The paramount leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has amended the law to diminish the administrative authority of the State Council. Analysts assert that this action would hasten the self-destruction of the totalitarian regime, instigating a vicious cycle of relentless purges and hostility within the party’s ranks.
On March 11th, during its pro forma National People’s Congress (NPC), the CCP ratified the newly revised Organic Law of the State Council, marking the first amendment in over four decades. The revision accentuates the current leader’s preeminent position, stipulating that the communist government should steadfastly uphold and steadfastly implement the decisions and directives of the Party Central Committee’s centralized leadership.
Thus far, this represents Xi Jinping’s most significant maneuver toward the State Council to ensure that the “government” remains loyal to the “party” through legislation. Observers noted that when the amendment bill came up for a final vote at the conference, Xi leaned forward and pressed the vote button, while the newly appointed State Council Premier Li Qiang sat motionless and looked at Xi with a complicated expression. Earlier, the Chinese Premier had foregone the customary press briefing during the concurrent NPC and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) sessions, with no official explanation provided to the public.
Furthermore, rumors circulated that the premier would not be meeting with global CEOs at the China Development Forum (CDF). The CDF has been held annually since 2000 at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, and in the past, the exchange between the Chinese premier and representatives of foreign enterprises was one of the most essential components of the forum. This deviation from established protocol in the CCP bureaucratic system suggests that the new Premier’s role has been diminished, with fewer public appearances and less importance in presiding over the government than his predecessors.
It will take time to verify whether the news is accurate and whether the premier chose not to attend the meeting or whether the party chief prevented him from participating, according to Zhuge Mingyang, an independent writer. Zhuge stated that in any scenario, Li must not be allowed to override Xi’s personal directives and deployments.
Likening the Chinese premier’s predicament to that of a servant who has keys but is not the master of the house, Mr. Zhuge argued that a state’s premier could not exercise his administrative function in running governments, which would inevitably lead to a more extreme dictatorship of the Party chief and the accelerated decline of the CCP.
Li Yuanhua, a former teacher at Capital Normal University in Beijing, in an interview expressed that the current leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) really likes having power. He’s taking more and more power away from other parts of the government and keeping it for himself. This makes him stronger and more in charge. But it also means that other people in the party have less power to do things. This makes it hard to keep the authoritarian system going because it needs support to work.
So, if the leader, Xi, keeps getting more power, the CCP will become weaker and might eventually fall apart. But to stop that from happening, Xi will try to get even more power to stay safe. This will keep happening, making the CCP weaker and weaker until it collapses completely.
Before, there were two big government groups—the State Council and the Central Committee—in a place called Zhongnanhai. But they were separate. Since 1949, the State Council was part of the Central Committee, but it had some independence until 1954. This changed with an amendment to the State Council Organic Law, which made it lose even that little independence it had.
Mr. Zhuge commented that it renders Xi the only preeminent figure with a monopolistic grip over party, political, and military power, even exceeding Mao Zedong, the founder of the Chinese communist regime.
Current affairs commentator Tang Jingyuan during an interview also highlighted that the State Council has been degraded as a government office. He said that this time, Xi Jinping took the opportunity of the two sessions to revert the State Council back into a de facto government office, which is a complete abandonment of former leader Deng Xiaoping’s economic development approach after 1989. As Mr. Tang observed, the Communist Party chief’s seizure of power over the State Council has proceeded step by step.
He pointed out that over the years, Xi has established various economic, diplomatic, and military working groups, seizing the work and authority of the State Council into his own hands. For example, the Central Financial Leadership Group, which used to be chaired by the premier, is now chaired by Xi himself. Xi also heads the National Security Council. Mr. Tang pointed out that neither the economic reform model of Deng Xiaoping nor the extreme political rule of Mao Zedong would prevent the CCP from collapsing.
He stated that Deng proposed economic reform by decentralizing power in the economic sphere, which promotes the relaxation and vitality of part of the market economy. However, Deng did not reform the party’s political system, thus producing a collusion of political and business interest groups and forming an invisible division of power forces within the party.
Mr. Tang noted that Xi abolished Deng’s approach, and his drastic crackdown on the private sector has caused China’s economy to rapidly recede from a wave of high growth, making everyone see the true face of the original deformed development of China’s economy since the Deng era. He said, in other words, Xi personally destroyed the CCP’s economic accumulations over the past 40 years.
Meanwhile, Xi chose to align with Mao’s model, as per Mr. Tang’s perspective. He asserted that Xi’s absolute centralization of power amounts to the repetition of Mao’s mistakes under the communist ideology, placing himself as an isolated figure.
Mr. Tang stated this model may seem ultra-stable on the surface but creates an intense pressure situation. The removal of Defense Minister Li Shangfu and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, handpicked by Xi himself, reflects his predicament – a vicious cycle of continuous purges and increased hostility, which paves the way for the CCP’s self-destruction. In addition, according to Mr. Tang, Xi’s initiation into totalitarianism was not only to save the CCP but also to achieve his ambitions, such as attempting to reunify Taiwan by force during his reign. He asserted that Xi’s approach has backfired and significantly accelerated the demise and disintegration of the CCP.
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