Chinese Law & Politics

 Originally published on March 31, 2022, China Dialogues Blog, LSE IDEAS Speculation about Xi Jinping’s succession thickens as we approach the 20 th National Party Congress this autumn, where a leadership reshuffle is scheduled to take place. Before we can proceed to predict its possible outcomes with any degree of confidence, there are two a priori assumptions that have distracted current discussions and need to be first re-examined. One such issue concerns the term limit of the General Party Secretary (GPS) of the Chinese Communist Party (the Party), and the other concerns the normative quality of the so-called “succession norms” developed under Deng Xiaoping. The myth of term limit As soon as taking the GPS position as the head of the Party, Xi Jinping executed a number of political manoeuvres that dazzled China observers around the world. Among all his political moves, the one that is most shocking and remains a key talking point to this very day is the lifting o...

Written on 1 November 2021 . Posted in Article , Op-eds .  Originally published in Made in China Journal, Issue 2, 2021   Author: Ling Li Earlier this year, two veteran analysts of Chinese politics, Richard McGregor and Jude Blanchette (2021), published a comprehensive report, laying out four possible scenarios for the next leadership succession in China’s new era. In two of these scenarios, Xi Jinping is out of the picture as the result of either a coup or ‘unexpected death or incapacitation’. In the other two, he stays in power either by extending his tenure as the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to a third term or by retiring from that office but continuing to rule behind the scenes. Below I outline a third path Xi could take to stay in power: reactivating the office of the Chairman of the Party Central Committee (hereinafter Party Ch...

What would happen if Xi Jinping suddenly died, killed by assassination or incurable illness? Would such an unexpected departure of the paramount leader paralyse the government and release the suppressed chaotic energy in the upper echelons of the Party leadership, with all those vying for such an opportunity racing to fill the power vacuum and bringing about an unpredictable outcome? In the past few weeks, these questions have inflamed the imagination of commentators on social media and in the press. All this because in March President Xi Jinping, accompanied by French President Macron, appeared to have exhibited a ‘suspiciously’ slow walk when inspecting the guard of honour in Paris. And then, in an incident that apparently reaffirms the earlier suspicions, he executed a laboured descent into (and ascent from) his chair when meeting the press following the EU-China Summit in the same week. Concerned observers passionately examined the President’s gait, posture, walking pace, and micro...