We are in the run-up to the big Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.  This will be the 17th Party Congress (not to be confused with the People’s Congresses, which are meetings of the legislative branch).  These meetings happen approximately every five years (in the interim the Party is run by the Standing Committee, the Politburo, and, most importantly, the Standing Committee of the Politburo.) and they usually bring with them significant leadership changes.   The top two leaders, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, will keep their positions, but others will be shuffled.

     Much secrecy surrounds the planning and back-room politics of the Party Congress.  It was only a couple of weeks ago that we learned that the big meeting would open on October 15th this year.  They do not want to set an opening date until most of the key decisions have already been made.  This strikes me as a sign of institutional weakness –  the organization is driven by the political jockeying of a few top people.  But, be that as it may, it looks fairly certain that things are now falling into place for the meeting.

      One of the best analysts of this kind of Pekingology is Willy Lam.  He has a piece in the Asia Sentinel that dissects some of the likely personnel outcomes of the Party Congress.  Here’s his best guess for the membership of the highest decision-making body in the Party, the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC):

The incumbents are President and General Secretary Hu Jintao; Premier
Wen Jiabao; and Vice-President Zeng Qinghong (to become National
People’s Congress chairman in early 2008). Fresh PSC inductees are
united front work specialist Wang Zhaoguo (set to become Chairman of
the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference); Liaoning Party
Secretary Li Keqiang (who will run the party Secretariat); Director of
the General Office of the CCP Central Committee Wang Gang (to head the
Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection); and Guangdong Party Secretary Zhang Dejiang (to become Executive Vice-Premier).

 Here is what he has to say about some of the newcomers:

However, both cadres [Wang Gang and Zhang Dejiang] are also what Beijing pundits call affiliates of
the “Wind Faction”: that is, they sway with the wind – or the
powers-that-be. Indeed, Zhang and in particular Wang, who is in charge
of the nerve center of the party, were among the first batch of senior
officials to have crossed over to the Hu camp in early 2003.

Wang, 65, who spent a good chunk of his career looking after
confidential party archives, has so successfully ingratiated himself
with the new supremo that he has become Hu’s doppelganger….

Li [Keqiang], 52, is often called the “clone” of mentor Hu [Jintao]….

 It is not surprising that, in the highly bureaucratized world of Chinese Communist Party politics, the guys who make it to the top level are careful, conservative, yes-men, who have made a career out of sensing which way the political wind is blowing and bending accordingly.  We should not expect bold, individualistic leadership styles to emerge from such an institutional milieu.  The era of powerful singular leaders (powerful in the sense of having the capacity to individually turn public policy quickly in new directions) is gone.  There are no more Maos or Dengs.  And that may be a good thing.  Remember what happened under Mao’s personalist rule (Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution) and how Deng turned out the army when things got rough in 1989.

     On the other hand, there is a downside to the sycophancy bred by deeply bureaucratic politics.  Where is the person who will have the political courage and standing to face up to the highest leaders and speak truth to power when that needs to be done.  Can we imagine any of the likely new PSC members challenging Hu and Wen on difficult decisions?  Or will they just go along with the flow, as they have always done, to protect their positions and perquisites? 

     I think of Mencius, who so refreshingly challenges and contradicts errant emperors and kings:

Mencius said to Emperor Hsuan of Ch’i: "Suppose one of your ministers entrusts his family to the care of a friend and then leaves on a journey to Ch’u.  When he returns, he finds that the friend abandoned his family to hunger and cold.  What should be done?

"End the friendship," replied the emperor.

"And if a chief judge can’t govern his court – what should be done?"

"Turn him out," pronounced the emperor.

"And if someone can’t govern this land stretching out to the four borderlands – what then?"

The emperor suddenly turned to his attendants and spoke of other things. (2.6)

      I realize there is a parallel here as well to the current Republican Party leadership in the US – their blind loyalty to Bush and careerism has made it impossible for them to do the right thing.  Perhaps they, too, are mired in a kind of bureaucratic politics that elevates political expedience above good policy and sound decision-making.