This Week, Today: Big Business At The Red Keep
Xi Jinping gets his rubber stamp. Plus – a progressive flip-flop on Ukraine exposes partisan shifts and belies some hidden motives.
Welcome to This Week, Today, your one-stop shop for fresh commentary on the newsmakers of the week and the important stories that evaded your radar. I got two deep-dive pieces for you in this week’s edition.
Without further ado, let’s get into it.
Xi Tightens His Grip
The cameramen of the few international news outlets lucky enough to gain entry into the concluding session of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) National Congress, a highly choreographed gathering of party elites held every 5 years, were just finishing up their wide-angle shots.
Two things had dominated the image in their viewfinders up until this point. The first, of course, being the color red – the hue of choice for virtually every interior feature of the Great Hall of the People, the event’s venue. The other being the absolute stillness of the 2,300 party members in attendance, whose black suits dotted this cascade of red. The 200 most influential delegates of this contingent (members of the so-called “Central Committee”) were seated reverently in chairs on the stage behind red placards bearing their name. They were awaiting remarks from their all-powerful leader, Xi Jinping, who doubles as General Secretary of the CCP and president of China. And they were so frozen in their upright postures—resisting so much as a turn of a head—that a passive viewer might mistake the live video broadcast for a still picture.
That is until two event custodians suddenly rushed over to the first-row table, where CCP big wigs (the elite of the elite, if you will), including Xi himself, were seated. Every camera in that auditorium suddenly zoomed in to see what was going on. They capture the custodians bending down and whispering something into the ear of party elder Hu Jintao, the former Chinese president who served from 2003 to 2013 before passing the reins to Xi. As is CCP custom, the has-been party leader was seated next to the current leader – in this instance to Xi’s direct left.
Little did the cameramen know that the scene that would play out through their lenses over the next 2 minutes would be dissected frame by frame by China watchers in the years to come, likely including at the secure facilities of intelligence services around the world.
Hu and the custodians begin conversing back and forth about something as he is seated. It’s clear Hu is befuddled, maybe even annoyed, by their presence. One of the custodians grabs him by the arm. Hu resists and reaches out for a document sitting in front of Xi. Xi rescues it from Hu’s grasp. The custodian heaves Hu up from his chair. Now standing, Hu looks back at his chair. It’s clear he wants the custodians to help him back to the seat. But they resist. They point to the exit and begin forcibly escorting him in that direction. He locks eyes with Xi, then passes behind him. He turns back and puts his arm on Xi’s shoulder, as if hoping the leader would intervene to reverse his removal from the auditorium. Xi writes him off with a look and a nod and pretends the whole charade didn’t just happen. The custodians escort him out of the venue. The rapid-fire clicking of camera shutters silences. Twitter erupts.
The footage is gripping and surreal. I mean, really. I’m not being hyperbolic. It’s straight out of a movie.
There are a handful of theories swirling around trying to ascribe motive to this wholly unexpected drama. They range from the benign to the tin-foil hat conspiratorial. I’ve narrowed it down to 3 plausible explanations. Hear me out.
Explanation One — Xi had Hu forcibly removed because he was making a scene. Footage that emerged a few days after the live broadcast show Hu ruffling with papers placed in front of him in the minutes that proceeded his expulsion from the body. He looks confused and fidgety, while others flanking Xi at the table are stoic and composed. He appeared to be making such as ruckus with the papers that outgoing Standing Committee Chairman Li Zhanshu, who was seated to Hu’s left, took them from him, before appearing to cajole Hu to straighten up.
Official Chinese state media claimed aids had to escort Hu out of the room because he was having some sort of health episode. The man is 79 years old. He’s also visibly feeble – evidenced by the fact that minutes before this bit of theatre he needed assistance getting to his seat. Maybe his bewilderment is a symptom of dementia?
Regardless, optics are everything for Xi and he could have determined that the momentary kerfuffle his now-obsolete predecessor’s removal created was a better alternative to the old man making an even bigger fuss as the highly scripted session proceeded.
Explanation Two — Xi had Hu forcibly removed to make a point; Xi planned this in advance. Xi is a dictator. Dictators do stuff like manufacture an incident to publicly embarrass their predecessors.
Hu represents the old guard of the party – a bygone era of so-called “collective leadership” in the CCP where leaders dispersed power among factions and placed a premium on technocratic expertise over ideological purity. It was also an era of rampant corruption at all levels of government. And Hu, who had to balance the needs and wants of the factions while also contending with the strong influence of his own predecessor Jiang Zemin, proved too powerless and ineffectual to combat this. Many in the CCP thus refer to Hu’s tenure as China’s “lost decade,” even though the economic boom that coincided with his leadership was unparalleled in human history.
