China’s president consolidates power by surrounding himself with loyalists

Judy Woodruff:

This weekend, China's President Xi Jinping secured a third term as general secretary of the ruling Communist Party.

Xi and the newly appointed members at the very top of the Chinese government, the Politburo Standing Committee, received a standing ovation at the 20th Party Congress. The seven-person committee is now filled with Xi loyalists. Also this weekend, security officials escorted out China's former President Hu Jintao in front of the world's media.

For more on all of this, we turn to Christopher Johnson. He had a 20-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, where he focused on China. And now he runs his own consulting firm, China Strategies Group.

Chris Johnson, welcome back to the "NewsHour."

So, first of all, how does this — what does this new leadership lineup in China tell you about how much power Xi Jinping has?

Christopher Johnson, China Strategies Group:

Well, I think it tells us that Xi Jinping is basically unbound in terms of his power inside China.

We see a situation where all of his allies dominate not only the Politburo Standing Committee, the top seven men in China — and, unfortunately, for now, they're all men — and the full Politburo. So, suggestions that representatives from other factions inside the Chinese leadership might make it into those senior bodies turned out to be untrue.

And I think what we see here is that loyalty and what we might call virtuocracy have replaced meritocracy, and that all of the new leaders are very close to Xi Jinping, very loyal to him, of course, and do not have any blemishes on their record in terms of their ideological rectitude, as Xi Jinping would say, but also in terms of corruption.

And we saw some indications that some of the other candidates that might have been considered for that top leadership, including Wang Yang, who was suggested as maybe a new premier candidate for China — his daughter had been working for a foreign private equity firm for five years, before suddenly quitting that post about a year ago.

This amounted to what some Chinese officials have called a stain on his shirt that, in Xi Jinping's eyes, shows a bad look in terms of the type of officials he wants to surround himself with. So now we see himself with a Cabinet, a top leading corps under his rulership that are completely dedicated to his agenda going forward.

Judy Woodruff:

And what did you make of the purge or the removal of several individuals who were at the top of the party?

Christopher Johnson:

Well, my sense is, what we have seen is, Xi Jinping has demonstrated that the raw exercise of power is back as the fundamental driving force within Chinese politics, rather than these norms or conventions that had been followed in previous Party Congresses.

So, previously, in the past, there are been some conventions that were followed with regard to age restrictions for politburo Members, where individuals who were 67 years old or younger on the current Politburo or who could be moved up to the next Politburo, they were retained, and individuals who were 68 or older were dropped.

We saw that Xi Jinping decided to retain several people who were older than 68 and also to drop some members who were 67, Li Keqiang, the sitting premier, and another individual, Wang Yang, who I just mentioned, while retaining Wang Huning, who is also 67. The first two gentlemen, of course, were from another interest group inside the party, whereas Wang Huning has been Xi Jinping's loyal ideologist.

Judy Woodruff:

Right.

And what about the removal, as we just said, on camera in front of the media of the former President Hu Jintao. What do we believe, what do you believe is going on there?

Christopher Johnson:

Well, it was extremely awkward. There's no two ways about that.

Of course, the official response from the regime has been that he suffered a health issue. Upon watching the video myself, he does look confused, of course, and seemed to be stammering slightly, but then we see him leave on his own power and with quick pace. And he seems to be being dragged along somewhat hesitantly by these minders.

My sense is just what we were just discussing, Judy, is that, all of the sudden, all of his loyalists, Hu Jintao's loyalists, Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, Hu Chunhua, all dropped from the Politburo. Obviously, this was something that upset him. Perhaps he had suggested he was going to spoil the punch somehow.

And Xi Jinping, in a demonstration of his raw power and perhaps ruthlessness, decided to have Hu Jintao removed from the Congress.

Judy Woodruff:

So, the question, of course, everybody has is, what are the consequences of this consolidation of Xi Jinping's power, in terms of China's approach to the rest of the world and domestic policy?

Christopher Johnson:

Well, in terms of the rest of the world, I think Xi Jinping sketched out for us in the political report that he delivered to the Congress a week ago what he sees, which is an external environment that is increasingly hostile toward China, is increasingly chaotic, because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the hostility that he perceives from the Biden administration toward China's rise.

So this is a system where Xi increasingly is saying the likelihood of conflict internationally is going up. And his response seems to be, in the economy, for example, to portray sort of a fortress economy, where China will be more self-sufficient in technology and focus very heavily on food security, energy security, supply chain security, in other words, hardening that system to respond to what he perceives to be a very threatening external environment.

In terms of the economy itself, as I just said, this fortress economy idea, more than a quarter of the new Politburo members are either former officials in Chinese defense firms or scientists that have served in Chinese state firms. This is perfectly suited to this agenda of technology upgrading with a state-led approach.

Judy Woodruff:

And what about with regard to Taiwan? We didn't hear a lot in the last day or so about that, but what — how do you read what you see there?

Christopher Johnson:

Well, there's been a lot of speculation that, in his political report, Xi Jinping perhaps menaced Taiwan a little more with the inclusion of this new line about China not promising to announce the use of force.

And that certainly was not in his last political report in 2017. That said, if we look at it carefully, the words that followed were that this threat of military force on Taiwan was directed at interference by external forces, the United States, and what China considers separatist elements on Taiwan.

Likewise, the two new top military leaders that have been chosen in this Politburo, many have speculated that, because one individual had combat experience, really one of the few people in the Chinese military who as combat experienced in the 1970s…

Judy Woodruff:

Right.

Christopher Johnson:

… and also a former commander of the theater opposite Taiwan, suggested that maybe we will see more activity there and possibly an invasion of Taiwan.

My own sense is that this is, again, a demonstration of them hardening the system in preparation for that, but they still see a war with Taiwan as a crisis to be avoided, rather than an opportunity to be seized.

Judy Woodruff:

And just a very quick final question.

Justice Department today, as I know you saw, has charged two Chinese intelligence officials with seeking to obstruct the criminal prosecution against a giant Chinese telecom firm. It's assumed to be Huawei. What should we read into that, in just a few words?

Christopher Johnson:

Well, most definitely, it's Huawei.

And I think what it does is, it gives the lie to not only Huawei's suggestions, but also the Chinese governments' suggestions, that Huawei is somehow a private enterprise and has nothing to do with the Chinese government. What we see in the indictment is the full capabilities of the Chinese government being used to foster Huawei's interest internationally.

And that's something that, of course, Huawei's international competitors in the global telecommunications race do not have access to. It also demonstrates a big counterintelligence win for the FBI. But, of course, that also shows us that there was someone who was working for the Chinese prior to being turned as a double agent.

Judy Woodruff:

Chris Johnson of the China Strategies Group, we thank you.

Christopher Johnson:

Thank you.