The New Long March

Preface To the English Edition

Two years after the Polish revised edition of this volume published at the end of 2022, the current Chinese leadership “with Xi Jinping at the core”, as it is officially pronounced, has plenty of issues to deal with. The agenda, both domestic and international, is rich and dynamic. Most of the problems to be resolved by the current leaders in Beijing are of fundamental importance, and almost all of them are structural, that is long-term and crucial. After the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP, or Party) in late 2022, the former formula of “hiding your strength and biding your time” is definitely over. Instead of the previous low-profile attitude, there is a completely “new era” of Xi Jinping Thought (four volumes of his ideas on Chinese governance have already been published) and the new domestic reality is formally described as “Socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era of Xi Jinping Thought.” From the Western perspective it sounds like somewhat bombastic, ornate and baroque language, but in the Middle Kingdom it is nothing less than a new ideology and strategy of the state. Once more all main aims, goals, visions, proposals, and decisions in China are state-defined and state-focused.

According to the new reform agenda laid out in the resolution of the Third Plenary Session of the CPC Central Committee in July 2024, the new program should be completed by 2029, but the details are mostly hidden or unknown, both to the internal audience and external observers. Looking from the outside, the official “seven focuses” to be steadily implemented, initially by 2029 and in full-scale by 2035, sound more like a slogan than a real blueprint. As the Plenary Session communiqué has defined, they include: building a high-standard socialist market economy, advancing whole-process people’s democracy, developing a strong socialist culture in China, raising the people’s quality of life, building a Beautiful China, advancing the Peaceful China Initiative to a higher level, and improving the Party’s capacity for leadership and long-term governance.¹

And what does it mean in real terms? Well, we do not exactly know. What we know, however, is that China now, in the mid-point of the third decade of the century, is faced with various risks and challenges, or with complex international and domestic situations, as it is even officially stated. What are the main pillars of this “new reality” in China then? It seems that after the 20th CPC Congress one can figure out the following:

• • Personal rule by the “Chairman of everything,” Xi Jinping, who dominates the country and created a “Party of one” (Chun Han Wong) of the almost 100 million of CPC members. At least Since 2017, he has put the Party in charge of everything and everywhere in China. He has effectively installed Xi’s Thought as the new state ideology. Simultaneously, once again personal connections, the famous guanxi, are more important than institutions.
• • The system is not only highly centralized again, like never before since “Mao Zedong’s era” (1949–1976), but first of all became state-and-Party-dominated. The Party is deeply embedded in practically every domain and area of life. What is more, the ideology supplementing it is put ahead of policy. So called “Xi Jinping Thought” (Xi Jinping sixiang), embraces Marxism, Leninism, Legalism and Confucianism (Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung) to create a combination of Chinese and Communist tradition, strongly focused on hierarchy, discipline, and the supremacy of the State and its leader(s), imposing all kinds of rules and regulations from above.
• • Former cold pragmatism and down-to-earth realism of the previous “Deng Xiaoping era” (1978–2012) have been rejected and replaced by a new formula, one more ideological and faithful to Marxism (and Maoism). However, Deng’s Four Cardinal Principles are maintained, especially the ones underscoring the leading role of the Party and its dictatorship (very visible and imposed in all walks of life).
• • Not only economy and opening to the world (gaige kaifang), as it was in previous decades, but first of all “indivisible security,” that is security in all its dimensions (climate, environment, food, cyber, digital, etc.), is a top priority of the leadership. Currently one can detect a holistic view and a combination of economic, security, and geostrategic reasons in current decision-making processes. Proper balancing among them is the essence of the “struggle in the new era,” frequently mentioned in official parlance, with the term struggle of uttermost significance.
• • The new terminology is used on the path to transformation and modernization. In this new vocabulary such terms are used as: “building a high-level socialist market system,” “deepening the comprehensive reforms to advance Chinese modernization,” supported by the recent mantra of “high- quality growth.” All it means is that not quantity, as it was before, but quality is the top priority. That is why the whole system is defined abroad as “techno- nationalist” or “techno-Leninist.” But will this growth of innovation successfully replace the catching-up growth of the previous decades?
• • Xi’s commitment is clear: the new system must be simultaneously “people-centered” and “innovation-driven.” Surely, the Chinese road to modernization does not mean Westernization. However, like the most advanced Western countries, China is now focused on innovations in many specified fields, first of all AI, rare earths, semiconductors, alternative energy sources (and “green development”), electric vehicles, and space exploration.
• • Making China great again is a new “patriotic” mission – of all the citizens of the PRC. And China will be great again only if (peacefully?) united with Taiwan. What kind of Great Rejuvenation would it be, if we had two entities with China in their name on both sides of the Taiwan Straits, i.e. the PRC and the Republic of China in Taiwan?

There are two main thrusts in “Xi Jinping Thought.” Domestically, it is to forge one country, one people, one ideology, one Party, and one leader. While the main goal, to be achieved by 2035, is nothing less than “common prosperity” (gontong fuyu) of the people.

When Xi refers to Marxism, he really has Leninism in mind. It is a Leninist spirit that provides the ultimate modern instrument of control to enable the leader of China to marshal all the resources at his disposal. However, as Keyu Jin has rightly observed, China has strong state capacity and weak institutions. Combined with one of the most important findings of the recent study by Yasheng Huang, that due to the traditional exams (keju) system the state in China is strong, but society is weak or fragmented, this leads more and more observers to wonder if China can continue the tremendous success story of the previous four-plus decades.

