In remarks to a hearing at the Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC) on June 4, 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that it was “a beautiful sight to behold” to see people in Hong Kong speaking out through a candlelight vigil to commemorate the anniversary of the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Her words were clearly not a reference to destructive behaviour by Hong Kong protesters, or to clashes between protestors and police.

Since that time, however, Chinese state media and foreign ministry officials have repeatedly and consistently returned to this talking point, using “a beautiful sight to behold” (美丽的风景线) to signal alleged American hypocrisy that condones violent political acts and cloaks them in the language of democracy and human rights.

In November 2019, as a video emerged in Hong Kong of a man doused with fuel and set alight by a protestor, an English-language headline at People’s Daily Online read: “Is setting a man on fire the so-called ‘beautiful sight to behold’ that Pelosi described?” And in May last year, as scenes of looting, vandalism and fires accompanied protests in some cities against the killing of George Floyd, the state news agency Xinhua referred to the attending violence as “Pelosi’s beautiful landscape,” and the provocative editor-in-chief of the Global Times, Hu Xijin, wrote: “US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once called the violent protests in Hong Kong ‘a beautiful sight to behold.’ Now, the ‘beautiful sight’ is extending from Hong Kong to over a dozen US states. US politicians now can enjoy this sight from their own windows.”

It is hardly surprising, then, that the phrase has returned with a vengeance today, as Chinese media relish the chaotic scenes that unfolded last night on Capitol Hill, at the very heart of American democracy.

The Global Times, CCTV and other state media have widely made reference to Pelosi’s “beautiful sight,” which should now be regarded as a stock propaganda catchphrase, and internet users are also widely picking up and sharing references to “a beautiful sight” to mock the US and its criticisms of China’s handling of events in Hong Kong in 2019.

In a “Quick Take” promoted on its homepage today, CCTV.com was quick to declare an end to the myth of American democracy. The commentary, “A Mob Smashes Capitol Hill, And American-style Democracy is Smashed” (暴民打砸国会山，美式民主演砸了!), began:

An all-out assault (全武行) performed by Trump supporters (拥趸者) ripped away the last fig leaf of the American democracy about which US politicians have boasted. Beginning on the afternoon of [January] 6th, US time, mobs (暴民)stormed Capitol Hill and smashed numerous areas, including the office of [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi. Even the live broadcast locations of television networks broadcasting live from the square were not spared. This “beautiful sight” (美丽风景线)prompted an uproar in global public opinion!

The government-backed Guancha Syndicate website in Shanghai ran a headline today on events in the US capital called: “This Time is It a “Beautiful Sight to Behold”? Pelosi Calls [Actions By] American Protesters a ‘Shameful Attack on Our Democracy’” (这回不是“美丽风景线”了？佩洛西称美国示威者“可耻攻击民主”). The article included the now images of a Trump supporting sitting in Pelosi’s office, his booted feet resting on her desk.

The phrase “a beautiful sight to behold” (美丽的风景线) first appeared in the CCP’s official People’s Daily newspaper on August 27, 2019, in a piece called, “Double Standards with No Bottom Line” (毫无底线的“双重标准”), which said “certain US politicians have spared no ends in seeking to restrain China,” and specifically criticized the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which was reintroduced in June 2019, less than two weeks after Pelosi’s “beautiful sight to behold” remarks at the CECC.

Since that first People’s Daily article, the phrase “beautiful sight to behold” has appeared in 9 other articles in the newspaper, all dealing with the issue of Hong Kong. One of the most prominent was a commentary on July 16, 2020 – shortly after the imposition of Hong Kong’s national security law and the passage by the US Congress of the “Hong Kong Autonomy Act” – by Zhong Sheng (钟声), a penname the paper has used since November 2008 for important pieces on international affairs on which the leadership wishes to register its view (the name “Zhong Sheng,” literally meaning “bell tone,” a shortened version of “bell tone to warn the world” (警世钟声).

