Opinion | What is China's Party Congress all about
By Tom Fowdy
China's 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is currently underway in Beijing. The biggest political event in the country, the congress is held every five years and is instrumental in the selection of China's leadership, its key appointments and positions, as well as the country's future policy direction, which means it is closely watched internationally. During this congress, it is expected that Xi Jinping will be given a third term as leader of the Party.
Not surprisingly, the meeting is being clouded by deliberately negative coverage from the west. They seek to frame China's leadership as arbitrary, oppressive and inflexible, playing up dissent and criticism against it wherever possible. But these cliches don't tell us much about China or its governance. The party is wholistic, rather than simply the dictated will of one man, and ultimately its emphasis is placed on delivering real results for the Chinese people. This party congress comes of course, comes in the unique environment of elevating tensions with the United States.
Whilst western democracies have routine elections every few years, China's National Party Congress is how the "Party-State System" equally sustains its own accountability to the public. The CPC is not a simple cabal of sinister men controlling everything in a room, but is a gigantic organization with a membership the size of the population of Vietnam. Its members permeate every single layer of society from humble rural cadres in the countryside, to ethnic minority groups such as the Uyghurs and the Tibetans, to the big city leaders in Shanghai, Beijing and Chongqing.
In undertaking the Congress, the entire party holds itself to account and attains a consensus regarding its policy agenda, its organization and to set respective goals. For example, during the 12th Party Congress of China, the first held under the tenure of Deng Xiaoping in 1981, the agenda was set "to quadruple the annual industrial and agricultural output value of the country, i.e. from 710 billion yuan in 1980 to about 2,800 billion yuan in the year of 2000, so that people can enjoy a better standard of living. The congress also adopted the new Party Constitution."
This principle of setting out party unity, known as "Democratic Centralism" in Marxist-Leninist Theory, ensures the governing party then works as a whole toward achieving the respective goals. This makes the Party-State system very different from the western liberal-democratic one, whereby policy agendas may change constantly and unpredictably due to elections, an adversarial mode of politics, and of course catering to direct public pressure. This allows the Communist Party of China to set a long-term direction in what it wants to do, to rectify its own mistakes and in turn to ensure national stability and certainty in its set agenda.
Concerning China's economic development, this system has not surprisingly proved highly advantageous. Namely, because the party is able to coordinate focus on any area it wishes to improve, has respective command of all core economic institutions, and does not unlike western countries, simply put blind faith in the free market system. In doing so, China under Xi Jinping endeavors to create a "moderately prosperous society" and continue to elevate the standard of living. It can do so through coordinated investment in infrastructure, welfare, education and continuing to develop China's markets, foreign trade and investment. Despite global turmoil and disruption, including the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, China's growth trajectory above all has continued and the country has avoided the pitfall of inflation many western countries fell into.
Given this, it is important for western observers to follow the congress more carefully as opposed to merely reading western media cliches. This is the primary event in Chinese politics. It is about consensus, cool-headed debate, vision and calibrated organization, and not the chaotic and theatrical show of western democracy which not only makes false promises and is based on hyperbole, but is becoming subject to widespread public disillusionment. China wants to be a nation with a consistent roadmap and blueprint for its own national rejuvenation, and that is what the congress is all about.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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