China ushers in global totalitarianism

Early in 2016, the members of the Tibetan delegation to the NPC aroused interest when they displayed a pin with a portrait of Xi on their lapels, something that had not been seen since the fall of Lin Biao in 1971 (Bloomberg News 2018). In 2016, Tibet’s party secretary was Chen Quanguo, who has since been moved to Xinjiang to enforce hardline policies and seems to enjoy Xi’s trust. It is clear that the revival of the personality cult is a part of Xi’s strategy to consoli- 222 social research date his position and the overall leadership of a party that has become his obedient tool. But what do these quotations say about Xi’s conception of patriotism? Xi tells all the various components of Chinese society, especially scientists and those who study abroad, that they must always think of the motherland first. He reminds the people that “among the core socialist values, the deepest, the most basic, the most eternal one is patriotism.” But one must not be confused: patriotism does not mean wanton love of the country: “Only by emphasizing the love of the country, of the Party, of socialism, can patriotism be vibrant and real.” Xi also introduces some Confucian references, as he states that “one must unite the love for the family and for the country, and integrate one’s individual dream, and family’s dream in the dream of the country, of the nation.” And finally, “patriotism is mankind’s deepest, most enduring feeling” (Renmin Ribao 2018). Faced with the growing disaffection of society toward official ideology, the new helmsman, like his predecessors but more forcefully, turns to “the last refuge of the scoundrels.” Making China great again and giving the motherland its rightful place on the international scene have become the new mobilizing ideology to rally China behind its current helmsman. But such a concentration of power in the hands of one person is also very dangerous: as he is the only decision maker, he must take responsibility for any mistake or failure. This lone exercise of power also demonstrates that Xi has not been able to unify the various factions under him, and the history of the Chinese Communist Party indicates that various leaders are waiting for him to make a mistake. Already, at all levels, decisions have come to a halt, as cadres are reluctant to take responsibility for fear of being accused of corruption. The concert of praises for the new helmsman does not necessarily indicate that Xi has gained the unconditional support of the apparatus. Rather, given the atmosphere of terror imposed by the anticorruption campaign, party leaders do not express their real thoughts. Repression of alternative discourse and increased pressure 223 on intellectuals and the media can, in the short run, silence criticism, but they do not solve the contradictions that are maturing in society. Xi’s Policy toward Civil Society At the same time as he was disciplining the party apparatus, Xi carried out a campaign against the civil society that had been slowly emerging under Hu-Wen. This is best illustrated by the way the CCP solved the case of the New Citizens Movement. As discussed above, one of the NCM’s requests was that leading cadres’ assets be made public, to fight corruption. This objective met Xi’s exactly, and the NCM could have been enlisted in his anticorruption campaign. However, almost immediately after the new leadership came to power, many NCM activists were arrested and sentenced—among them its founder, Xu Zhiyong, who was sentenced to four years in jail (Yu 2014)—and the NCM was disbanded. This shows that Xi was not ready to let civil society monitor Party cadres, and ensured that the anticorruption struggle remained under Party leadership and served to reinforce its legitimacy. But Xi’s attempts at eradicating the autonomous groups did not stop there. On July 9, 2015, more than 300 Rights Defense lawyers and legal workers were rounded up by the public security (Jacobs and Buckley 2015). Most of them were released with a warning not to pursue their activities, 13 were released on bail, and 24 were officially arrested (CHRCG 2017). After a few months, during which they were tortured and their families threatened, many appeared on television to confess that they had been “manipulated by foreign hostile forces”; some went through the same treatment but were also sentenced to jail terms. All of them “refused” the help of lawyers chosen by their families and were “defended” by lawyers appointed by the state. Since this wave of repression, lawyers have been less eager to take human rights cases. But they were not the only targets of repression. Developing Hu’s strategy, the Party has adopted a two-pronged approach towards what it calls NGOs. On one hand, it has encouraged the development of those that provide various kinds of services, and, [141.211.4.224] Project MUSE (2024-07-18 18:58 GMT) University of Michigan @ Ann Arbor 224 social research on the other hand, it has attempted to eradicate grassroots advocacy organizations. Even the term “civil society” (gongmin shehui) has become taboo. As we