Xi represents everything Hu is not. He prioritizes absolute loyalty over factional balancing and governing expertise. He’s a staunch party ideologue – the likes of which we haven’t seen since Mao Zedong, the founding leader of the CCP. He is ruthless. Days after taking over from Hu, Xi initiated a sweeping anti-corruption campaign that doubled as his front to consolidate his grip on the party and stamp out rivals. Among those he threw in a jail cell with charges of graft – Ling Jihua, Hu’s top aid and most-trusted confidant.
That is all to say that a deliberate removal of Hu fits the bill. The move could have been Xi’s culminating signal to his party that the era that Hu represented is no longer. The following day he would publicly unveil the names of his 25-member Politburo, including the 6 members of his Politburo Standing Committee, his most powerful aids. Not one soul tied to Hu and his faction made the cut.
The move could have also been a reminder to the world that Xi remains in the driver’s seat, in full control of his party and country. Just minutes after he welcomed foreign journalists into the chambers of the party meeting, security hauled Hu out. Just a coincidence? Everything else about the Party Congress was scripted. Why not this too?
Explanation Three — Xi had Hu forcibly removed because he overheard Hu expressing reservations about something in the documents placed before him. Hu was visibly flustered by something he saw in those documents. After watching official CCP footage of the closing ceremony (it’s a snooze – wouldn’t recommend it to anyone), which kicked off after Hu’s exit, it’s clear the documents contained the transcript of the remarks Xi and other VIPs delivered at the event. It’s also possible one of the documents contained the names Xi had chosen for his Politburo and Standing Committee. Hu could have been reacting in real time to news that none of the party members in his orbit made it onto the new Politburo. As former CIA analyst Chris Johnson referenced on the podcast Intelligence Matters, Hu’s youngest protégé, Hu Chunhua (no relation), who was on the previous Politburo, had every reason to stay on. It’s a piercing humiliation for big Hu that lil’ Hu was dropped from this perch. And maybe the former couldn’t help but make a fuss in real time, right next to Xi.
Xi might have interpreted this recalcitrance as a liability. What if Hu tried to signal his displeasure by refraining from clapping during the broadcast (yes, this is something Xi would fret over)? That’s a doomsday scenario. IMAGE, ORDER, CONTROL, after all, are everything.
“Get this old man outta here – pronto!”
The world may never know the true reason for Hu’s expulsion from the Party Congress. The CCP is the world’s most opaque and secretive ruling political organization. That’s why China watchers comb through publicly released party literature and video clips of party events with a fine-tooth comb. They’re looking for clues that might indicate the direction the government is moving in.
Whatever the case with Hu, his removal from the Great Hall of the People—and the empty chair left in his wake—is an apt symbol for the absolute power Xi has accrued since his ascendency to the presidency in 2013. The degree to which China has pivoted under Xi’s rule is truly extraordinary.
Over the past decade, Xi has brought China back to a sort of Leninist ideological zeal not seen since the Mao Zedong era. He’s pushed China further to the Marxist left, wrangling Chinese business more clearly under the control of the state. He’s boosted internal censorship efforts by orders of magnitude, employing cutting edge technology to do so. He's stamped out internal unrest in places such as Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet. He’s stoked Chinese nationalism at home, in part by opening fresh territorial disputes with neighboring countries Japan, India, Vietnam, and the Philippines. He’s leveraged China’s massive economic clout to secure favorable diplomatic and security concessions on the world stage. He’s overseen the largest military buildup of any nation since WWII, parlaying its newfound might with unprecedented intimidation efforts against Taiwan and moving the foes (and the U.S.) closer to full-scale war than an any point since Washington switched official diplomatic recognition to China.
Xi has effectively ended 40 years of CCP strategy initiated by party-reformer Deng Xiaoping and continued by Jiang Zemin, then Hu Jintao, that prioritized radical economic growth and pragmatic governance over ideological purity. He’s also flouted an unofficial precedent set by Deng and continued by Jiang, then Hu, that bars CCP leaders from ruling for more than two 5-year terms.
Yes, in a move that surprised literally no one, Xi emerged from the Party Congress with the rubber stamp he needed to serve beyond the 10-year precedent (this was an open secret). How much longer he might serve is up for debate. He could lead for another 5 years. He could lead for the remainder of his life.
My guess is that 5 more years won’t cut it for Xi. And it doesn’t appear that anyone in his orbit would ever urge him to even consider transferring power.
At a press conference the day after the concluding session of the Party Congress, Xi emerged from an ornate double-door with 6 men in tow. They were the faces of his new Standing Committee. Behind Xi, they are 6 most powerful figures in China.
