excellent paper ramana sir, recommend sticking it to the first page of this thread
This “victorious Xi” thesis raises one important question: Where did Xi find the political support for his strongman ambitions? It is puzzling that Xi didn’t seem to have enough political strength to centralize power by himself, and yet it was done so early in his tenure and so rapidly, without any signs of intense power struggle or resistance.8 In fact, Xi’s power grab surprised everyone. For all the assessments after the fact that Xi had a dominant faction backing him,9 the fact is that a Xi coalition, if any, was not visible before the 19th Party Congress. As Li Cheng observed, Xi’s own basis of factional strength was weak during his early years.10 Without any revolutionary prestige or military credentials, Xi was once expected to be even weaker than Hu.11 Moreover, the conventional view that Xi consolidated power by promoting his own men, purging rivals in the name of anti-corruption, establishing new governing institutions, or playing one faction against another12 only further raises the question of how he was capable of doing so, no matter how weak the resistance was.
If Xi was initially given collective support to fix problems that had arisen under collective leadership, and the ruling oligarchs were themselves part of the problem, how or why would they be willing to work against their own interests? If Xi’s strongman rule was truly consensus-based, why the bewildering policy contradictions during his early years in power? Finally, why did Xi’s personalization of power have to go hand in hand with a conservative approach to governance?
This article puts forward a new hypothesis to answer these questions, one that is based on the idea that there has been a “line struggle” (路线斗争) — a competition for supremacy between political actors who claim that they alone follow the correct party line — between China’s “conservatives” and its “reformers.”1 The two-line struggle examined in this article (2002–2017) is best viewed as a continuation of the left-right contestation in Chinese politics that started in the 1980s. This struggle did not end with Deng Xiaoping’s departure from China’s political stage in the late 1990s. It continued throughout Jiang Zemin’s reign and entered into a new phase under Hu Jintao — the latter fact has so far eluded most China watchers.
in this case, reformers=liberal in the classical sense, conservationist=leftist, this is not a new schism, that there was the existence of the CYL and the Shanghai clique is not fantastical
Xi took office in 2012 when China’s reformist (rightist) and conservative (leftist) forces were competing for political domination as well as fighting over which developmental model China should adopt. The reformist coalition had just regained the upper hand during the 18th Party Congress after years of rising conservatism that had gained momentum under Hu’s 10 years of leadership. Progressive programs were introduced during Xi’s early years in power (2013–2014), but the reformist comeback turned out to be ephemeral. The conservatives’ final victory over the reformers occurred around 2015.
In particular, I argue that Hu’s Scientific Outlook on Development (科学发展观) was more than a mere change in policy — it was a conservative political weapon for overriding Jiang’s Three Represents (三个代表). The Harmonious Society concept (和谐社会), usually seen as a second major party line proposed by Hu, was actually a reformist initiative to repackage Jiang’s theory in response to leftist critiques. The 17th Party Congress report witnessed an unmistakable leftist takeover: Jiang’s Three Represents were demoted, and the “Theoretical System” of socialism with Chinese characteristics (中国特色社会主义理论体系) became Hu’s de facto guiding ideology. The conservative force had become increasingly aggressive during Hu’s second term (2008–2012), but Jiang reemerged and made a call for reform in mid-2012. The reformist comeback did manage to put in place a progressive agenda at the 18th Party Congress and the 3rd and 4th Plenums. The Chinese Dream (中国梦), introduced in late 2012, was initially launched as a reformist project in order to neutralize leftist conservatism by promoting a sense of patriotic developmentalism. However, the effort failed. The reformers were finally subdued by the victorious conservative camp that stood behind a strongman: Xi, who gained his core leader status in 2016.
