Politico.eu reports on the perception that Xi Jinping has gone on an intensified purge-spree amidst rocky economic times in China:
Since his reign began in 2012, Xi Jinping’s endless purges have removed millions of officials — from top-ranked Communist Party “tigers” down to lowly bureaucratic “flies,” to use Xi’s evocative terminology.
What’s different today is that the officials being neutralized are not members of hostile political factions but loyalists from the inner ring of Xi’s own clique, leading to serious questions over the regime’s stability.
“China’s Xi goes full Stalin with Purge”. Politico. December 6, 2023.
Is this good news or bad news? Will the purges strengthen Xi or motivate those in his line of fire to work to bring him down? Will this accelerate Xi’s plot to invade Taiwan?
Politico notes that Xi has stacked the Politburo with “small-town officials” that he worked with, or knew when he was coming up. Monkton thinks that this strengthens Xi’s grip in terms of number of top-level hands, but those hands themselves are surely less able operators than the more senior ones they are replacing. Xi’s policies will have a higher error-rate as the loyalists provide a positive-informational-feedback loop, and their own lack of experience makes it less likely a policy will succeed.
Misreading the smoke signals from the United States with regard to our readiness to defend Taiwan is probably the biggest policy mistake Xi could make.
But, in terms of his political survival, increasing use of heavy-handed tactics and repression in China will make him more enemies as the Chinese economy becomes yet more dysfunctional. The Politico article says that financial executives have been warned against showing off their wealth too much. Every little threat requiring an adjustment in behavior in order to stay safe, reduces the gains from free activity, and sets people’s teeth a bit more against the regime.
And the more members of the Chinese ruling class that are threatened, the more Xi will be in a bunker mentality. He could be very dangerous, indeed. Consider the famous last scene of the movie Downfall:
What damage will Xi be able to do before his sycophants tell him the truth?
