China’s President Xi Jinping is one of the leads in my book, Leadership from Bad to Worse. “Bad” and “worse” are though in the eye of the beholder. They mean different things to different people. Xi, for example, has been in many ways a good leader, in many ways remarkably effective. Above all he has continued, even accelerated the transformation of China from global backwater to global powerhouse. But from the perspective of a democrat, he has been a bad leader. Specifically, over the decade plus that Xi has been president, he has become increasingly oppressive and repressive both inside mainland China and now, crucially, additionally, Hong Kong. As well, he has become increasingly assertive outside China, not least repeatedly reaffirming his close and enduring ties to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
Xi is an autocrat, a strong man, maybe even, depending on the definition, a tyrant or a dictator. He has refashioned the Chinese Communist Party in his own image. He has purged his perceived political enemies and suppressed domestic dissent. In keeping with communist orthodoxy, he has aggressively reinserted the state into the economy. He has clamped down on the professional military. And in keeping with tyrannical tradition, he has encouraged a cult of personality. For example, beginning in primary school and through university students are taught “Xi Jinping Thought.”
Xi is 72 years old and he seems to like his job. This means that barring the unforeseen he will remain president at least until 2032, when his next term is over. But the man is no fool. Xi knows that barring the unforeseen is impossible – which is why he continues to do what he has done throughout his tenure. Which is to purge his enemies real and imagined. Leaders like Xi believe that only continuous purges can preclude other leaders, and other power centers, from challenging their dominance.
It’s hard to describe how dysfunctional this is especially when, as is often the case, real or imagined enemies are in the highest ranks of the military. And when sustaining and conveying military might is one of your top priorities not just abroad but at home.
China will present the United States with formidable competitive challenges for decades to come. Top of the list is militarily. But when Xi eliminates his high command, he eliminates his most experienced and expert military leaders. Western observers were stunned last month to see Xi purge China’s top general, General Zhang Youxia. It was as described by the New York Times, “the most stunning escalation yet” in Xi’s purge of the military elite. It was nothing less than “total annihilation of the high command.”
Even paranoids have real enemies. Which is to say two things at the same time. Leaders who are dictators are usually paranoid. And leaders who are dictators usually have real enemies. President Xi seems to have concluded that China’s top military ranks are or at least they might be riddled with his political opponents. And that, though the short-term costs would surely be high, he had no long-term choice but to dispose of those who conceivably could challenge his authority. General Youxia was charged with “grave violations of discipline and the law.” But no one in the West believed that purging Youxia was about graft. Everyone in the West believed that it was about eliminating possible presidential competition.
China’s leadership culture is the antithesis of America’s leadership culture. The United States is less than three hundred years old, and it has a political culture that is anti-authority. China is more than three thousand years old, and it has a political culture that is pro-authority. A political culture that is strictly hierarchical and in which those in the middle and at the bottom are expected without question to defer to those at the top.
Similarly, in situations in which American followers might opt to resist, Chinese followers would be highly unlikely to do the same. No matter what they think or feel, Chinese followers are far, far more likely to fall into line than American followers. And the Chinese people are far, far less likely than the American people to protest in the street or for that matter anywhere else. Since its inception the United States has been riddled with resisters. China has never in its exceedingly long history, been the same. Which leaves Xi largely free to purge his putative opponents as he deems necessary and desirable.