have seen above, at the end of 2015, workers’ organizers were submitted to the same treatment as Rights Defense lawyers: there is now a pattern of arrest, detention, televised self-criticism where the activist acknowledges that he has been used by “hostile foreign forces” to subvert China’s socialist regime, and promises not to continue. Since 2013, there have been 45 such televised confessions, which brings to mind the Stalinist trials of the 1930s (Myers 2018). The Party intends to depict grassroots NGOs, activists, human rights defenders, and lawyers as “foreign agents” who sabotage the Chinese Dream. This explains why the National People’s Congress passed a law on international NGOs (INGOs) (China Development Brief 2016) that imposes strict conditions on their registration: they must register with the Ministry of Public Security, be sponsored by a public supervisory unit (PSU)—a Chinese state organization—and submit to an annual audit of their budget and activities by the Ministry. Only INGOs registered in the PRC are allowed to give funding to Chinese NGOs. This makes it very difficult for grassroots NGOs to continue to exist, as most of them get their funding from foreign entities. But the situation is completely different for “service-providing NGOs.” Business associations and chambers of commerce are encouraged to “separate from administrative agencies.” As under Hu-Wen’s tenure, the government can help fund such NGOs by purchasing their services. In this way, the authorities are relieved of the burden of directly providing social services. In 2016, the Central Committee allowed organizations working “on poverty alleviation, welfare for disadvantaged groups, medical care and education … [to] directly register with the civil affairs department” (Teets and Almen 2018). In 2015, the Central Committee declared that NGOs must shelter a party cell that would play a leading role. Xi Jinping’s China: On the Road to Neo-totalitarianism 225 The goal of the new leadership is clear: it will not tolerate the development of advocacy NGOs that could question the Party’s policies and its leadership position. By adopting the abovementioned laws, it endeavors to do away with the grey zones that had allowed advocacy NGOs to develop. Nongovernmental organizations are tolerated, even encouraged if they act as auxiliaries to the government and if they are directly controlled by the Party. The laws are passed to enforce the absolute leadership of the Party on the social field, what Kang Xiaoguang calls “administrative absorption of society” (Kang 2018). A CHINESE FASCISM? Before Xi took control, a decade of weak central leadership had resulted in a divided Party unable to erase the grey areas that allowed the emergence of grassroots NGOs that tried to monitor the authorities and protect citizens’ rights. Chinese society had started to become more autonomous from Party control. The totalitarian matrix was dissolving and society was starting to structure itself. Xi Jinping has reversed this situation. He has disciplined the Party with an anticorruption campaign enforced by a CCDI that reminds one of the Soviet Cheka, one that has reinstated the hegemony of the Party over the government, passed laws to eradicate the grey zones that had allowed the autonomization of society, and implemented a personality cult that has been reinforced by his scrapping of the two-term limit on the presidency. This attempt at reinstating Party hegemony over society and the repression of dissident voices do not mean China is returning to the totalitarian regime of the 1950s and ’60s; in fact, the Party doesn’t exert a monopoly on the economy. Besides, despite the reinforcement of control over the old and new media, Chinese citizens can access unofficial sources of information. They can travel abroad, and the state does not interfere with the private life of citizens, at least in Han-populated areas. The situation is different in minority areas—Xinjiang is now the object of a campaign against “religious extremism,” which results in the detention of hun- 226 social research dreds of thousands of citizens accused of refusing to eat pork or of praying five times a day. In China proper, universities have created ”Departments of Xi Jinping Thought,” ideological work has been reinforced, and professors have been fired for criticizing this new trend. The creation of the social credit system, which assigns a mark to each citizen, taking into account their financial credibility but also their compliance, has signaled a reinforcement of social control (Rollet 2018). The political, social, and religious fields are controlled by the Party. No alternative ideology to “Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” can be publicized, and the press has almost completely lost its autonomy. This system also brings to mind Mussolini’s fascism: party dictatorship, cult of the chief, a semiautonomous market economy, exaltation of nationalism and of the heritage of the Empire are common traits between the two regimes. And, after all, Mussolini was the one who invented the term “totalitarianism.