Yes, Xi Jinping argues that his aim is to create a healthy and vibrant society, capable of fostering a political environment conducive to innovation and entrepreneurship. However, the reality of comprehensive and strict administering power of the Party belies that claim, to say the least. Yes, his aim is obviously not to govern the people to death (ba ren guang si), that is to leave them hesitant, fearful, or dead in the water. Rather, it is to create a healthy, capable society by setting clear directions, establishing rules, improving the atmosphere, strengthening resilience, and creating a political environment conducive to entrepreneurship. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have a new phenomenon of passive popular resistance, transformed into a broader tool of political criticism of the central authorities, known as the “lying flat” (tang ping) behavior. There is no question that the “lying flat” social movement describes a personal rejection of societal pressure to overwork and over-achieve and arose chiefly as a response to Xi’s “comprehensive strict governance,” both inside and outside the Party.

Of course, this is not the only challenge facing Xi Jinping, who personally mentioned “unprecedented changes unseen in a century,” which demand from him and his leadership, as he mentioned in the 20th Party Congress, to face some headwinds. Even more: CPC members must “get the house in good repair before rain comes and prepare to undergo the major tests of high winds and waves, and even perilous, stormy seas.”²

Some observers go to the extreme, to prophecies of doom, both in the domestic and international arena. Obviously, there is a plethora of major challenges ahead of China and the “Chairman of everything”. The most crucial of them are:

• • Sooner or later Xi (born in 1953) will confront the conundrum defined by scholars as the “successors dilemma”. Who will it be – and when?
• • How to play a “New Playbook” (Keyu Jin) in this “new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics” and how to wisely navigate beyond socialism (Marxism) stained by lack of trust in market forces and capitalism stigmatized for inequality?
• • How to deal with shrinking and quickly ageing society when the “demographic dividend” is over? What to do with the younger generation not ready to have children while largely unemployed?
• • How to deal with the economy and especially the private sector in this era of sponsoring State-Owned Enterprises and centralization, supported by exploding debts and non-transparent shadow banking? What to do with an open issue of the agony of huge domestic real-estate developers (Evergrande and others) and astronomical housing prices?
• • How to handle external relationships, especially with the US, in the new era of “strategic competition,” of new isolationism, protectionism, and the breakdown of supply-chains, which so frequently start in China? Is China ready for decoupling or de-globalization?
• • How to manage the Taiwan issue and the process of (peaceful) unification, a top priority now for all the elite in Beijing?
• • How to keep a proper and positive image of China, so strongly tarnished by the hard lockdowns during the pandemic and later in the wake of the full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine; an image also tarnished constantly in mainstream media on both sides in this new era frequently described as a “New Cold War”, or “Cold War 2.0”?

Of course, we can specify many more open or challenging issues. But at least one thing seems to be clear: to make China great again or to deliver the Chinese Dream of Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation will be no easy task.

At the same time, however, it is becoming more and more obvious that fulfilling the Chinese Dream globally implies nothing less than transforming the Western-dominated liberal or value-based international order into at least a partially Sino-centric one. In Xi Jinping’s conceptualization, more or less like in Mao Zedong’s Three Worlds theory of the 1970s, China is again a leader, surrounded by at least China-friendly supporters from the Global South. The main thrust of his new vision of the world order is visible in the so called “three major initiatives” (san da changyi) proposed by Xi himself, that include the Global Development Initiative (GDI), introduced in September 2021, Global Security Initiative (GSI), announced in April 2022, and the Global Civilizational Initiative (GCI), introduced in March 2023. All of them combined create a new Chinese model of world affairs, described in official vocabulary as a “global network for inter-civilization dialogue,” in which China has once again returned to the global center stage and is conducting “great powers relationships” (da guo guanxi) and offering “strategic guidance” for a common destiny of humankind (renlei mingyun gontongti).

It remains to be seen if this new global vision of Xi Jinping’s is nothing else than just another chapter of a Sino-centric international order based on the traditional Chinese concept of tianxia, or “all under heaven,” as some authors argue. So far, this is rather an academic question. What is much more important is how China is supposed to be accepted by others as the world leader due to its power and general superiority. Like many open and complex issues on the domestic stage, this one is also crucial in nature.

Thus, the final conclusion for all of us observers of China is obvious: to understand China well has never been more essential than it is now. A few decades ago, we could neglect it, as another Third World, authoritarian, un-developed Communist entity, but – like it or not – we cannot neglect the second superpower on the globe with all its recent bold aims, proposals, and visions. It is high time to learn about China as an important global topic. This is the main message of this volume.

1 “Communique of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party”, Xinhua, July 18, 2024: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202407/18/WS6698f75aa31095c51c50ec9d.html

2 Xi Jinping, „Full text of the report to the 20^th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party“ Beijing, October 25, 2022: https://english.news.cn/20221025/8eb6f5239f984f01a2bc45b5b5db0c51/c.html

Introduction. Why Xi?

This volume was not meant to be. In a sense, it was life that wrote it, circumstances brought it forth. First and foremost, the COVID-19 pandemic, the first truly global crisis, which revealed the extent of our worldwide interconnectedness. It marked another turning point in universal history, reshaping our outlook fundamentally. This unexpected event compelled us, or at least should have compelled us, to delve deeper into reflection about where we are and where we are heading – as individuals, as nations, and as a global community. It quickly became evident that we had been ill-prepared for such an attack of the virus – invisible yet so profoundly present in our lives. Meanwhile, our previous institutional and programmatic remedies one by one proved useless in this battle.