Takeaways from China’s historic Communist Party Congress

For those who thought the twice-a-decade Chinese Communist Party (CCP) National Congress was just boring political theatre, the 20th session, which ended on Sunday, packed in enough drama to prove them wrong.To get more news about 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, you can visit shine news official website.

True, the headline news from the congress was predictable: four years after scrapping the two-term presidential term limit, Xi Jinping did indeed secure his historic third term. The new, seven-member Politburo Standing Committee also featured all men, all wearing identical suits and expressions on stage.
In China, the party’s Politburo selects the all-powerful Standing Committee. But the new 24-member Politburo also featured no women. Following the retirement of Sun Chunlan, also known as China’s “Iron Lady”, many experts had predicted that the party’s executive body was likely to be an all-male team. They got that right. For all its stated commitment to gender equality, the 20th congress proved that China’s Communist Party has done little to provide women with the managerial and leadership experience required for a Politburo post.

Who did what to Hu?
But this year’s congress also featured a stunning piece of live drama that saw seasoned China watchers scanning video clips and image stills to figure out exactly what happened, and its likely import.

On Saturday, China’s former top leader, Hu Jintao, was unexpectedly led out of the session while he was seated in a prominent position, at the front table in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, right next to his successor, Xi.

The rare break from a tightly choreographed political show came just as journalists were led into the Great Hall of the People, grabbing instant social media attention. It was by no means a clean exit. The frail, 79-year-old former leader appeared unwilling or unable to leave the stage as news cameras flashed and journalists speculated on Twitter. “Highly unusual, Hu didn’t seem to want to leave,” noted Danson Cheng, Beijing-based correspondent for The Straits Times, in a Twitter thread.
“It doesn’t matter if Hu is really sick,” noted Henry Gao from the Singapore Management University on Twitter. “The most important fact about the episode is that this was allowed to take place in full view of all Party delegates and the international media.”

The official Chinese version of the event was entirely credible. Hu has been in frail health in recent years and has rarely been seen in public since he stepped down from the presidency in 2013.

But the sheer difference in China between the Hu presidency years and the current Xi era lent additional weight to Saturday’s sudden high-profile exit. “No matter what the cause, this scene was humiliating, and the image of Hu Jintao being led out is a perfect symbol of Xi’s absolute decimation of the 'Communist Youth League' faction,” noted Bill Bishop in his China newsletter, Sinocism.
Factionalism – or the balancing of power and positions between competing factions – has been the hallmark of Chinese politics since the Asian giant entered its reform era under Deng Xiaoping.

Hu – who has a background in the Communist Youth League – had a more consultative leadership style during his 2003-2013 rein, which saw relative freedoms in Chinese society as he balanced factions in top leadership posts.

But Hu has fallen from party grace in recent years, with Xi's barbed denunciations of “the cult of money” and “the search for pleasure” that enabled corruption in the party echelons. Xi’s subsequent anti-corruption drives also enabled the Chinese leader to purge rivals from competing factions.

But the biggest takeaway from the congress for most experts was Xi’s decimation of factions. Referring to the Chinese political system, FRANCE 24’s chief foreign editor Rob Parsons explained that, “in the past, to an extent at least, it allowed for a certain amount of collective government. Now it’s full of people who are absolutely loyal to Xi".