China’s fateful change of course is conventionally believed to have its roots in Xi himself, but the reality may well be that the source is a “collective Xi,” i.e., the conservative coalition that empowered Xi. China’s domestic humanitarian crises and belligerent diplomacy will probably continue beyond Xi’s time. Insofar as conservatism is based in ideology, China’s all-around return to leftism is not so much about Xi’s personal ambition as it is about collective faith in the correctness of Maoism. Insofar as conservatism is driven by a fear of losing power that haunts the party’s ruling aristocrats, the demise of reformism under Xi invites us to seriously reassess some common-sense views in a counterintuitive way. It seems increasingly unconvincing to assume that Chinese rulers still regard performance-based legitimacy as necessary for regime survival. As opposed to the prevailing pessimism regarding the probability of peaceful and orderly transfers of power under authoritarianism, China’s next political succession will probably go smoothly, provided that the ruling cabal stays unified based on a shared dynastic belief in their right to rule China as the Red Descendants. In addition, policymakers who hope to grasp the rationale behind China’s foreign policy may want to consider to what extent China’s international aggressiveness is actually staged drama for domestic consumption.
maybe some red descendants, not most or all, there are many who have slipped / forced into oblivion in the recent past, as there is no apparent overt logic to the culling, picking the ruling elite from the corpus of the red descendants might prove a more onerous task.
For all the possible factional horse-trading, the final pick of Xi was acceptable to all sides. It was essentially a top-down decision in line with past practices. It was allegedly an institutionalized procedure. Indeed, there is strong evidence suggesting this continuity: The way in which Xi was groomed as heir seemed to have been directly modeled on the pathway that prepared Hu to succeed Jiang.
In particular, the centrifugal force of the party’s collective, or oligarchic, rule, unrestrained by Hu, produced a set of interconnected problems: fragmentation of authority, stagnation in policymaking, widespread corruption among party officials, and worsening socio-economic inequality. Therefore, centralized power was a necessary tool to break the deadlock and save the reform of China from being hijacked by powerful interest groups.14
The collective support thesis does help to locate the source of Xi’s power, but it leads to a new series of questions: Why would the party oligarchs fight themselves for the regime’s well-being as a whole?15 If collective leadership itself was the problem, what made these top oligarchs willingly sacrifice their own power? The goal was supposedly to remove the vested interests that were standing in the way of China’s reform. Presumably, the party’s ruling oligarchs were connected to these interest groups,16 so what made them willingly forsake their own interests? If all the top leaders were able to work together and sacrifice their own parochial profits for the public interest, then any additional king-making efforts — establishing a strongman to serve as arbiter — would have been redundant.17 If the sacrifice necessary to save the regime was meant to be selective, who decided who would be the priests and who would be the burnt offerings placed on the altar?
For these reasons, existing analyses yield mixed, sometimes conflicting, results. There are many controversial cases of scholars identifying certain party leaders as belonging to a particular faction. For instance, can we really count Wen Jiabao, Li Yuanchao, Liu Yunshan, and Wang Yang as Hu’s men? Did Zeng Qinghong and Wang Huning shift their loyalty from Jiang to Hu? Did Zhou Yongkang and Li Changchun belong to Jiang’s faction? Is it really possible for Wu Guanzheng and Yu Zhengsheng to stay neutral and have no factional affiliations? Most importantly, which faction did Xi belong to before he assumed the top office?
After all, it is convenient to attribute all policy changes to Xi’s personal beliefs and choices. It is also convenient to use the factionalism approach to explain how Xi defeated his rivals. This is usually done by coding Chinese leaders’ bios and resumes, and proposing hypothetical factional configurations that support the theory that Xi won because he was more politically connected than his rivals. For such a network-based approach, policy issues are anything but analytically relevant. Veteran China analyst Alice L. Miller has lamented that the ongoing factional analyses of elite politics has produced little insight into China’s policymaking.
I focus on six major “battles” of this “war” between left and right that spanned Hu’s two terms and lasted into Xi’s early years.
