Why China needs Xi Jinping as its core leader

When, at a recent party plenum, President Xi Jinping ( 習近平 ) was designated as “core” of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, some Western media were quick to condemn the rise of a new “strongman”. While recognising the significance of Xi as the core was correct, conjuring up visions of an emerging dictator was not.

I recalled my meeting with Xi years earlier, when he was still party secretary of Zhejiang (浙江) province. Even then he was criticising “empty talk” and advising, “We should never overestimate our accomplishments or indulge ourselves in our achievements”. I took note of how Xi stressed, “We need to assess ourselves objectively”. Hardly, in retrospect, the ruminations of a gestating dictator.

To understand why Xi is now the core, one must appreciate the complex challenges of our times. China is now facing multiple challenges: domestically – slow growth, industrial overcapacity, endemic pollution, imbalanced development, income disparity, social injustice, social service demands; and, internationally – wars, regional conflicts, sluggish economies, volatile markets, trade protectionism, ethnic clashes, terrorism, geopolitical rivalries, and territorial disputes in the South and East China seas.

How Xi Jinping can use his new power as ‘core’ of China’s communist party

Most critically, because China must deepen its reforms to achieve its oft-promised goal of a “moderately prosperous society” by 2020, the resistance of entrenched interest groups must be overcome. More subtly, there is what some call a pervasive “soft resistance” – local officials who do not do their job and economic elites who migrate.

If reform had been progressing smoothly, then why strengthen central authority by investing Xi with the status of core leader? Xi has encountered obstacles; if there were no obstacles, there would be no need for a core leader.