Of course, that doesn’t really say much on their part because they’re all Yes Men. Yup – the dictator packed the halls with loyalists. Go figure.
Absolute power aside, it’s not all dandelions and unicorn farts for Xi from here.
China faces some serious headwinds. Xi’s “Zero-COVID” policy has flattened China’s economy (economists forecast the country will grow a meager 2.8% this year; its average growth since 1978 has been 9%). China’s real estate market, which accounts for as much as a third of its GDP, is in a tailspin. Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive global infrastructure scheme intended to buttress China’s supply lines, is floundering. The enormous mountain of debt his country sits on is a ticking time-bomb.
Abroad, the challenges are just as stark. The CCP’s enmity with the U.S. has produced rare bipartisan support in Washington for whole-of-government competition with Beijing. Xi’s regional muscle-flexing has only brought America’s allies in Asia closer to the West. His “special relationship" with Russian President Vladimir Putin has tarnished China’s image in Europe, a region previously disinclined to think of China as anything other than a refuge for cheap labor. His repression of the Uyghurs, an ethnic minority in China’s Xinjiang province, has earned the scorn of Trumpist populists and the global activist class alike. His coercion efforts against Taiwan have only pushed the island further away and strengthened its citizens’ resolve to maintaining their democracy – all but assuring any attempt to coax the island into the CCP fold with “peaceful means” fails.
Add to that a looming demographic collapse, the result of years of China’s now ill-advised one-child policy, and you get a good picture of what is sure to keep Xi up at night.
Then realize that it is he, and he alone, that bears the burden of contending with these challenges.
He’s placed the fate of 1.4 billion people (and dropping) on his back. That’s quite a load to carry. That’s quite an ego.
Is he capable of changing tack when the going gets tough? Or is China locked into an unwavering trajectory?
The world is watching.
Fall In Line, Suckers!
A group of 30 Democratic lawmakers from the Congressional Progressive Caucus (the left of the left, if you will) sent a letter to Joe Biden on Monday urging him to negotiate directly with Russia toward a diplomatic settlement that would end the war in Ukraine. They were fatalistic—and realistic—in their appeal:
“Given the destruction created by this war for Ukraine and the world, as well as the risk of catastrophic escalation…[we] believe it is in the interests of Ukraine, the United States, and the world to avoid a prolonged conflict. For this reason, we urge you to pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.”
“A war that is allowed to grind on for years—potentially escalating in intensity and geographic scope—threatens to displace, kill, and immiserate far more Ukrainians while causing hunger, poverty, and death around the world.”
Signatories of the letter received immediate pushback from their own side of the political aisle.
The White House dismissed the plea, reiterating its policy stance that it’s up to Ukrainians to decide whether and when to negotiate with Russia. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy tweeted, “There is moral and strategic peril in sitting down with Putin too early. It risks legitimizing his crimes and handing over parts of Ukraine to Russia in an agreement that Putin won’t even honor.” Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss called the letter “an olive branch to a war criminal who’s losing his war.” Other prominent voices on the left likened their appeal to the sort of Putin kowtowing many claim the Republican Party have engaged in over the course of the conflict.
The blowback was so strong that Pramila Jayapal, chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, rescinded the letter just one day later. It was an embarrassing save-face, made even more cringe-worthy when she blamed the charade on staffers from her office who she claimed released the letter “without vetting.”
It wasn’t the most convincing excuse. And in the slim chance the justification does bear some truth, it doesn’t exactly reflect well on her organizational leadership. More than anything, though, it showed that the so-called “adults in the room” engage in scapegoating and throwing people under the bus when it suits their interests.
But this drama is also emblematic of two larger and far more more significant things.
One – Democratic and Republican views on U.S. foreign policy have flipped. What these liberal Dems proposed earlier this week is not a radical departure from left-wing orthodoxy. In fact, the opposite. For decades, Democrats have been the party of diplomacy. Hell – when you’re the political home for anti-Vietnam War activists, United Nations lovers, and Noam Chomsky devotees you kinda have to be.
That of course has changed with the war in Ukraine. By couching the conflict as a struggle between autocracy and democracy, war-criminals and righteous defenders (which the Ukrainians are), Biden has managed to get his party to fall in line. Virtually everyone in his party (including now 30 of its most on-the-fence members) is gung-ho about sending U.S. treasure and arms to the front lines for as long as it takes to bloody Putin’s nose. The sort of caution, realism, and single-minded phobia of taking action that could prompt escalation (i.e. make things worse) that Obama exemplified in his approach to the conflicts in Syria and Libya—and in his dealings with countries like Iran—seems like a thing of the past.