The debate on “human-centeredness” and the struggle over the political status of the Scientific Development concept;
The struggle over the meaning of the Harmonious Society concept;
The struggle over the political discourses of the 17th Party Congress report;
A conservative shift in the discourse on the “Soviet lessons”;
Jiang’s rallying call before the 18th Party Congress; and
Competing framings of the Chinese Dream during Xi’s early years.
Articles were also analyzed from the Red Flag Manuscript (RFM 红旗文稿), which was sponsored and managed by Qiushi.91 Previously called Internal Manuscript (内部文稿), the Red Flag Manuscript obtained its new name in 2003. The new name naturally evoked the Red Flag (Hongqi 红旗), the top party journal under Mao which later became today’s Qiushi. In 2009, the Red Flag Manuscript went through a “total remodeling” (全面改版).92 Since then, it has become the flagship mouthpiece for conservative voices in China. Some Red Flag Manuscript articles directly influenced the formulation of major party lines and policies under Xi. For instance, Xi’s “cultural confidence” (文化自信) was originally proposed and elaborated in three Red Flag Manuscript articles in 2010.93 Foreshadowing what Xi would be doing down the road, another Red Flag Manuscript article made a belligerent call for “the People’s Democratic Dictatorship” (人民民主专政) in 2014 as a conservative response to the reformist agenda on the rule of law put forward at the 4th Plenum of the 18th Chinese Communist Party Central Committee.94
Episode 1: Scientific Development
The “Scientific Outlook on Development” is conventionally regarded as Hu’s signature party ideology. It was commonly regarded as a leftist critique that the market-oriented approach to development had caused worsening socio-economic inequality. However, the actual ideological battle that was being fought was far more intense than is known: It centered on how to define the phrase “human-centeredness” (以人为本),106 officially dubbed the “core” of the Scientific Development.107
There was a conscious effort from above to stop this dispute. A reform-minded party theoretician, Xing Bensi (邢贲思), asked both sides to refrain from playing word games and reading too much into the differences between “human” and “people.”122 Then came an authoritative response from the Propaganda Department,123 which formulated a new definition of “human-centeredness.”124 This definition tempered both the leftist and reformist views and reduced the term to an abstract slogan of “serving the people.” It was a compromise that would soon break down. The disagreement over human-centeredness made a comeback immediately after the 17th Party Congress.125
To understand this dispute over human-centeredness it’s important to understand the broader purpose of the Scientific Development: It was a leftist attempt to subvert Jiang’s reformist party line. Given that Jiang’s Three Represents had recently been consecrated as the party’s new guiding ideology, it was highly unusual for Hu to rush to put forward his own ideology. Leftist aggression was evident. But the conservative faction never seemed to have full control in defining the concept. For instance, there was a failed attempt to make the Scientific Development immediately sacrosanct. A symbolic statement claimed that, with the Scientific Development, “the fundamental theoretical question of ‘what is socialism, and how to build socialism’ has been deepened and become one of ‘what is socialist market economy, and how to develop socialism under socialist market economy’” (什么是社会主义市场经济, 怎么在市场经济条件下搞社会主义).126
In short, the Scientific Development concept was not just a simple policy readjustment, which is conventionally attributable to Hu’s personal policy preference to prioritize social equity and redistribution over GDP growth. It was put forward as a political weapon. Indeed, signs of this left-right tension and the conservative challenge to the political status quo were visible during Hu’s early days in power. The most widely known sign was Hu’s re-interpretation of Jiang’s theory in a speech,130 in which the priority of the Three Represents was unambiguously shifted to the last “represent,” i.e., the people, or “the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people of China.”131 Jiang’s original framing was meant to highlight the other two “represents” — that the party should represent “the development trends of advanced productive forces” and “the orientations of an advanced culture.”
