How does the Chinese ruling elite view the world? Over the weekend, I participated in a dialogue between a handful of foreign scholars and journalists and top Chinese officials, academics and business people, organised by the Tsinghua University Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking. The discussion was franker than any I have participated in during the 25 years I have been visiting China. Here are seven propositions our interlocutors made to us.
China needs strong central rule. This idea went with the notion that China is in important ways a divided society: one participant even remarked that 500m Chinese people love Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, while 900m favour the world view of Mao Zedong. Another pointed to the fact that the central government spends only 11 per cent of the total by all levels of government and employs just 4 per cent of all civil servants. Others emphasised that China is a developing country with huge challenges.
The conclusion participants drew was that the Chinese Communist party, with some 90m members, is essential to national unity. Yet corruption and factional infighting has threatened the legitimacy of the party. One senior official even stated that Xi Jinping “has saved the party, the country and the military”. This perspective also justifies the suspension of term limits on the presidency, which, it was stressed, does not mean perpetual one-man rule.