Chinese President Xi Jinping’s decision to stay in power indefinitely has generated a heated debate. On either side of the aisle, his supporters and detractors are digging into China’s far and near history, to make their case. A blogger who goes by the name, Chan Kai Yee, links the decision of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to free Mr. Xi of a maximum presidential tenure of 10 years to China’s time-tested tradition. He argues that Mr. Xi’s tenure without limits restores the essence of China’s old Yao-Shun ‘system of succession’. Under its template, merit and moral integrity alone are the criteria for exercising power.
The blogger cites the Chinese classic, The Book of History , which claims that more than 4,000 years ago, Emperor Yao first tested the calibre of Shun, his eventual successor. Shun was first assigned a high official position. Once he had proved his competence, Yao decided that Shun should succeed him. “Shun was chosen as candidate of succession due to his moral integrity but was finally chosen when he had proved competent in performing the official duties assigned to him by Emperor Yao,” says the post. Shun applied the same merit-based principle to choose Yu as his successor for an indefinite tenure. The decision to consolidate power behind Mr. Xi also echoes the Yao- Shun principle, which was highly praised by Confucius, says the blog.
Supporters of Mr. Xi point out that he faced the cascading impact of Deng Xiaoping’s political reforms, including setting two five-year term limits to the presidential tenure. Deng wanted to flush out the system of die-hard loyalists of Mao Zedong as they did not fit into his reform plan. One way of getting rid of them was by setting specific time limits to their stay in office. But the two-term condition also had some unintended consequences. It led to the exit after two terms, in 2003, of Jiang Zemin, Deng’s chosen successor. This brought in Hu Jintao to the helm.
Legacy problems
Critics of Mr. Hu say it was under him that problems that Mr. Xi was later to confront ballooned. A surge in debt-fuelled growth created bubbles in a highly leveraged economy. Corruption rocketed, posing a serious threat to the CPC. Mr. Xi, thus, has been engaged in house-cleaning since 2012, which has included the launch of his massive anti-corruption drive. But the work remains only half done, demanding the President, in the classical Yao-Shun tradition, to remain in office for as long as it takes.
But critics draw comparison of Mr. Xi’s consolidation of power with the career path of Yuan Shikai. Yuan was an ambitious military commander of the early 20th century who rose to become emperor, before his fall from grace.
“After the 1911 revolution, the Chinese empire was turned into a Republic. It was then that Yuan Shikai, who had nodes in the imperial palace, because of his military influence, made a deal with the revolutionaries. Yuan became the President of China indefinitely, in return for forcing the Emperor to step down,” says political commentator Roger Woo. But political ambition, including a crisis of legitimacy, was to lead to Yuan’s fall.
Many tech-savvy netizens say Chinese censors are swiftly sniping references to Yuan from Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. With opinion divided, it remains to be seen whether the Yin and Yang — the Taoist principle of the unity of opposites — of reconciling the Yao-Shun system, with fears over the revival of Yuan style despotism, can harmoniously emerge.