Episode 2: Harmonious Society
The “Harmonious Society” (和谐社会) is conventionally regarded as Hu’s second major ideological contribution. It was a positive vision for China, which at that time was plagued by negative socio-economic conditions, like inequality and social instability. It was commonly believed to be a follow up to the Scientific Development and to be going against the reformist approach to development: the so-called “elitist” pursuit of GDP growth through market-oriented reform at the cost of the welfare of those who were economically lagging behind. This section offers a revisionist view: The Harmonious Society was, in fact, initially a reformist response to conservative challenges. Jiang’s Three Represents was repackaged with a new face of social harmony. The goal was to assure conservatives that further economic and political development in a reformist direction would not be fundamentally antithetical to the socialist ideal of social equity, and that the leftist concern over the negative impact of the market economy had been duly noted by the reformers At the same time, the Harmonious Society was also meant to be a stern warning to the leftists that the class struggle mindset be abandoned. But this “harmonious” repackaging of Jiang’s reformist blueprint met with strong resistance and was thwarted. The left-right battle centered on the political “positioning” of this newly proposed party line: Was it to be an ideological vision or merely a technical agenda for improving China’s governance at a time of growing socioeconomic tension?
By emphasizing the “harmonious” nature of the ideal Marxist society, the reformist goal was to steer away from the revolutionary conception of socialism that highlights class struggle.
The conservative rejoinders from left-leaning theoreticians were what one would expect: getting the “ism” right — i.e., socialism — should be the prerequisite of everything.162 Among the top party leadership, it was Hu who seemed to be leading the leftist efforts to sabotage the reformist plan. Speaking at a preparation meeting before the 6th Plenum, Hu raised a question about the “positioning” (定位) of the Harmonious Society. According to Hu, “society/social” (社会) can refer to multiple things: “social systems, or social institutions” (社会形态/社会制度), social development (社会建设), or “the social sector and social management” (社会事业/社会管理).163 At that meeting, Hu decided that the Harmonious Society was not synonymous with socialism. Instead, the former should be based on and qualified by the latter — social harmony is an “essential attribute” (本质属性) of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.164 This downgraded status was further confirmed as Hu also remarked that social harmony is a “natural part” (应有之义) of scientific socialism.165 With the Harmonious Society purged of reformist ambition, Hu moved on to elaborate that the “Big Society” (大社会) was the goal — i.e., social development — and the “Small Society” (小社会) was the technical method that would be used — i.e., social governance.166
Episode 3: The 17th Party Congress
The conventional wisdom is that Hu’s second term was quiet, that no more new party lines came out. With the Harmonious Society sidelined at the 17th Party Congress at the end of his first term, Hu seemed to have settled on the Scientific Development, choosing the latter over the former as his unique contribution to Chinese socialism. However, I argue that Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (中国特色社会主义) was a de facto, unannounced new-generation party line put forward at the 17th Party Congress. Whereas in the past this familiar term was associated with China’s departure from orthodox socialism, this time it was being used as a conservative initiative to preserve socialism.
The core reformist message was the “Four Unswervinglys” (四个坚定不移), the top two of which called for continuing Mind Emancipation (解放思想) and Reform and Opening-up (改革开放).170 Unsurprisingly, the argument that the Harmonious Society embodied the ideal Marxist community reemerged.171 Moreover, there was a reformist effort to override Hu’s previous downgrading of the Harmonious Society — instead of an “essential attribute” of socialism, it should be regarded as a new development of socialism.172 Unfortunately, this reassertion of the reformist agenda was shot down. The “Four Unswervinglys” soon disappeared from public sight and were not mentioned in the 17th Party Congress report.
Nevertheless, the reformers still managed to include language in the 17th Party Congress report that underlined the importance of sticking to the reformist path. For instance, the Dengist reform was described as “one magic weapon” (一大法宝), “a powerful force” (强大动力), a “decisive choice” (关键抉择), and “a path through which China must go” (必由之路).
