The Economist January 15th 2022 China 35Standing Committee, Mr Li, is uncertain.
The constitution obliges him to step down
as prime minister after two fiveyear
terms, so he will be replaced in 2023. But he
will be 67 when the congress convenes, ie,
young enough to keep his Standing Com
mittee seat and take on another portfolio.
Changes in the Politburo—and at every
other level—may help Mr Xi to tighten his
mighty grip. Officials stress that loyalty to
him is essential for promotion. But a gen
erational change is also under way that
may affect politics in the years ahead. More
than half of the Central Committee’s mem
bers are likely to be replaced at the forth
coming congress (a typical churn). Cheng
Li of the Brookings Institution in Washing
ton says this will result in 85% of seats be
ing held by people born in 1960 or later,
compared with just over half previously.
In a report in December, MacroPolo, an
inhouse thinktank of the Paulson Insti
tute in Chicago, called this generation’s
rise “a rare dynamic in Chinese politics”. It
noted a “gulf” between the younger group’s
experiences and that of the older cohort to
which Mr Xi and most other Politburo
members belong. Those, like Mr Xi, who
were born in the 1950s grew up during
Mao’s vicious Cultural Revolution of 1966
76, when formal education was severely
disrupted. The younger cohort came of age
after Mao’s death in 1976. Its members were
shaped by a rapidly changing China that
was opening up to the West. The think
tank said Chinese politicians belonging to
this group tended to be more promarket
and politically liberal than their elders.
The advance of this generation, and of
even younger officials who may have been
students during the prodemocracy up
heaval of 1989, is already evident at the pro
vincial level and below. Shuffles began in
these lower strata early last year. So far,
more than half a dozen provincial party
chiefs have been replaced. Several of them
were leaders of Mr Xi’s generation who
have been succeeded by officials of the
1960s group. About onethird of new en
trants to the inner circles of provincial par
ty leaderships were born in the 1970s.
Power generation
But, at least while Mr Xi remains in power,
few observers expect any relaxation of the
party’s vicelike grip on China. A return to
the relatively liberal political climate of the
1980s is hard to imagine. Leaders who be
gan their careers at that time have been
moulded since by two profound changes:
China’s meteoric rise as a global power,
and growing disillusionment among Chi
nese with the West as a political model.
At every level, the reshaping of leader
ships is being intensively managed to en
sure that only those loyal to Mr Xi are pro
moted. That is a colossal undertaking. In
2011, during a similar exercise in the build
up to Mr Xi’s accession, the chief of the par
ty’s central Organisation Department, its
vast humanresources machine, said that
more than 100,000 “senior officials” would
retire or be assigned to new posts. The
turnover is likely to be just as drastic this
time, with changes down to the level of ru
ral townships. They include shuffles in
leaderships of government departments
and local legislatures (Mr Xi is pictured
voting in November for partypicked dele
gates to his districtlevel one).
The party often touts this fiveyearly
shakeup as democracy in action. Dele
gates to the party congresses are supposed
ly chosen by ordinary party members. In
fact democratic choice is minimal. Organi
sation departments at various levels en
sure that only those favoured by higher
ups are promoted. The delegates are select
ed carefully for their compliancy.
There will be 2,300 of them at this year’s
national congress. Work on picking them
has just begun. State media will be filled in
coming months with reports about the
mobilisation of party members to nomi
nate suitable candidates. Past such efforts
have involved motorcycle teams driving
across remote grasslands to consult party
member herders; party branches sending
messages to members abroad to seek their
opinions; even officials visiting homes to
seek advice from the sick.
In reality, members are used merely to
echo their leaders’ choices. Before nomi
nations are submitted, party committees
organise propaganda campaigns to publi
cise the deeds of some select “model work
ers”. The message is clear: choose names
from among them. Party members in the
bureaucracy know whom to nominate:
their leaders. The initial round may pro
duce hundreds of thousands of names.
Their numbers are whittled down by low
level party committees, which shape thelists to ensure that quotas are met—specif
ic percentages of officials, women, ethnic
minorities, migrant workers and so on.
The lists are passed back and forth, up
and down the ranks, for further refinement
until every province, the armed forces and
a handful of other “electoral units” each
has its own list of delegates that satisfies
the Organisation Department. Despite the
party’s role in producing these lists, cho
sen delegates are still subjected to exten
sive vetting. This has involved interviews
with colleagues, police checks and exami
nation of records relating to everything
from tax payments to compliance with
familyplanning rules. As officials put it,
no one is to be selected “carrying sickness”,
ie, with a blotted copybook. Out, out brief candle
Any faint glimmer of democracy that may
once have flickered Mr Xi has extin
guished. In 2007, about three months be
fore the party’s 17th congress (Hu Jintao
was then general secretary), the party con
ducted an unprecedented poll of members
of the Central Committee and a few others
to assess support for potential Politburo
candidates from a list of nearly 200 of
them. It was described as an occasion of
“great significance” for innerparty de
mocracy. Five years later, before the con
gress at which Mr Xi took power, the party
repeated the exercise, this time also asking
for their recommendations for promo
tions to the Standing Committee.
Mr Xi has made clear his disdain for
“simple reliance on votes to choose peo
ple”. Instead of straw polls, his officials
have preferred to interview senior people
to assess their support for candidates for
powerful roles. Xinhua, a state news agen
cy, said the strawpoll system had been
abused by Mr Xi’s sincepurged rivals, who
had tried to win votes with bribes.
So the precongress atmosphere is fa
miliar. Officials are scrambling to ensure
that nothing will upset preparations. Earli
er this month one of the Politburo’s youn
gest members, Chen Min’er (born in 1960),
rumoured to be a rising political star,
summed it up: “We must resolutely keep
the word ‘stability’ at the forefront.”
In the months ahead, security will be
come ever tighter and officials even less
tolerant of dissent. Leaders are unlikely to
risk a health crisis by easing their zerotol
erance approach to covid19. As The Econo-
mistwent to press, a fresh outbreak near
Beijing was causing alarm. The capital also
has to worry about another big event: the
Winter Olympics next month. “We must
maintain a stable and healthy economic
environment, a clean political environ
ment and a social environment of peace
and security,” said Mr Chen,settingout
precongress tasks. For millions ofoffi
Xi marks the spot cials, they will be allconsuming.n