On the other side of the coin, of course, Republicans appear to have ditched their long-held preference for an American foreign policy that is muscular and interventionist. Who woulda thought? The party of neocons George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who toppled Iraq’s dictator in the name of “freedom” and pushed the limits of our collective imagination by waging a “Global War on Terror” (how can you wage a war against a tactic?), is now urging caution in our dealings with the Ukrainians and threatening to pull aid if they win the House after next month’s midterms.
There is no consistency in politics.
Two – The Biden Administration is worried about more than just helping the Ukrainians recapture cities. Let me just start by reminding you that in the opening shots of Putin’s war in Ukraine, the U.S. urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to flee his country and set-up a provisional government in Poland – a request to which he responded by flipping Washington the bird and retorting “I need ammunition, not a ride.” The U.S. had no faith whatsoever in the Ukrainian’s ability to repel Putin’s forces. But Zelensky surprised everyone when his troops were able to prevent a Russian takeover of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capitol, then managed to force the invaders on an embarrassing retreat. When this occurred, U.S. war planners’ eyes lit up.
The Biden Administration’s official policy is that the U.S. will defer to the Ukrainians as to whether and when to negotiate with Russia. Until Zelensky gives the word, Washington won’t so much as broach the prospect of peace with Moscow.
I get that. The Ukrainians should have the overall say in what the future looks like. But experts warn—and U.S. officials well know—that Putin isn’t going to negotiate directly with the Ukrainians. And it doesn’t appear the Ukrainians are looking to talk anytime soon (this is understandable), even though it seems the conflict has entered a stalemate and hopes of permanently dislodging the Russians from strongholds in the east and south of the country look like a pipedream.
This deadlock doesn’t stop the body bags from piling up. And we all know that the longer the conflict persists, the greater the risk that it widens.
So why does the Biden Administration reflexively shut down any talk of peace or consideration of even a tinge of a change in policy? As Congressman Ro Khanna, one of the only signatories to the Progressive Caucus’ letter that stood by the sentiment expressed in it told The Intercept, “It should not be controversial to say we need to explore every diplomatic avenue to seek a just peace and to end the war.”
It’s in part because the United States wants to win.
And winning for Washington means keeping Russia bogged down in a protracted war that neuters its ability to act on its ambitions elsewhere. Winning means the Russian Military suffers so many casualties that Russian citizens back home rise up to depose Vladimir Putin. Winning means keeping Ukraine in a sort of no-man’s land—neither fully in the West’s orbit, nor in Moscow’s—so that there’s a buffer state between NATO and Russia.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: geopolitics is messy. It doesn’t care about your feelings. And if your leaders try to invoke feelings out of you through flowery vagaries (“fight for your freedom!”), you have to question whether you’re getting the full picture.
To date, the U.S. has sent an unparalleled 54 billion dollars in weapons and related aid to Ukraine to help them fight off the Russians. Russia’s 2021 budget for the whole of its military appartus was 65 billion dollars (the U.S spent a whopping 800 billion dollars on its military in the same year). Let that sink in. It’s quite a commitment – a committment funded by you, the American taxpayer.
Will we ever put as much money and effort behind a push for peace?
At some point we have to stop the bleeding, for the Ukrainian’s—and humanity’s—sake. Who knew it would be the Republicans who were more apt to press for this.
What I’m reading:
Tim Ryan Is Winning the War for the Soul of the Democratic Party, New York Times
China is weaker than we thought. Will we change our policies accordingly?, Washington Post
The end of Apple’s affair with China, The Economist
Don’t Rule Out Diplomacy in Ukraine, Foreign Affairs
The Climate Art Vandals Are Embarrassing, The Atlantic
The Media’s Cover-Up of John Fetterman, Common Sense
COVID-19 Origins: Investigating a “Complex and Grave Situation” Inside a Wuhan Lab, Vanity Fair
Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, The Chris Hedges Report
Threads I’m watching:
Midterms, Midterms, Midterms, yes, still. We’re two weeks out baby! I’m starting to think through the implications of a GOP-controlled House of Representatives, which is looking very likely. Impeachments, no doubt, are on the docket. Hunter Biden will surely get some front-page features. By the way, that Fetterman-Dr. Oz debate was atrocious!
Elon finally completed his purchase of Twitter, ending a months long saga. Dude overpaid by tens of billions of dollars. Are we gunna see a mass exodus of ultra-progressives from the platform? Is he going to reinstate Trump’s account?
The fever has broken on immigration — Dems are finally indicating they’re thinking about the southern border as illegal entries have gotten to a point they can’t afford to ignore anymore. GOP talking points on debate stages accross the country ahead of the midterms surely helped spur this.
The U.S. Intelligence Community has jumped on the bandwagon and is now warning that North Korea could test a nuke any day now. Bring it on KJU!
See you next week!