The Zhong Sheng column read:

In the so-called “Hong Kong Autonomy Act,” the United States has made false claims about “rights” and “freedom,” exposing its outright hypocrisy. The radical violent crimes in Hong Kong have seriously endangered the lives and property of Hong Kong residents, far beyond the limits and scope of the legal exercise of personal freedom and rights. Some US politicians have called them ‘a beautiful sight’ and are openly anti-China chaos in Hong Kong.

Since its origin in 2019, Pelosi’s “beautiful sight” has become official shorthand in China for what is in fact a very old propaganda theme under the CCP, the falsehood and hypocrisy of American democracy.

On December 2, Xinhua News Agency issued a lengthy official news release with a ponderous headline that included two Chinese Communist Party buzzwords meant to signal the power of General Secretary Xi Jinping. But there was a problem.

The headline, seen in the screen capture below, read in full: “Casting the Soul of the Army Under the Banner of the Party: A General Narrative of the Entire Army Supporting the Use of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and Xi Jinping Thought on a Strong Military to Shape the Soul [of the Army] and Educate [Soldiers].”

Last night, the Xinhua article was given further prominence as it was summarized on the nightly official news cast, Xinwen Lianbo (新闻联播). This was a clear sign of official support for the article, which outlined Xi Jinping’s ideas about the importance of “realizing the Party’s goal of building a strong military in the new era.” The Xinwen Lianbo report included the full headline of the article onscreen.  

In all, the Xinhua release mentioned the phrase “Xi Jinping Thought on a Strong Military” (习近平强军思想) eight times. Of these, five uses combined the phrase with Xi’s banner term (旗帜语), the political catchphrase meant to subsume all of his ideas and stand as the monument to his legacy. Like the headline of the article itself, these five instances talked about “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and Xi Jinping Thought on a Strong Military” (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想和习近平强军思想).

By the laws of CCP discourse – remembering that in the formulation of language at the highest levels, nothing is taken lightly – this should be a serious error on the part of Xinhua, and then again on the part of CCTV.

As we have previously written, Xi’s banner term, “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想), which first appeared in October 2017 at the 19th National Congress of the CCP, is on a winding path toward formalization as the shortened and more potent “Xi Jinping Thought” (习近平思想), putting Xi on par with Mao Zedong. Despite some rather careless and premature references in academic literature and mainstream news reports outside China to “Xi Jinping Thought,” it is worth remembering that “Xi Jinping Thought” has in fact not yet emerged, not formally, and this is a distinction that certainly has not escaped Xi and his acolytes at senior levels, who are busy trying to achieve this transformation.  

“Xi Jinping Thought” is the end game, and when we see the emergence of a host of subordinate permutations of Xi thoughts in various policy areas, including “Xi Jinping Thought on a Strong Military” and “Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy” (习近平外交思想), these are meant to help pave the way toward “Xi Jinping Thought.” Think of it as a rhetorical game of crossing the river by feeling the stones. In 2018, at least 10 such sub-forms of Xi thought appeared in official sources.

But the point of Xi Jinping’s banner term is to subsume all of Xi’s ideas. There is meant to be one banner, the umbrella phrase under which all lesser banners fly. And any suggestion of equivalence between the lesser thoughts and their parent phrase would serve to diminish the gravity of “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.” This is the serious problem in the Xinhua article, the “and” drawing an equivalence between Xi’s banner term and “Xi Jinping Thought on a Strong Military.”

The term “Xi Jinping Thought on a Strong Military” appears in military-related sources, such as the People’s Liberation Army Daily, but is generally marked as being subordinate to the overarching banner term. When Party media in China reported on the release last month of the “People’s Liberation of China Joint Operation Outline (中国人民解放军联合作战纲要), they stressed that “the ‘Outline’ is guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for the New Era, and thoroughly implements Xi Jinping Thought on a Strong Military.”

The proper juxtaposition of these two phrases should have been something more like: “ . . . with Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guide, thoroughly implementing Xi Jinping Thought on a Strong Military” (以习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想为指导, 深入贯彻习近平强军思想).

