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Vira Somboon
2.1.Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era
On October 24, 2017, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) amended its Constitution by adding “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” to its main pillars of theory and practice. This addition consequently enshrined the Xi Jinping Thought on par with Marxism–Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, The Theory of Three Represents, and The Scientific Outlook on Development (Hongyu, 2017). The last two were presented by Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, respectively. In terms of identifying the thought with the specific name of the leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Xi Jinping is evidently the third and follows the ideas put forth by Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. The significance of this amendment was notorious. Mao’s thought provided the main thrust of theory and practice for the consolidation of the Chinese party and the state for many decades. Deng’s ideas guided China in the new scheme of reform and opening up for modernization and economic development from 1978 to this amendment in 2017, i.e. for four decades. The addition, was in a sense, the declaration of a new era to be led by Xi’s ideas and vision. This new era coincided with two upcoming centenary anniversaries, i.e. that of the CPC in 2021 and that of the PRC in 2049. From 2018 to 2049, the duration of time will be roughly three decades.
Xi was elected General Secretary of the party for a second term on October 25, 2017. Moreover, on March 10, 2018, the Constitution of the country was amended to abolish the two-term limit for presidency. The limit had previously been established in the Constitution of 1982 of China, during the period of Deng Xiaoping’s leadership, as a mechanism for preventing tyranny under a one-party system like the Chinese communist regime had chaotically experienced for several decades earlier (Buckley & Wu, 2018). Then, on March 11, 2018, Xi was unanimously elected by the National People’s Congress to a second term as president. The amendment and the reelection made it possible, in constitutional terms at least, for President Xi to hold office indefinitely, even, perhaps, for life. On the same day, he was also elected chairman of the state’s Central Military Commission (Ruwitch, 2018). It may be said that, at present, Xi Jinping has complete control over the party, the military, and the state of China as well as simultaneously providing main ideational, ideological, and discursive formations of the Chinese society. Of course, this “three-in-one leadership” (party–military–state), as Ziang Zemin put it, has been viewed as functionally necessary for the Chinese political system, and thus applied to supreme leaders before Xi (i.e. Ziang Zemin himself and Hu Jintao after Ziang). Given the fact that neither the position of the general secretary of the party nor the chairman of the military has a term limit, its abolition for the presidency provides Xi Jinping with the legitimate possibility to remain as the “three-in-one leader” of China for decades to come (Buckley & Wu, 2018).
2.2.The Questions of China’s New Era
In his speech on “Developing Philosophy and Social Sciences with Chinese Features”, Xi Jinping uses Karl Marx’s writing for an insightful discussion on the significance of theoretical thinking and how to go about it. The question, not the answer, Xi argues by quoting Marx, is the key to theoretical formation. The question identifies where we start our enquiry and also defines where our research will end and what the solution will be. In terms of philosophy and social sciences, the question reflects the practical circumstance of the time or the era. If we can grasp the right question that proclaims the situation of the time, we will be more likely to reach a relevant and successful solution. Xi confirms that the CPC, since the time of Chairman Mao, has always formulated the right questions such as its own unique conception of Marxism and the Communist Party in the context of Chinese conditions and, since the time of Deng, the right question on the path of development conducive to the specific conditions of China (Xi, 2017b, pp. 370–372). As he puts it in Hegelian terminology, the right question reflects the “Zeitgeist” or the spirit of the era (Xi, 2017b, p. 370). With correct thinking, “we have put forward new theories in light of new practices, which provide us with scientific guidance in formulating policies and advancing our works” (Xi, 2017b, p. 372).
Xi Jinping Thought or as it is officially entitled “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” underlines the important points he makes in the above-mentioned speech and implies an understanding of the questions for this “New Era”. In another speech, “The New Normal: How to Respond and Adapt,” delivered in December 2015 at the Central Conference on Economic Work, Xi succinctly identified what he viewed as the questions of the time. As he put it, “I have emphasized repeatedly that we must escape the Thucydides Trap and the middle-income trap. The former is related to the political sphere — we should carefully tackle the relationship with other major countries such as the United States. The latter is about the economy — we must improve the quality and effectiveness of economic growth” (Xi, 2017i, p. 262). To reemphasize, the questions of the new era are the Thucydides Trap and the middle-income trap, and I think that, for President Xi, the two cannot be arranged simply by priority since they are closely related to each other.
The term “Thucydides Trap” refers to the ancient Greek historian and political theorist, Thucydides (460–395 BC), who wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, a masterpiece narrating and analyzing the great war between Athens and Sparta and their confederations and colonies, which involved almost all the ancient Greek city-states throughout the Eastern Mediterranean at that time (431–404 BC). At the beginning of the book, Thucydides argues that the war was the inevitable outcome of the growth of the rising power of Athens, which had become a threat in the perception of Sparta that had previously held a hegemonic position particularly in the Spartan sphere of influence (Thucydides, 1996). Thucydides’s account has been turned into a main thesis for many adepts on war and interstate relations that the rise of a new major power rivaling a previous one in the international arena will inescapably lead to a large-scale war — hence the term “Thucydides Trap” (or Thucydides’s Trap). To be sure, this conceptual framework has been discussed by contemporary International Relations scholars in the current context of China’s rise versus the US’s global position (Allison, 2017).
Many of Xi Jinping’s stances and elaborations may be seen as attempts to “escape” this oversimplified version of Thucydides’s Trap. Xi uses the idea of history and its differing circumstances under the progress of mankind as a point of reference. In his speech in Germany in 2014, he raised the question: “What is the trend of today’s world?” And his answer clearly aimed at avoiding the trap. In his own words:
The answer is unequivocal. It is the trend of peace, development, cooperation and mutually beneficial progress. China does not subscribe to the outdated logic that a country will invariably seek hegemony when it grows strong. Are colonialism and hegemonism viable today? Absolutely not…. China has stated on numerous occasions that it opposes hegemonism and power politics in all forms, does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, and will never seek hegemony or expansion (Xi, 2014a, p. 292).
The terms “hegemony” and “hegemonism” are exactly the idea and practice underlying the process and result that have made the Thucydides’s Trap inevitable. By rejecting hegemonism as China’s international aspiration, Xi expresses a strong confidence in China’s determination and capacity to escape the trap (see, e.g. Xi, 2017h, p. 43).
As for the second, the “Middle-Income Trap,” it is a term used to signify the stage where a country has achieved considerable economic growth and uplifted a majority of the population to the range of middle-income status but has become slow to increase the potential for further development, thus making it prone to stagnation and leading to a decline in its competitiveness. In this respect, even at the height of China’s economic achievement in 2014, Xi stated in his speech to the annual national gathering of Chinese scientists and engineers that China
