THE Communist Party of China’s (CPC) 20th congress saw Xi Jinping begin his third term as leader. But what are his politics? What has his leadership over the last 10 years meant for China — and what lies ahead for the next five years?

With China the world’s second-largest economic power, these questions, for better or worse, should surely be a high priority for any socialist.

The son of revolutionary hero Xi Zhongxun who rose to the leadership of the CPC only to be targeted by Mao in the Cultural Revolution, Xi himself was a “sent down” youth, spending seven years from the age of 15 working in a poor community in the west of China where he served for a time as a commune leader.

If these early years moulded his core political outlook, it was his experiences as party secretary of Zhejiang Province from 2002-2007 that shaped his concrete politics.

Zhejiang is a commercialised eastern province, a key area in driving the country’s growth. After China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001, local cadres were exhorted to promote business, help new enterprises and court foreign investment, creating new jobs and opportunities.

But rapid industrialisation also brought increasing inequality and environmental degradation, as well as corruption, as the boundaries between politics and business got blurred.

Now in the senior ranks of CPC leadership, one of some 3,000, Xi expressed his concerns in a series of articles in which he put great stress on the moral standards of the cadres and the need to prevent party officials from solidifying into a privileged elite removed from the rest of society.

Power, he argued, was not a personal possession, and was to be used not for self-aggrandisement but for the public good. Grassroots levels were crucial — this was where the party worked together with the people to build a better future.

Emphasising the quality not just the quantity of growth, he wrote “not everything has to be done for GDP,” and the importance of the environmental question was there too: “There is only one world and only one environment.”

Cleaning up the party

By 2012, when Xi became CPC leader, China had recovered rapidly after taking a serious hit in the 2008-09 world financial crisis, resuming the fast growth that had seen the economy more than double in the previous decade. It was up to him now to realise the previously set goals of achieving a “moderately prosperous society” by 2020.

Xi’s first step was to refocus the party on its high values of public service, launching a far-reaching anti-corruption campaign targeting “tigers” at the top as well as “flies” at the bottom. His insistence that his relatives should not undertake any business dealings struck a chord with people, gaining him much popularity.

A graduate in chemical engineering, with a PhD in Marxist legal theory, Xi was also a good communicator, a skill acquired during his years in the countryside, and the fact that he could put over his political message in an accessible manner, avoiding stilted rhetoric, was another aspect of his popularity.

Determined to restore ideology to the heart of the party, he encouraged Marxist study and debate, not for the sake of theorising, but to drive policy and practice forward.

The market, he recognised, was to play “a decisive role in the allocation of resources in the economy,” but as economic reforms widened, there was a new emphasis on commercial law, vastly improving business practice.

Enterprise-based party committees were more widely established, and from 2015, a massive infusion of government support reinforced the role of state-owned enterprises at the centre of economic policy.

Two particular advances were, on the domestic front, the 2016 Made In China Initiative to upgrade technological levels; and, of international consequence, the Belt and Road Initiative, setting new terms for China’s integration with the world community.

Revitalising Chinese politics

Greater economic success was bringing rising expectations and a more diversified society. The CPC had to deliver to a huge population, one no longer satisfied with just seeing China grow stronger.

People wanted different things: a rising middle-income group 400 million strong, including those owning their own homes, university-educated and having travelled abroad, co-existed in the cities with millions of migrants from the countryside, many still in financial hardship. At the same time, a small but highly visible section of the super-rich, heading private business empires, was becoming more powerful.

The pace of growth was not sustainable, and the party had to find new ways of appealing to a diverse public to maintain legitimacy.

Confirmed again as party leader in 2017, Xi issued a message of unity with the call for the “rejuvenation of the nation” recommitting to the revolutionary goal of becoming a prosperous modernised society with world-power status.

The focus on economic growth was replaced: in Chinese Marxist parlance, the main contradiction was now “between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing need for a better life.”

Xi then set two centennial goals: the eradication of extreme poverty by 2021, the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the CPC; and making China an advanced socialist country by 2049, one hundred years on from the foundation of the People’s Republic.

China has continued to make considerable progress in green development, welfare provision and technology. Most significant have been the mass campaigns against poverty and Covid. China has also become increasingly assertive in foreign affairs.

Then with the 20th CPC congress approaching, Xi made some striking statements — that “houses are for living in not for speculation,” and “the disorderly expansion of capitalism” was to be prevented. This was backed by crackdowns on gambling and private education.

Declaring “common prosperity” a defining characteristic of socialism, he indicated that the country was ready for a “socialist turn,” a reassertion of state power over the market.

Sequencing steps forward

None of this is to deny that human rights abuses, exploitative conditions as well as corruption do occur. Undoubtedly there are serious concerns over the handling of the situations in Hong Kong and Xinjiang as well as some Covid lockdowns. But complex contexts are obscured by the West’s hyper-politicisation of events. The question is: what steps are to be taken to continue to make improvements?

Starting from China’s actual conditions as a developing country, and building on the economic successes of his predecessors, Xi is taking China through a series of sequenced steps towards developed-country status.

First, the focus and discipline of the CPC had to be restored, and from there it had to with the people. Xi’s narrative about where China had been, where it had got to and where it was going, was meaningful to ordinary people, reaching across their diverse interests to offer a shared sense of direction, confidence and pride about China in the world. At the same time, grassroots organisation was evident in the mass campaigns to eradicate poverty and pursue the Zero Covid strategy.

With these successes, the country was ready for Xi’s “socialist turn” at the 20th congress recalibrating from an economic focus towards common prosperity for the future.

As China advances to “socialist modernisation by 2049” with 2035 set to realise its basic foundation, the next five years will be key. Deng Xiaoping’s “reform and opening up” era is not so much being abandoned as being put more firmly into the service of the overall interests of the country — and the people — as Xi puts politics back in command.