How did this low-level error happen at Xinhua? How was it perpetuated on the official nightly news program? This is difficult to know. But how these terms appear together in the future will be something to continue watching.

Anyone could be forgiven for entirely ignoring last week’s China New Media Conference (中国新媒体大会), held over two days in the city of Changsha. Attended by propaganda officials, journalists, internet company representatives and communications scholars from across China, the event dealt with the insipid theme, hardly enlivened by official news releases, of “media convergence.”

How could this conference possibly be relevant outside the drab echo chamber of elite Chinese politics and communication, much less outside China? Beyond the usual parade of official news in Chinese, only Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post paid the event any heed at all.

But hold on just a minute. This year’s conference, which opened with an address from Xu Lin (徐麟), director of the State Council Information Office and a deputy propaganda minister, was an illuminating and deeply important look at media policy in China – with implications domestically and internationally. It essentially outlined how the Chinese Communist Party intends to leverage transformations in global communication, both at home and abroad (though the latter is more implied), to sustain the regime and increase its influence internationally.  

The event followed the September release of Opinions on Accelerating the Promotion of Deep and Integrated Media Development (关于加快推进媒体深度融合发展的意见), which was important enough to make the space just to the right of the masthead in the September 27 edition of the CCP’s official People’s Daily newspaper. The Opinion spelled out a range of actions to be implemented at all levels and at all departments in China in order to create “an omnimedia communication system with assurances provided by innovative management” (创新管理为保障的全媒体传播体系). The meaning of this will become clearer as we proceed.

Broadly speaking, media convergence in any context is about the integration of information and communications technologies, various forms of media content, and computer networks – for which some scholars now use the shorthand “Three C’s” (communication, computing and content). This may sound like a fringe concern, something to be hemmed and hawed over by communications scholars at some afternoon panel, but in this context media convergence is about so much more.

One of the key messages in Xu’s address to the conference was simple. “[We] must resolutely prevent the weakening of the Party’s leadership in the name of convergence,” he said, “and must resolutely prevent the risk of capital controlling public opinion.” For the Chinese Communist Party, media convergence is really about harnessing of the digital media revolution – which in any case is happening – to serve and preserve the Party’s political dominance. The stakes are large, and China’s leaders want to get this right, which is why it has become, as Xu said, a “national strategy.”

At its most fundamental, media convergence (媒体融合) in China is about resolving the dilemma facing the so-called “mainstream” media of the Chinese Communist Party – namely, that they no longer appeal to wider audiences in an era of digital media proliferation. The  challenge is to ensure that the CCP’s dominant ideology, wrapped up in the affirmation and consolidation of its own legitimacy, can permeate throughout social media and commercial websites and accounts.

Xu Lin spoke in his address to the conference of the goal in the last five-year plan to “build up a new mainstream media” (新型主流媒体), and to build up “strong county-level media convergence centers (县级融媒体中心). The project, in other words, involves a deep-level and nationwide transformation and re-building of the CCP media system. It seizes the moment of digital transformation, a trend shared across the globe, to re-insert the Party at the center of media development – after what has since the 1990s essentially been an increasing process of Party media marginalization.

Battling in the Belly of Princess Iron Fan

Concern over the possible, perhaps impending (or so is the fear), loss of dominance over public opinion is a constant theme for the CCP leadership, still enshrined in the central propaganda notion, dating to the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests in June 1989, that “guidance of public opinion” (now synonymous with media control) is essential to preserving regime stability. Throughout the Hu Jintao era, and the latter part of the Jiang Zemin era that preceded it, the project of “guidance” was in tension with the trend of media commercialization, the emergence of a vibrant internet space, and the rise of a sometimes restive core of professionally-minded journalists, and an increasingly curious and consumption-oriented population with an appetite for information but also for entertainment. 

