Top-ranked articles for week of 28 August-3 September 2022

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Commentary

Last week’s most widely circulated articles in China’s official media were all signals as to what will happen in the next six weeks to change China’s administration. There are three articles within the five most important this week that all concern themselves with this new Xi Jinping period.

The most cited article this week is one on Xi’s overarching vision for China, his “new development concept”. This is an early signal. It acts as a sort of intellectual carapace under which many different streams of thought have to be formed in order to make clear what this “concept” will actually turn out to be and how it might be applied. It is not a road map, plan, work programme or any other document with a recognisable form of what former Australian Prime Minister and Sinologist Kevin Rudd once called “programmatic specificity”.

So far, instead, it’s a signpost pointing to things having to change – a process which requires a new slogan, but which will also have to take into account various other formulations that must sit above the new development concept in the hierarchy of Chinese political guidance, such as Xi Jinping thought, socialism with Chinese characteristics, etc. It also tells everyone across China’s bureaucracy that they need to get busy writing down what they think Xi should think.

The week’s fourth most widely circulated article document identifies what we guess was the most likely trigger for this “new concept”: the announcement by the Politburo of when the next party Congress will be held.

A party Congress is something that occurs every five years. Its main role is overseeing a change in top leaders largely driven by the retirement of roughly half of them. At the congress, as the article notes, “the General Assembly will elect a new Central Committee and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection”. The members of these two bodies will be China’s leaders, and their watchdogs, for the next five years.

Policy changes will not happen until March next year, when there is a National People’s Congress at which China’s government changes. Or in other words, while the party Congress tells us who China’s leaders will be, we will have to wait another five months to know which positions and formal roles these leaders will take on and what they see their tasks as being. It is as if an enormous corporation every half a decade undertakes first to renew its top leadership and then to spend six months figuring out exactly which roles of these new leaders will fill.

A second signal that comes out of calling the National Party Congress is that China’s leaders have agreed on who their team will be. The Congress itself does not need to be held at this point, but announcing it now indicates that the internal wrangling has been completed and agreement has been reached on who will retire, be promoted or retain their post. With the jockeying for rank over, the jockeying for position and favour can start.

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Last week’s second and fifth most widely circulated articles complement the pieces discussed above. First, Xi Jinping needs to tell Chinese bureaucrats to follow the party Congress transition. Returning to our corporate analogy, Chinese public servants derive their rank and ability to amass resources from how well they interact with the party, making their role more like a ministerial adviser than a typical public servant. Xi’s well publicised, high-profile attendance at a civil servants’ award meeting to tell public servants what they should be thinking about is a signal for the latter to begin exploring possible ideas as to what form the “new development concept” might eventually take.

“The Light of Truth on the Road to Revival”, a long piece on ideological leadership, reminds officials of the principles and slogans they should be following in their search to fill in the blanks of the “new development concept”:

Shortly after the conclusion of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China [in 2012], General Secretary Xi Jinping conducted two domestic inspections in less than a month. On one, in Guangdong, the frontier of reform and opening up, he declared that “Reform will not stop, opening will not stop”; and on the other, at Fuping deep in Hebei’s Taihang Mountains, he said “See the real poverty, help the real poor, really help the poor.”

It seems we should be able to conclude that “reform” and “helping the poor” will be two key elements of that concept – not as end points, however, but as guides for more concrete policies that will take shape in the next few months. Long, vague articles such as this one can best be read as the beginnings of policy-making for the next five years, not the conclusion. As with any large bureaucracy, China’s political system has many silos, all of which will want to offer evidence that they are working hard to meet their boss’s wishes. With the months after the party Congress set to see a lot of official tussling as government departments compete to have the game played according to their rules, the outcome of that Congress looks like it will be anything but final.

1. Xi on the new development stage

新发展阶段贯彻新发展理念 必然要求构建新发展格局

Implementation of the new development concept in the new development stage requires the construction of a new development pattern

Date of first publication: 31 August 2022

Article usage: 35%

Article source: Xinhua News Agency

Length: 1,382 characters / 984 words

9月1日出版的第17期《求是》杂志将发表中共中央总书记、国家主席、中央军委主席习近平在党的十九届五中全会第二次全体会议上的重要讲话《新发展阶段贯彻新发展理念必然要求构建新发展格局》。 Full article

The year’s 17th issue of “Seeking Truth”, published on September 1, will feature an important speech given at the second plenary session of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee by Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, State President, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, titled “The implementation of the new development concept in the new development stage will inevitably require the construction of a new development pattern”. Machine translation of full article

2. Xi meets model civil servants

习近平会见全国“人民满意的公务员”和“人民满意的公务员集体”代表

Xi Jinping meets model civil servants from across the country

Date of first publication: 30 August 2022

Article usage: 33%

Article source: Xinhua News Agency

Length: 981 characters / 707 words

全国“人民满意的公务员”和“人民满意的公务员集体”表彰大会30日上午在京举行。中共中央总书记、国家主席、中央军委主席习近平亲切会见受表彰代表，向他们表示诚挚问候和热烈祝贺，勉励他们牢记使命责任、勇于担当作为。 Full article

The National Commendation Ceremony for “Model Civil Servants” and “Model Civil Service Collectives” was held in Beijing on the morning of August 30. General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, President of the State, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission Xi Jinping cordially met with the commended representatives, extended sincere greetings and warm congratulations to them, and encouraged them to keep to their mission and responsibilities and act bravely. Machine translation of full article

3. Xi sends letter to trade fair

习近平向2022年中国国际服务贸易交易会致贺信

Xi Jinping sends congratulatory letter to 2022 China International Fair for Trade in Services

Date of first publication:31 August 2022

Article usage: 32%

Article source: Xinhua News Agency

Length: 320 characters / 223 words

8月31日，国家主席习近平向2022年中国国际服务贸易交易会致贺信。 Full article

On August 31, President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the 2022 China International Fair for Trade in Services. Machine translation of full article

4. Party congress date announced

中共中央政治局会议建议 党的二十大10月16日在北京召开

CPC Central Committee Politburo meeting announces CPC 20th National Congress will be held in Beijing on October 16

Date of first publication: 30 August 2022

Article usage: 31%

Article source: Xinhua News Agency

Length: 721 characters / 547 words

中共中央政治局8月30日召开会议，研究中国共产党第十九届中央委员会第七次全体会议和中国共产党第二十次全国代表大会筹备工作。中共中央总书记习近平主持会议。 Full article

The Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting on August 30 to study the preparations for the Seventh Plenary Session of the Nineteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting. Machine translation of full article

5. Understanding Xi thought

复兴之路真理之光

The Light of Truth on the Road to Revival

Date of first publication:2 September 2022

Article usage: 29%

Article source: Xinhua News Agency

Length: 7,206 characters / 4,877 words

马克思、恩格斯指出，一切划时代的体系的真正的内容都是由于产生这些体系的那个时期的需要而形成起来的。当代中国正经历着我国历史上最为广泛而深刻的社会变革，也正在进行着人类历史上最为宏大而独特的实践创新。 Full article

Marx and Engels pointed out that the real content of all epoch-making systems was formed because of the needs of the period in which these systems were produced. Contemporary China is experiencing the most extensive and profound social changes in the history of our country, and it is also undergoing the most grand and unique practical innovation in human history. Machine translation of full article

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