cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/49510692

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Much analysis of Xi Jinping paints the Chinese president as a great disrupter, someone who has tossed out the rules of the game to maintain power at home and challenge the west head-on abroad.

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But as the political scientist Minxin Pei convincingly argues […], it is more accurate to see Xi as part of a communist continuum rather than radical change. More to the point, the focus on change in China distracted attention from what stayed the same — the ruling party’s absolute determination to remain in power, and the fact that it never relinquished the tools to do so.

“In retrospect, the relative ease with which Xi could turn back the clock and restore a form of totalitarian rule few had thought would be possible was not a random outcome of Chinese history in the post-Mao era,” writes Pei [in a new book].

If this analysis is right, the chances of democratic political reform in China remain just as dim in the future as they were in the past. Indeed, the Chinese leadership’s confidence in their system has only hardened over time.

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Xi has used multiple tools to enforce his singular power — an anti-corruption campaign to take down rivals, increased surveillance, ideological enforcement and an ever-present enemy in the US, always useful to mobilise the system.

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Xi has cracked down on entrepreneurs, especially digital giants such as Alibaba. His aim, as ever, was to erase any emerging centres of power not subservient to his agenda.

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Chinese private companies have benefited from subsidies and protection. They can be closed at any time by the state, as they don’t enjoy any real legal protection. But they are also highly innovative, globally competitive and enormously useful to Xi’s agenda. Stalinism never enjoyed anything like it.

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