The Chinese just don’t do things. There could be greater strategic considerations to the life Presidency of Xi than meets the eye.
One possible consideration could be this; the communist party of China could be experiencing internal rilvary along ideological lines; with different factions nursing diverging ambitions with regards to succession; as glimpses of reportage of exiled party members suggests. In such events, there’s neglect and shift of focus from central developmental themes like the OBOR.
In Ghana, we see this neglect of the national interest and direction of attention to the individual or partisan interest everyday. America’s lockdowns during the time of both Obama and Trump brings the picture home.
In America, Trump’s reversal of major Obama initiatives can only be interpreted as 8years of effort virtually swept down the drain. In Ghana, it is characterized by abandonment of initiatives led by previous governments.
A leader who comes in to take China onto a radical departure from nationally determined goals may not only be undermining a decade of Xi, but several years of determined domestic and global economic and geopolitical strategy.
One instructive tool, though unpalatable to many, for getting all those to come on board and focus; is to make them feel their individual ambitions are going nowhere. Their success must only mean the success of the national agenda.
Don’t be surprised if there’s a change in policy direction when things stabilize. Xi may even resign for all you know.
It’s only in Africa that we stem our ideals to one school of thought that has been rammed into our heads like preppy school kids; without a consideration of the best fit model for our material conditions.
In our case, we have had a constitution for transition into democratic rule, which obviously has served its purpose and requires major reforms. But it appears we are scared to touch it, treating it like a sacred cow.
Until we come to the understanding that every declaration, even if it’s scribbled into law, can be changed after it passes its sell by date, we will continue to treat our constitution like a religious book; and our Acts of Parliament as artifices of worship.
But in a place like China, stamping religiousity out of the body politic may have swept away with it mindsets of dogma; hence their transition from a command economy under Mao to a more open one in the era of Xiaoping and a thoroughly mixed approach under Xi, both in the economic and geopolitical spheres of their transactions.
While making reforms to the Chinese economy, Xiaopeng indicated that they must open up the windows to let in fresh air, though this may be accompanied by a few flies; China in this latest move has shown that they are capable of shutting that window yet still, if the flies are becoming one too many; and may eventually constitute a distractive nuisance.
By this, China has served the world notice that its journey from a totalitarian regime will not be a linear one towards multiparty democracy. This by no means takes away from the fundamental benefits of the Democratic system. But over the years, it’s obvious that where there’s a wide departure or divergence in the ideological beliefs of a multiparty System within a country, it results in policy instability and lack of coherence in the developmental journey; with succeeding governments undoing virtually all what their predecessors have spent national resources building. This only results in a zero sum game of some sort, and development only becomes piece meal, if even at all.
The above scenario is clearly evidenced in Africa, where two clearly different ideological paradigms struggled for each country’s soul; a scar which has kept the countries taking one step forward and another back, each time there’s a change in polar regimes. Lately, the clear departure in ideological leanings of Barack Obama and Donald Trump has brought to the fore this scourge in America; despite being a rather mature democracy.
China may have identified this phenomenon and thus is unwilling to risk a tectonic shift in policy stability. For stability obviously begets growth; and the reverse, otherwise. They are therefore willing to move forward and recalibrate backwards along the ideological spectrum; as expediency may demand.
It’s clear that China’s success and relatively sustained growth cannot be delinked in anyway from their uncompromising dynamism in this era of great flux in development trends.