Five Things on China’s Leaders' Minds – April 18-25, 2021

This is a custom briefing that collates and analyses the five articles most quoted by Chinese official leaders and official media among themselves. It acts as a guide to what Beijing is thinking.

This week’s five things saw Xi sending mainly signals on China’s international posture. He spoke at Biden’s climate talks, lectured elites at the Bo’ao Forum (China’s Davos), and sent salutations to Cuban and Russian leaders. Finally, his visit to the elite Tsinghua University gave some early insights as to how he’s seeing his relations with intellectuals and ideas more broadly.

There’s a saying in Silicon Valley that you “ship your org chart”; in other words, the end product reveals how many people worked on it from where. The prominence and requoting of Xi’s greetings to Cuba’s new leader, in spite of it having no relevance to China whatsoever, shows how foreign relations will always have a bias in it towards reporting of other communist countries.

What is far more significant is Xi’s call with Putin basing Russian and Chinese cooperation on COVID collaboration. Xi hedged his bets initially with COVID (he let Premier Li Keqiang take the lead from February to August, coming in when the icing had settled on the cake). The fact now that he sees it as a way to join with traditional frenemy with benefits Russia, and the two nation’s interests could join to overcome many years of mutual dislike bears careful examination.

1. Xi’s red line at Biden’s green summit

Apr 23, 2021

习近平出席领导人气候峰会并发表重要讲话

Xi Jinping attends high-level climate summit and delivers an important speech

Quotes: 13

Invited by President Biden, President Xi Jinping attended the leaders' climate summit in Beijing on the evening of 22, and delivered an important speech entitled "jointly building the community of human and natural life". Xi Jinping pointed out that climate change poses severe challenges to human survival and development. Leaders attending the meeting said that climate change is a severe challenge faced by the international community and needs global joint efforts to deal with it.

The focus in external analyses of Xi’s speech was on China’s targets and whether or not Xi would confirm or deny China’s green goals. But Xi’s speeches almost never contain targets. That’s not the point. Rather, the goal is to tell all the codifiers of the Chinese system what they are meant to develop as their targets and outline also how they propose to get China there.

2. Xi uses elite powwow to push back on US power

Apr 16, 2021

世界要公道 不要霸道

The world wants a fair path, not a hegemonic path

Quotes: 11

This week was the 2021 annual meeting of the Bo’ao forum for Asia, set up a few years ago to give Asia a Davos style event. Xi’s keynote speech delivered by video outlined how his desire to "share the times, making the best of the times, and build the future together". Xi outlined how he saw Bo’ao forum as playing “an important role in promoting the development of Asia and the world”. Perhaps his biggest line was that “the world should be fair, not based on the hegemonic rule of one nation”. The People’s Daily agreed so much that they made this the tagline of the summary of Xi’s remarks.

Xi has never shied from throwing stones in the West’s direction. Even before becoming China’s leader he was criticising “those with fat bellies” who lectured China, a not so subtle reference to the West. That said: there is constant consternation at Xi’s tone, none of which alters the message. Xi sees his audience as being domestic and also international countries which have not yet made up their mind on what to do about China’s rise.

3. Xi goes back to school

近平在清华大学考察时强调坚持中国特色世界一流大学建设目标方向为服务国家富强民族复兴人民幸福贡献力量

During his visit to Tsinghua University Xi Jinping reinforced the goal of making it a first-rate world university in order to make a stronger contribution to strengthening China and the rejuvenation of the Chinese people

Quotes: 10

Xi Jinping, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, extended holiday greetings to all faculty and staff members of Tsinghua University and and sent sincere greetings to the vast number of young students throughout the country. China's higher education should be based on the great rejuvenation strategy of the Chinese nation, make the most of the great changes unseen in a century, be aware of the "big country", grasp the general trend, dare to take responsibility, be good at acting, and contribute to the prosperity of the country, the rejuvenation of the nation, and the happiness of the people.

Xi also called for focusing on educating the builders and successes socialism. The focus of education in this output is a traditional socialist construction where by the goal is less individual cultivation of talents and the pursuit of freedom and knowledge and more the ability to work towards define goals from above. Xi also issued new internal rules drafted to update how everybody within a University should behave.

A part of this is clearly a long way from our conception of politics. But another part is very legible and understandable to us. This is the idea that when one goes to visit an area, one must have a “deliverable”, something that can be that contributes to a predefined goal being reached.

4. Telegrams to Havana

习近平致电祝贺迪亚斯—卡内尔当选古共中央第一书记

Xi Jinping congratulates Diaz-Canel on his election as General Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party

2021-04-21

Score: 9

Xi Jinping telephoned Miguel Diaz-Canel to congratulate him on his elevation to become leader of Cuba. "I am glad to hear that you were elected the first Secretary of the Communist Party of China … On behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, I would like to express my warm congratulations to you and to you on the new central leadership of the Cuban Communist Party in my personal name.”

There are two things of note here. First, the slightly awkward phrasing of “convey in my personal name”: this is actually an upgrading of sincerity in terms of what Xi sends. If China’s leader is entrusted by a committee to deliver something in their personal name, that is a higher level of diplomatic communique.

This gets to the second point: how is this the fourth-strongest signal in official media this week? Because communist party foreign relations are always easier from a protocol perspective, and this signal was clear and legible to many in China.

5. Xi writes to Russia with (more) love

习近平同俄罗斯总统普京分别向中俄执政党对话机制第九次会议致贺信 - Xi Jinping and Russian President Putin sent congratulations to the ninth meeting of the Sino Russian ruling party dialogue mechanism.

2021-04-21 Score: 9

Continuing this theme, China and Russia’s ruling parties held talks this week, with both leaders sending their salutations. Most of the text was boilerplate, but there was a particularly interesting self-congratulation on how they have dealt with the pandemic. China and Russia have long been on the cusp of a strategic breakthrough. They undoubtedly have some interests and values that are aligned. But there’s also matters of history, borders, nationalism, and general distrust.

What is perhaps more useful then is what was elided by coverage of the Russia-China talks, which is yet another attempt by China’s leaders to meet with US counterparts. Wang Qishan, Xi’s old mate and regular interlocutor with the US in happier times, was sent to commemorate 50 years of ping pong diplomacy – with one-third of the quotations.

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