A third major sign that leftists dominated the 17th Party Congress was the demotion of Jiang’s Three Represents. It was like an ideological coup d’état that deprived Jiang’s theory of its independent status. Together with Deng Xiaoping Theory and Hu’s Scientific Development, Jiang’s signature theory was now subsumed under an umbrella concept, the “the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.”
While the 17th Party Congress report didn’t address the “leap” status of the Three Represents, the official decision was announced elsewhere. According to Xi, the umbrella term, i.e., the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, which included Deng’s, Jiang’s, and Hu’s party lines, collectively marked the “second historic leap.”188 In short, there would be no “third leap,” at least for the time being. It would later be Xi Jinping Thought that would claim that title. As for Jiang’s Three Represents, it was now depicted as having played a crucial transitional role (承上启下) for moving from Deng Xiaoping Theory to the “Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” put forward under Hu.189
To summarize, the 17th Party Congress was the scene of a forceful comeback of leftism, although the reformers still held their ground. The congress resulted in some compromises being made, but other things were left ambiguous. Scientific Development became the public face of Hu, rather than Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. However, the latter theory remained open to reformist interpretation. The same ambiguity was evident elsewhere. Take, for example, Hu’s statement that “[we shall] never walk an old, rigid path of isolation, nor take the wrong turn to change the nature or abandon the system [of socialism],”190 or his talk of bu zhe teng (不折腾) or “avoiding self-inflicted setbacks.”191 The conventional view is that Hu tried not to take a side. But Hu’s ambiguity might well have been a reflection of an ongoing and unsettled tug-of-war between Chinese reformers and conservatives fighting over the party’s political agenda.
Episode 4: The Soviet Lessons
A review of selected articles from Red Flag Manuscript shows that in 2009 there was a clear conservative shift in the discourse on the lessons China should learn from the Soviet Union. During the early years of the Dengist reform, the Soviet lessons emphasized the importance of overcoming ideological dogmatism and restructuring the socialist system. After the 2009 conservative turn, ideological erosion was identified as the root cause of the Soviet collapse.
The failure-to-reform criticism echoed the Dengist repudiation of the Maoist past. Rather than a lesson learned from a collapsed Soviet Union, it sounded more like self-justification of China’s own reform choices with the socialist “Big Brother” serving as a foil. The main argument here is that the root cause of the Soviet collapse was an ossified understanding and application of Marxism.194 Dogmatism resulted in misjudgment, triggering a cascade of problems in all areas, such as political arrangements and socioeconomic policies.195 Dogmatism also gave rise to a crisis of faith in Marxism and socialism,196 which in turn stoked radicalism among political insiders who had become disillusioned and believed that the only way out was abandoning the socialist path altogether.197 The Soviet Union’s failure was due to developing socialism in a dogmatic way, but had nothing to do with socialism itself.
Episode 5: Toward the 18th Party Congress
For all the leftist assertiveness that had gained increasing momentum after the 17th Party Congress, it was met with resistance from the reformist camp. This section brings to light an event of extraordinary political significance that has remained unnoticed by China watchers: Jiang made a rallying call for pushing forward the Dengist reform right before the 18th Party Congress.
Leftist assertiveness arguably culminated with Bo Xilai’s Chongqing Model, which featured a revival of Mao-style mass political mobilization. The core of Bo’s political program, however, was “common prosperity” (共同富裕), which was a direct challenge to the Dengist reform that “let some people get rich first.” Ironically, the leftist discourse heavily cited the “late” Deng Xiaoping’s remarks on the inequality problem. Leftist party theoreticians openly discussed common prosperity around 2008, talking about dividing the “cake” fairly (把 “蛋糕” 分好) as opposed to making the “cake” bigger (把 “蛋糕” 做大).232 This cake metaphor foreshadowed the high-profile open dispute in 2011 between Bo and Wang Yang, arguably a left-right proxy war fought at the local level. To be sure, common prosperity appeared in many top-level party documents as rhetorical window dressing — it had always been framed as an ultimate goal that would only be realized when China finally reached the final stage of socialist development — communism — in the unforeseeable future. But now it was put on the agenda as a substantive project and a “very urgent” task to be worked on.233
The most unambiguous sign of reformist resistance was Jiang’s reappearance in public after his retirement. A few months before the 18th Party Congress, on July 9, 2012, Jiang organized a symposium in the name of commemorating the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the “socialist market economy” in China. The event and related talks were documented in a book published in December 2012 by an authoritative party-affiliated press.234 The book attributed the origin of the market economy in China to a series of seminars that Jiang personally organized and chaired between October and December 1991. As the book claimed, it was these seminars that “contributed to the formation of the preferred formulation (倾向性提法) ‘socialist market economy’ and thus laid the theoretical foundation for the 14th Party Congress.” This highlighted Jiang as being the political symbol of reform.
