Dark clouds hang over Tiananmen Square in Beijing. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
[People News] On December 22, both the official website of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the military network featured an article by Meng Xiangfeng, the Deputy Director responsible for daily operations at the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, in the section titled 'Learning and Implementing the Spirit of the Four Sessions' on their homepage. The article is titled 'Improving the Mechanism for Implementing Major Decisions and Deployments of the Party Central Committee.' The People's Daily also published it on page nine the same day. However, it is noteworthy that Xinhua News Agency did not showcase this article on its homepage, instead placing it in a special column. This raises the question: are the actual controllers behind the CPC People's Network, the military network, and Xinhua News Agency different?
Before delving into the article's content, it is important to mention the 'Regulations on the Work of the Decision-Making and Coordination Institutions of the CPC Central Committee,' which were approved during the Political Bureau meeting of the CPC Central Committee on June 30 this year. Reports indicate that the establishment of this central decision-making and coordination institution is a crucial institutional arrangement to enhance the CPC Central Committee's centralised and unified leadership over significant work and to facilitate the implementation of major tasks.'
The 'Regulations' outline the establishment, responsibilities, and execution of the central decision-making and coordination institution, emphasising that its primary function is 'to provide top-level design, overall coordination, comprehensive promotion, and supervision of the implementation of major work.' The introduction of these regulations and their specific details appear to be aimed at diminishing Xi Jinping's status and authority.
During the years of Xi Jinping's dominance, there was essentially no significant activity from the 'Party Central.' However, following the news of Xi's stroke that surfaced after the July Third Plenary Session of the Communist Party of China last year, reports regarding his loss of military and party authority have been persistent. Over the past year, the frequency with which the official media of the Communist Party has highlighted 'the Party Central's concentrated and unified leadership' has been notably high, with Xi himself mentioning it multiple times. Speculation about Xi's diminishing power and the influence of the Communist Party's elders has been widespread.
In this context, the Communist Party convened an expanded Politburo meeting that involved central decision-making and coordination mechanisms, which many observers suspect is aimed at legitimising the role of the Communist Party's elders who are controlling the political landscape, thereby achieving a genuine 'Party Central's concentrated and unified leadership, akin to the Central Advisory Commission of the 1980s.
It is quite unusual for the official and military media of the Communist Party to publish articles related to Meng Xiangfeng, as this further supports the notion that it is not Xi who is in control of the Communist Party's political affairs, but rather the 'Party Central' that supersedes the Politburo, which Xi and all members of the Politburo Standing Committee must adhere to. The composition of this body is likely to include several Communist Party elders, with the influences of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao already becoming apparent.
The article titled 'Regulations' opens by stating that the 'Suggestions' approved at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party emphasise the need to 'enhance the implementation mechanism for major decision-making and deployment by the Party Central, ensuring effective communication and robust execution,' and then elaborates on this in three distinct sections.
The first part addresses the "profound understanding and implementation of the significant importance of the major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee." It begins by discussing the role of these major decisions and deployments in the Communist Party of China's endeavours, emphasising the need to "continuously strengthen political awareness and responsibility in their implementation, ensuring that the major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee are executed without fail." It further states that the "major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee serve as the foundation for unifying the thoughts, will, and actions of the entire Party, the armed forces, and the people of all ethnic groups across the nation," asserting that "these decisions and deployments reflect the authority of the Party Central Committee and its centralized and unified leadership."
This section also references remarks from Xi Jinping to clarify this point, such as, "Maintaining the authority of the Party Central Committee and its centralised and unified leadership involves upholding not only the leadership system, procedures, and rules of the Party Central Committee but also its decision-making deployments and work arrangements." He further questioned, "If the decision-making deployments of the Party Central Committee are not effectively implemented, how can we discuss the centralised and unified leadership of the Party?" This suggests that Xi must also adhere to the collective leadership of the Communist Party of China.
Additionally, the assertion in this section that emphasizes the "resolute implementation of the major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and Xi Jinping's important directives, consciously aligning with the spirit of the Party Central Committee in thought, politics, and action, and maintaining a high degree of consistency with the Party Central Committee" conveys to the outside world that the "Party Central Committee" holds precedence over Xi. It instructs officials at all levels of the Communist Party to "consciously align their thoughts and actions with the major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee, ensuring that these decisions and deployments are comprehensively implemented and accurately executed in their respective regions and departments."
The second part addresses the necessity of strengthening institutional mechanisms to implement the major decisions and directives of the Party Central Committee. This indicates that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has put certain mechanisms in place to ensure that officials at all levels adhere to the directives of the 'Party Central Committee' rather than those of Xi (Xí).
The text highlights that the CCP has established a comprehensive working mechanism that operates both vertically and horizontally. This includes formulating and revising the working regulations of the Central Committee, the working regulations of the Party Central Committee's decision-making and coordination bodies, the working regulations of local Party committees, the working regulations of Party groups, the regulations governing the Party's working organs, and several working regulations for grassroots Party organisations. Additionally, it aims to enhance the reporting system to encourage the National People's Congress, the State Council, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the Supreme Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate to lead by example in implementing the major decisions and directives of the Party Central Committee. This will strengthen the overall coordination, comprehensive advancement, and supervisory roles of the Party Central Committee and the State Council's decision-making coordination bodies in promoting the implementation of these major decisions and directives.'
The third part discusses the need to 'further improve the implementation mechanism for the major decisions and directives of the Party Central Committee.' The main point is that while there are institutional safeguards in place, various issues in recent years have led to leaders in different regions and departments causing 'the major decisions and directives of the Party Central Committee to become distorted and fail to be effectively implemented.'
In this context, how should officials at all levels ensure the implementation of the 'major decision-making deployments of the Party Central Committee'? Firstly, they need to carry out Xi's instructions; points two through six focus on enhancing or implementing the 'mechanism for the major decision-making deployments of the Party Central Committee', the 'coordinating mechanism for the major decision-making deployments of the Party Central Committee', the 'implementation mechanism for the major decision-making deployments of the Party Central Committee', the 'supervisory and guarantee mechanism for the major decision-making deployments of the Party Central Committee', and the 'improvement of the long-term mechanism to prevent and rectify formalism and bureaucratism'.
Out of the six points, only one refers to Xi's instructions, while the others emphasise the need to enhance or implement various mechanisms of the 'Party Central Committee'. Officials at all levels should be aware of who holds more importance, Xi or the 'Party Central Committee'. Such phrasing has been notably rare in the last six or seven years.
Furthermore, this article, which highlights the 'Party Central Committee' as being above Xi, is authored by Meng Xiangfeng, the deputy director responsible for daily operations at the Central Office, who previously lauded Xi. Does this suggest that Meng Xiangfeng has shifted his stance and is now adhering to the directives of the 'Party Central Committee'? As for Xi's significant authority, it seems that Cai Qi's power has already diminished.
(First published by the People News) △
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