by Stanley Rosen.
Leaders in addition to analysts inwards the West are straight off stepping frontwards to admit that they receive got misunderstood China. As a journalist at The Economist set it, “Decades of optimism close China’s rising receive got straight off been discarded.” As someone who has been teaching in addition to writing on Chinese politics since the 1970s, I know that China’s electrical current president, Xi Jinping, is fundamentally dissimilar from his predecessors. The West has held out promise that each leader afterward Mao Zedong, including Xi, would movement inwards the direction of democracy. Now, constitutional reform has snapped the West dorsum to reality. But tin the West fashion a unified, feasible strategy to bargain amongst an emerging superpower that refuses to receive got Western political values?
Chinese versus Western media
The difference inwards how Western in addition to Chinese media receive got reacted to Cathay voting to abolish presidential term limits underscores a gap inwards perception of Xi’s presidency.
Within China, reporting inwards state-run media has been extremely low-key. There has been piddling get upwards of it beyond noting the repeal every bit ane of a issue of constitutional changes. The state-run press noted that the alter was simply an “adjustment” or “a perfecting of the term organisation for the president.”
By contrast, it has been a major topic on Chinese social media, in addition to censors receive got been hard at run removing the many critical comments that receive got appeared online.
In the absence of much official Chinese commentary, China’s English-language media has stepped in. The nationalistic Global Times, which the province uses to explicate Chinese policies to foreigners, has emphasized the necessity of this constitutional amendment. Its writers have argued that it volition promote stability through centralized in addition to unified leadership. This type of potent leadership, the declaration goes, is needed for Cathay to realize Xi’s long-term plan to develop Cathay “into a nifty modern socialist country” yesteryear the midpoint of the 21st century.
Reporting inwards the West, meanwhile, has differed significantly. It has focused on the removal of the institutional norms in addition to democratic safeguards. Western analysts assert that this indefinite presidential term could brand Cathay less stable yesteryear substituting one-man dominion inwards house of a broader Communist Party consensus.
Taken aback yesteryear the potent Western response, afterward the blessing of the constitutional changes, the Global Times noted that Western theories in addition to advice on China’s developmental path are irrelevant.
From Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping
Why has the West’s perception of Cathay been in addition to thence misguided? The respond is complex, but is probable rooted inwards the reforms led yesteryear the belatedly Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping inwards the 1980s.
In the aftermath of the Mao years, Deng created a political organisation that he hoped would forestall the concentration of absolute mightiness that characterized the era. In 1982, Deng ensured that term limits on the presidency in addition to vice presidency were written into the Constitution. He wanted to forestall the rising to mightiness of a novel Mao, who could dominion indefinitely, plain of study to no institutional safeguards. This was business office of his ongoing endeavor to practise some separation betwixt the Communist Party in addition to the state.
Then, inwards 1990, at that topographic point was a global backlash from the 1989 Chinese military machine assail on pro-democracy protesters inwards Tiananmen Square. Deng sought to line Cathay out of the limelight in addition to eventually re-engage amongst the earth gradually. This strategy was enshrined inwards a serial of pithy phrases intended to principle policy: “Observe calmly; secure our position; handle amongst affairs calmly; cover our capacities in addition to bide our time; hold upwards skilful at maintaining a depression profile; in addition to never claim leadership.”
Xi’s assertiveness inwards unusual policy has marked a key difference from this approach.
One of import ground why Xi has felt less constrained than his predecessors is that he is the showtime leader post-Deng who was non personally chosen yesteryear Deng. Deng’s death inwards 1997 marked the halt of an era. He was the in conclusion of the nifty revolutionary leaders who founded the People’s Republic of Cathay inwards 1949. Deng had held such nifty authorisation inwards the Communist Party that he handpicked both of the political party leaders who came earlier Xi: Jiang Zemin in addition to Hu Jintao.
Deng was motivated to forestall a novel Mao. Xi is motivated yesteryear the dangers of a weak leadership. Xi views weak leadership every bit a primary ground for the 1989 pupil stimulate in addition to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In effect, he has sought to resurrect a carefully airbrushed Mao.
Deng was concerned amongst restoring legitimacy in addition to rebuilding China’s global role afterward 1989. Xi sees the electrical current decline of the West every bit a golden chance for Cathay to rise. As far every bit Xi is concerned, Deng’s policies served their purpose. Cathay today needs novel policies to reverberate its novel global status, acre the West, inwards turn, needs a novel strategy to handle amongst this newly emerging China.
Stanley Rosen is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts in addition to Sciences. This article was showtime published on The Conversation in addition to tin hold upwards flora here. Image credit: CC yesteryear Wikipedia Commons.
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