China and the US: the princeling and the professor
Barack Obama should strive to create conditions in which Xi Jinping, the presumed next leader of China, can play reformer
Editorial guardian.co.uk,
 |
If Russia is a country with an unpredictable past, spare a
thought for Jia Juchuan, the historian entrusted with the official
biography of the father of the next presumed leader of China, Xi Jinping.
The story of Xi's father – a member of the first generation of Chinese
revolutionary leaders – is a bear trap for the fifth. The elder Xi was
both a pioneer of the People's Republic who rose to the rank of
vice-premier and a victim of Mao's cultural revolution.
This was not without consequence for the son who may shortly inherit the leadership. Xi junior exchanged his gilded cage in Beijing for a cave home in the impoverished northwestern province of Shaanxi. The first volume of Xi the elder's life was published without problems, but the second volume, covering the purge, has been shelved for three years, ever since the son's destiny became clear.
Everybody wants a hand in writing it, the historian complained to the Washington Post. If only China's collective leadership could have followed Churchill's advice to Stalin and Roosevelt.
Xi's own biography is a major political asset as the Chinese leader-in-waiting tours America this week on what everyone is taking to be a pre-coronation visit. It gives him the ability to be all things to all men. He is both the princeling confident and authoritative enough to speak his mind, and a man with first-hand experience of rural China. Xi is the modern entrepreneur, not only at ease with China's coastal wealth but the creator of much of it, especially in Shenzhen. And he can also present himself as the man of the people – frugal, down to earth, pragmatic, eating dressed-down in government canteens, a modern politician at home with big business but uncorrupted by it. Supporters of Tibet have scoured Xi Jinping's past for any signs of a shift away from Beijing's growing clampdown. Xi's father was an interlocutor for the Dalai Lama's special envoy Lodi Gyari. But these are straws in the wind. Read what Xi said in a speech celebrating the 60th anniversary of Tibet's "peaceful liberation" last year – that China should fight against separatist activities of the Dalai group and "completely destroy any attempt to undermine stability in Tibet and the national unity of the motherland". As the US ambassador candidly observed, Xi seems personable, but US officials "don't really know much about him".
Perhaps that is why Xi was given the red carpet treatment on Tuesday in Washington. His day included a stop at the Oval Office, lunch with the vice-president and the secretary of state, and a highly unusual visit to the Pentagon – all after a dinner with Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft. Xi remains number two, and his succession – although heavily scripted, with all members of the standing committee of the politburo except Xi and Li Keqiang set to leave – is not yet complete. The choreography of Tuesday's events left little room for doubt. These were the two most important world leaders getting a sense of each other for the first time.
For an America that has consciously turned its diplomatic firepower away from Europe and the Middle East – the former in economic decline, the latter convulsed by revolution to which Washington is a bystander – the Asia Pacific region represents a more fruitful arena. Not only as the economic powerhouse of the world, but an area where US power projection is positively sought – by its traditional allies Japan, Australia and the Philippines, but also by lesser nations emerging from China's shadow. If China and America can deliver mutually assured economic destruction – as the holder of $2tn of US treasury and mortgage-backed debt, China would suffer disastrous capital losses if it spooked the markets – in military terms China and America are regional powers. What more important task than they understand each other's red lines?
Obama should not read too much into Xi's arrival. He should strive to create the conditions in which Xi could play the reformer. If not, the US might find that Xi is equally at home with a more traditional role.
This was not without consequence for the son who may shortly inherit the leadership. Xi junior exchanged his gilded cage in Beijing for a cave home in the impoverished northwestern province of Shaanxi. The first volume of Xi the elder's life was published without problems, but the second volume, covering the purge, has been shelved for three years, ever since the son's destiny became clear.
Everybody wants a hand in writing it, the historian complained to the Washington Post. If only China's collective leadership could have followed Churchill's advice to Stalin and Roosevelt.
Xi's own biography is a major political asset as the Chinese leader-in-waiting tours America this week on what everyone is taking to be a pre-coronation visit. It gives him the ability to be all things to all men. He is both the princeling confident and authoritative enough to speak his mind, and a man with first-hand experience of rural China. Xi is the modern entrepreneur, not only at ease with China's coastal wealth but the creator of much of it, especially in Shenzhen. And he can also present himself as the man of the people – frugal, down to earth, pragmatic, eating dressed-down in government canteens, a modern politician at home with big business but uncorrupted by it. Supporters of Tibet have scoured Xi Jinping's past for any signs of a shift away from Beijing's growing clampdown. Xi's father was an interlocutor for the Dalai Lama's special envoy Lodi Gyari. But these are straws in the wind. Read what Xi said in a speech celebrating the 60th anniversary of Tibet's "peaceful liberation" last year – that China should fight against separatist activities of the Dalai group and "completely destroy any attempt to undermine stability in Tibet and the national unity of the motherland". As the US ambassador candidly observed, Xi seems personable, but US officials "don't really know much about him".
Perhaps that is why Xi was given the red carpet treatment on Tuesday in Washington. His day included a stop at the Oval Office, lunch with the vice-president and the secretary of state, and a highly unusual visit to the Pentagon – all after a dinner with Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft. Xi remains number two, and his succession – although heavily scripted, with all members of the standing committee of the politburo except Xi and Li Keqiang set to leave – is not yet complete. The choreography of Tuesday's events left little room for doubt. These were the two most important world leaders getting a sense of each other for the first time.
For an America that has consciously turned its diplomatic firepower away from Europe and the Middle East – the former in economic decline, the latter convulsed by revolution to which Washington is a bystander – the Asia Pacific region represents a more fruitful arena. Not only as the economic powerhouse of the world, but an area where US power projection is positively sought – by its traditional allies Japan, Australia and the Philippines, but also by lesser nations emerging from China's shadow. If China and America can deliver mutually assured economic destruction – as the holder of $2tn of US treasury and mortgage-backed debt, China would suffer disastrous capital losses if it spooked the markets – in military terms China and America are regional powers. What more important task than they understand each other's red lines?
Obama should not read too much into Xi's arrival. He should strive to create the conditions in which Xi could play the reformer. If not, the US might find that Xi is equally at home with a more traditional role.