Episode 6: The Chinese Dream
I argue instead that the Chinese Dream was initially launched as a reformist project that was intended to replace leftist conservatism with nationalism. The goal was to provide a non-ideological and de-politicized source of motivation for concentrating efforts on development. In response, the conservatives resisted by stressing that the party’s unquestionable political legitimacy based on historical success and the ideological supremacy of Marxism were defining elements of the Chinese Dream. The “correct” understanding of the Chinese Dream was a major ideological battlefield of the left-right struggle during Xi’s early years.
The core logic of the reformist view of the Chinese Dream is threefold. First, China’s “hundred years of national humiliation” taught that development should always be a priority (as opposed to socialist egalitarianism). Second, the party was just a means to an end — the well-being of the Chinese nation. Third, the interests and rights of each individual Chinese person matter, as opposed to the national interest in a collective sense.
Moreover, “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” as the “correct path” was de-politicized in the sense that the concept was mentioned without referring to Marxism or anti-capitalism. Rather, it was simply the most recent episode of the Chinese nation’s 5000-plus year history and continuous progress.244 In addition, every individual’s “ambition,” “pursuit,” and “dream” matter.245 Xi’s statement that “one can do well only when one’s country and nation do well” was not so much about putting collectivism first as it was about stressing the importance of solidarity-based determination. As Xi further noted, “Only if everyone strives for a better tomorrow can our efforts be aggregated into a powerful force to realize the Chinese Dream.”246 Symbolically significant was the resurfacing of advocacy for social de-classification and political inclusion associated with Jiang’s Three Represents. “All the people working in the non-public sector of the economy and from new social strata” should contribute to the rejuvenation cause.247 “Work, knowledge, talent and creation” must be respected (that is, the “Four Respects”).248
In short, there is a strong division between reformers and conservatives on what is the “correct” way to understand the Chinese Dream. This stark difference is best illustrated by listening to the most straightforward voices from both the left and right. For instance, in a Xinhua article, the reformist view showed us a Chinese Dream with a liberal heart.270 It was not about restoring the “Empire of Heaven.” It was something that the party had inherited and would pass down. The Chinese Dream for reformists embraced universal values and would enrich them. In contrast, conservative view as expressed through a military-affiliated party mouthpiece presented a Chinese Dream of ideological antagonism — a class struggle that creates an us-versus-them mentality.271 It was “a faith in the truth of scientific socialism, and the fact that socialism is better than capitalism.” Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is “socialism rather than other isms” — a message that Xi himself highlighted in his formal speeches and one that leftist intellectuals often repeated.