In August 2013, in his first major speech on ideology after coming to power, Xi Jinping outlined the context of the Party’s struggle against dissent. “As for propaganda and ideological positions, if we do not occupy them, others will,” he warned his audience of propaganda apparatchiks. He talked about “three zones” existing in the field of public opinion and ideology. The first was the “red zone,” or hongse didai (红色地带), which consists primarily of “mainstream media,” meaning her Party-controlled media, and “positive forces online.” This zone, said Xi, “must be held, and absolutely cannot be lost.”

The second zone was the “black zone,” or heise didai (黑色地带), which was principally comprised of “negative language” online and in society, but which according to Xi “also includes the speech manufactured by various hostile forces” – this being a catchall term for the CCP’s internal and external enemies, though it is often understood to refer to unspecified acts of infiltration by foreign sources with hostile intent. “This is not the mainstream,” Xi said of the black zone, “but its influence must not be underestimated.”

The third zone was the “grey zone,” or huise didai (灰色地带), “existing between the red zone and the black zone.” In dealing with these various zones, Xi proposed differentiated strategies. For the red zone, the focus should be on “consolidation and expansion, steadily enlarging its social influence,” said Xi. But his characterization of the strategies for the grey and black zones was most interesting, and perhaps chilling:

For the black zone, we must courageously enter it, like [Sun Wukong] entering the belly of Princess Iron Fan to do battle, steadily promoting its red transformation. As for the grey zone, we must carry out large-scale work, accelerating its transformation into the red zone, preventing its metamorphosis into a black zone. This work must be firmly grasped, and with perseverance it will obtain results.

Xi is known to have a fondness for colorful language and historical and literary references, and his mention in this passage of “entering the belly of Princess Iron Fan to do battle” can be understood as a colorfully oblique reference to the larger project of co-optation, not just of alternative or potentially competing messages inside China, but of critical voices globally.

The reference comes from the 16^th century Chinese classic Journey to the West, in which at one point the main protagonist, the Monkey King, or “Sun Wukong” (孙悟空), possessing a magical staff that enables him to shrink down to the size of a needle, does battle with Princess Iron Fan (铁扇公主), the wife of the Bull Demon Kong, by morphing into a fly, entering her mouth and flying down into her gut. Once inside Princess Iron Fan’s soft belly, the Monkey King punches and kicks her into submission.

Xi Jinping’s colorful literary allusion, along with his identification of three public opinion zones, tells us a great deal about the CCP’s objective in harnessing the digital revolution. The point is to ensure that the Party’s political frames permeate the public opinion space domestically, consolidating the “red” hold over grey zones, and transforming, through a process of deep internal struggle, black zones into red strongholds. This can be accomplished only if the Party has a strong, and also pliable and innovative, grasp of “media convergence,” of the entire process of content creation, distribution and demand.

In his speech to the China New Media Conference, Xu Lin addresses six key aspects of the CCP’s “national strategy,” which I include below with commentary and context.

Accelerating the full construction of an omnimedia communication system (全媒传播体系)

Xu Lin outlines the creation of an comprehensive national system at four levels, from the center to the province, city and country, that integrates content production and distribution through “advanced [communication] technologies” (先进技术) – and is “resource intensive” (资源集约) with a “high-level of coordination” (协同高效). Xu characterizes the internet as the “principle battleground” (主战场) and recognizes that mobile-based and video content is a more and more dominant trend. Talking aabout the relative roles of Party media (those directly overseen by Party Committees) and commercial media (commercially operating spin-offs overseen by Party or government bodies, and for-profit online media), Xu says that while Party media will set the tone of “mainstream public opinion” (主流舆论), meaning Party-led messaging, “commercial platforms will principally serve as channels, their technological and other advantages aiding the transmission of mainstream public opinion.”

