Determined to seek a third term in power, Chinese President Xi Jinping appears to be concerned about the past, not the future.
When more than 300 members of China’s political elite gather in Beijing this week, their main task will be to review a draft resolution on the “major achievements and historical experiences” of the Communist Party of China since its founding 100 years ago.
The agenda of the Central Committee’s most crucial meeting before the leadership reshuffle – which takes place twice a decade – next fall is chosen carefully and deliberately. He talks about the importance Xi attaches to the party’s history and his place in it.
In a way, this obsession with history can be seen as rooted in a tradition that goes back to ancient China.
For centuries, Chinese imperial courts appointed historians to document the rise of an emperor, which often involved compiling – and rewriting – the history of his predecessor.
For the Chinese Communist Party, the story – or rather, certain curated versions of it – can be extremely useful.
China’s alleged “historic claims” over disputed territories and waters, for example, were used by Beijing to support its defense of contemporary sovereignty, while the narrative appended to the so-called “century of humiliation” by foreign powers – since the First World War. Opium in 1839 until the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 – it became a central source of legitimacy for the party.
In the eyes of party leaders, losing control over these narratives can have disastrous consequences.
The collapse of the Soviet Union – a stern warning tale cited repeatedly by Xi – is partly attributed to “historical nihilism,” or the ruling elite’s rejection of the Soviet heritage.
As a result, the Chinese Communist Party vigilantly guards its own history – retouching the darkest chapters of its tumultuous past and erasing particularly sensitive episodes from public memory.
But the next “history resolution” is not just about reshaping the party’s past. More importantly, it’s a way for Xi to codify his authority and supremacy into the present – and project his enduring power and influence into the future.
Since its founding, the party has issued only two such resolutions, introduced by Xi’s two most powerful predecessors – Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.
Mao’s 1945 resolution established him as the undisputed authority within the party, after a three-year “rectification” campaign that brutally purged his political and ideological opponents.
Deng’s 1981 resolution, however, acknowledged Mao’s mistakes in launching the Cultural Revolution – a political campaign that plunged the country into a decade of chaos and torment (though it concluded that Mao’s contributions to the Chinese revolution “have far surpassed ” your mistakes).
But by admitting and overcoming the mistakes of the past, Deng was able to usher in a new era of reform and openness.
By issuing his own resolution, Xi sees himself responsible for taking on the mantle of Mao and Deng’s landmark legacies, surpassing his two immediate predecessors.
In this version of the party’s history, Mao has led China to “stand up” against intimidation from foreign powers, Deng has helped the Chinese people to “get rich” and Xi is now leading the country on a triumphant path to “becoming strong”.
And to continue to do so, the logic continues, namely, he needs to remain in power for at least a third term, to lead the country through what he calls a “window of opportunity” for China to reach – or surpass – the West into national strength.
For now, few details about the resolution are known – except for the expectation that it will likely be passed by party elites this week.
The title of the document indicates a more celebratory and forward-looking tone than the two previous resolutions, which focused on clarifying the problems or mistakes of the immediate past.
But regardless of the finer details, the consensus among political observers is that the resolution will further cement Xi’s authority and place him firmly in charge of the party for the foreseeable future.
“The essential function of all this verbiage, make no mistake, will be centered on the person and power of Xi Jinping, defining his leadership as the way forward, based on an understanding of the history that defines his central agenda,” wrote David Bandurski , director of China Media Project, University of Hong Kong.
As George Orwell’s famous quote in “1984” says: “Whoever controls the past controls the future: whoever controls the present controls the past.”
And to Xi, it looks like he’s about to control all three, at least for now.
Xi seeks to further consolidate his status as an imposing leader on the same level as Mao and Deng. He has already managed to establish his own homonymous political theory and have it inscribed in the party’s constitution, a privilege previously reserved only to Mao and Deng.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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