According to Li, the China Model was dangerous because it “tends to lure people into self-complacency and being recklessly optimistic” and, more importantly, it carries the risk of “derailing reform” in the name of “reforming” reform, or leading Dengist reform back onto a conservative track.274
Next, Li reiterated the three core elements of the reformist Chinese Dream. First, the Chinese Dream, based on China’s historical victimization, was meant to “rally and mobilize the people by a common aspiration,”275 an aspiration for further reform and modernization. Second, the Chinese Communist Party was but a servant to the Chinese nation. The Chinese Dream “was proposed by the Chinese communists.” However, it was not created to serve the party’s self-interests. Rather, it is about “the Party assuming its responsibility for the country, the nation and the people.”276 Third, commenting on Xi’s claim that “The Chinese dream, after all, is the dream of the people,”277 Li underscored that “the ‘people’ mentioned here, refer to not only the ‘people’ as a collective body, but also the ‘people’ in their individual form.” Echoing Zhou and referring to Xi’s “May Fourth” speech in 2013, Li pointed out that it was “not only a dream about national prosperity, but also a dream that connects all the individual dreams about residence, career, social welfare and good living environment.”278
Finally, the most politically significant message in Li’s book was his rebuttal to the “two thirty-years” (两个三十年) thesis that Xi would later subscribe to.279 This concept was crafted by conservative theoreticians to subvert the Dengist foundation of Chinese reform and instead spread the idea that Mao was, in fact, the origin of reform in China. Li made it clear that Socialism with Chinese Characteristics was Deng’s creation — it had nothing to do with Mao.280
Between late 2002 and early 2008, political tension was clearly on the rise. The two years following Hu’s succession to Jiang were relatively quiet, probably because Jiang still held the position of China’s top military commander, even though he was no longer the party’s general secretary. The 4th Plenum of the 16th Central Committee held in fall 2004 marked a turning point after which political tension considerably increased. Unsurprisingly, this was when Jiang finally let go of his control over the military and went into retirement in a more real sense. The several months surrounding the 17th Party Congress, convened in late 2007, saw further intensification in political tension that had been simmering at a medium-high level.
Political tension jumped to a very high level in early 2009 and remained there until late 2014, when the party held its 4th Plenum of the 18th Central Committee. This time of extremely high political tension overshadowed almost all of Hu’s second term (2009–2012) and lasted into Xi’s early years. If we follow this picture to periodize Chinese politics, Xi’s formal accession to power in late 2012 did not mark the beginning of his era. It does not appear to have been a significant moment in Chinese politics. There was fierce political infighting before he took power and it simply continued regardless of Xi emerging as the new boss.
However, political tension in the post-2015 period did not fall back to pre-2009 levels. It was conspicuously higher than in late 2007. One possible reason is that, although the reformers were defeated, they had not totally lost their strength. This meant that the leftists had to keep fighting a bit longer before they could be completely rid of the reformist influence. In fact, there was an uptick in political tension around the 19th Party Congress held in late 2017, suggesting that the reformers tried to fight back on that important occasion. But the reformist effort, if there was any, was spent in vain. Xi further consolidated his power. Political tension remained at a medium-high level throughout 2018 and 2019, suggesting that some internal crackdown was going on. The tension finally went back to a low level when the world as a whole became overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
During Hu’s second term, leftism’s rise culminated with Bo’s revival of Maoism in Chongqing. Unsurprisingly, this conservative momentum met strong resistance from the reformist camp. This left-right battle lasted into the early years of the Xi era (2012–2015). The turning point came around 2015, as is shown in my analysis above of the thematic landscape of the Red Flag Manuscript. The “New Era” (2016 – ?) officially began with Xi crowned as the “core” leader of the party. The shutdown of the reformist flagship journal Yan Huang Chun Qiu in 2016 was a public sign that announced the end of China’s reform era.
Xi’s initial political straddling and other mixed signals reflected the ongoing two-line struggle that remained unsettled during his early years. One well-known example is Xi’s 2013 visit to Shenzhen, a place carrying strong political symbolism of the Dengist reform. And yet, while there, he called for strengthening socialist piety and political loyalty. The reformers seemed to still have the political upper hand in Xi’s early days. But intensified repression on the ground starkly contrasted with the progressive agenda laid down on paper at the 18th Party Congress and following party plenums. The conservative force was strong at the time, and the tide turned against the reformists in 2015.290
