changing course, so far as I can see, is also the scariest and deadliest: a humiliating defeat in a war.” (107) Sounding something like Dr. Strangelove, Cai fantasizes that if there were a war in Taiwan, “with American help, [Taiwan] would be able to resist invasion and inflict grave damage on mainland China.” Then, suddenly awakened to Xi’s evil nature, “the elites and the masses would abandon Xi, paving the way for not only his personal downfall but perhaps even the collapse of the CCP as we know it.” (107)
What this really means to Cai is that, at last, she would have her revenge.
Perhaps providing this insight into human nature’s potential for vindictiveness is the reason Foreign Policy published this article. It is otherwise shameful “journalism,” and not worth reading.
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
@InterpretivePo1
[1] “The Weakness of Xi Jinping How Hubris and Paranoia Threaten China’s Future,” by Cai Xia. September/October 2022. Foreign Affairs. (Page numbers are from the first pdf version.)
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/xi-jinping-china-weakness-hubris-paranoia-threaten-future
[2] After this blog post was first published, the editors of the magazine had been alerted to some serious errors in their Xi hit piece. They then revised their online edition, necessitating a revision of this blog post. See “Big mistakes in the editing of Cai Xia’s article in ‘Foreign Affairs.’” September 11, 2022. Donald Clarke.
https://thechinacollection.org/big-mistakes-editing-cai-xias-article-foreign-affairs/
[3] See the close political science look at China’s political system,
“China: Assessing the Goodness of a Political System with Chinese Characteristics.”
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D. American Political Science Association Pre-prints, August 24, 2022.
https://preprints.apsanet.org/engage/apsa/article-details/63056b2e11986c67ce43949e
[4] Study by Andrew Wedeman, reported in Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition, 2014, page 262.
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