MikeLigalig.com

HARI SREENIVASAN: But Xi has also raised hackles with his crackdown on dissent. Last month, he visited state media organizations, warning that absolute loyalty to the party is their highest priority. That drew criticism from real estate magnate Ren Zhiqiang, among others, and his social media accounts were suspended.

This month, a government-run Web site posted a letter calling for Xi’s resignation. It was signed “Loyal Communist Party Members.”

Soon after, a number of people, including well-known columnist Jia Jia, went missing, apparently as part of an investigation into the letter’s origin. Protesters in Hong Kong demanded to know his whereabouts.

LEUNG KWOK-HUNG, Hong Kong Lawmaker: I think Xi Jinping stressed that China should be and will be ruled by law. But what happened in China after he is in power, he threatened, he arrests, and kidnapped all kinds of activists from different part of civic society. Journalists, lawyer, social worker are all in — on his target.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Columnist Jia has since been released.

We explore the internal divisions within China with Christopher Johnson. He had a two-decade career at the CIA, where he focused on China. He’s now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And Andrew Nathan is a professor at Columbia University. He’s the author and editor of many books, including “The Tiananmen Papers.”

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=82129.0

HARI SREENIVASAN: Andrew Nathan, does it matter if the letter was written — it was a homegrown letter vs. one that was sent from outside activists?

ANDREW NATHAN: Well, there are a number of different documents, but certainly it does matter.

If they’re just outside activists hacking these things onto Web sites inside China, then it’s a very clever operation, but it doesn’t signal a split in the leadership. What’s very dangerous, though, for the leadership is if there is a split and it comes out into the open. That then sends a signal to lots of people in China who are dissatisfied.

There are many people unhappy because the economy is slowing down and because people are losing jobs. Xi Jinping is attacking the state-owned enterprises to try to force them to be more efficient. He wants to reorganize the military. He has this big anti-corruption campaign.

So, we know there are a lot of people who are dissatisfied, but they’re afraid to do anything. But if they see a split in the leadership, which is what people saw back in 1989, when they view that split in the leadership, there is a real risk of social disorder in China.

So, it does matter a great deal whether these documents reflect a real split in the top leadership. I’m not talking about just ordinary party members.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Christopher Johnson, what about the idea that the centralizing of power that the president has been engaged in over the past several months is something of concern to people who have had that power taken away from them?

Is there increased pressure on him to give some of that power back?

CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON: Absolutely.

I mean, what we see with President Xi is a rapid centralization of power. He claims — or, you know, the body language is that he’s doing so because there are very difficult changes, and what happened during his predecessor’s tenure is that the government, the senior leadership, was overly consensus-oriented, and what that meant was that they couldn’t get anything done.

And these problems of the state-owned enterprises, of debt, of environmental degradation just piled up and piled up. Xi Jinping’s solution has been to centralize this power. But the real question is, is the centralization of the power a means to an end, an end we may all be able to live with in terms of some of these economic reforms they’re talking about, or an end in and of itself, and that he is indeed a power-mad megalomaniac like Mao Zedong, which I strongly doubt.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=82129.0