Adhering throughout to correct guidance of public opinion (始终坚守正确方向导向)

As I mentioned earlier, “correct guidance of public opinion” remains a key term denoting the central prerogative of information control to achieve regime stability. “The guidance and value orientation of public opinion is the soul of news and public opinion work,” says Xu in this section. And he states the overarching priority of media control in the midst of technological transformation more clearly here than we have perhaps seen in some time. He says: “The development of convergence may bring a change in the forms of the media, but regardless of what kind of media, regardless of whether these are mainstream [CCP] media or commercial platforms, regardless of whether they are online or offline, regardless of whether they are small-screen or large-screen, in terms of guidance there is only once standard. There is no land outside the law, and there are no public opinion enclaves.” While convergence is a priority in consolidating the Party’s control over the message, Xu is very clear here that “we must resolutely prevent the weakening of the Party’s leadership in the name of convergence, and must resolutely prevent the risk of capital controlling public opinion.”

These two points are the real heart of information policy, and the most important aspect of Xu’s remarks, reflecting what has been called “Xi Jinping Thought on the News”（习近平新闻思想）.

Beyond this fundamentals, the leadership understands that there is demand for information that it is effective and appeals. Today’s propaganda cannot be yesterday’s propaganda, and it must not seem so to increasingly savvy Chinese audiences. Moreover, it must accommodate if not lead the global standard in terms of technology, so that China reaps the economic and political benefits. And so:

Focus on expanding the production capacity of high-quality content (着力扩大优质内容产能)

Xu says that in the current information environment, what we see is “the proliferation of information, and feel that quality content is scarce.” “Whether or not we can attract the masses, and whether or not we can lead public opinion, and building consensus, is ultimately up to whether or not our content is good.”

As George Orwell wrote, “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” And here, in Xu’s third aspect, we can glimpse the doublethink at the heart of the CCP’s conception of media development and control – that you can have a vibrant media space, commercially viable and creatively responding to audiences, even as you dominate and control it. In the simplest sense, the media revolution that unfolded in China from the 1990s, even as Jiang Zemin spoke of the “Three Closenesses” (三贴近), essentially the idea that control and commercialization could proceed side by side, exposed the flaws of this doublethink. One important result was the emergence of a professional and often restive commercial media space that fought to greater space and air to breathe – and had a deep imprint too on the internet and early social media spaces in China as fields that complicated the Party’s project of “guidance.”

Media policy under Xi Jinping comes at a time when the CCP seems to have much greater hope that the technological tide is in their favor, as the tools of creation and distribution can also now be tools of restraint, repression and surveillance.

In this section too, Xu talks about the need to create a flood of information the spreads “positive energy” (正能量), another specialized media terminology under Xi Jinping that essentially is a makeover of an older term of the Jiang and Hu eras, the need to “emphasize positive propaganda.” Imagine a world of colorful, uplifting and entertaining media products, none of which turn thoughts to the unfortunate aspects of life, society or politics.

Actively seizing the high ground of communication technology (积极抢占传播技术高地)

Media convergence, says Xu, is a “media transformation brought on by technological innovation.” Technologies like 5G had driven transformation, and to stay on top in terms of guiding public opinion and ensuring the dominance of the Party as “mainstream,” the leadership must ensure that it is not just leading technological trends, but also leading in terms of the means of harnessing and controlling them.

In the past, perhaps, Chinese leaders were unprepared for various forms of media transformation, including media commercialization –coming ahead of China’s World Trade Organization membership in the late 1990s and greater integration with the global economy – and the rapid rise of social media platforms like Weibo. This time, they are determined to be prepared. “We must strengthen forward-looking research and the application of relevant new technologies in the field of news and communication,” Xu said, “and we absolutely must not simply look on and take a  passive approach to dealing with them.”

Resolutely advance deepening reforms (大刀阔斧推进深化改革).

Advancing and controlling the media transformation from a technical perspective is of course not enough. The priorities outlined in the first two aspects that Xu addresses will require the CCP also to remake the human mechanisms of media development and control. It will no longer be sufficient, for example, to have one leader on the traditional media side and another on the new media side, what Xu calls a “two skins” approach. Patchwork approaches and temporary fixes must give way instead to more comprehensive solutions on the management side, which involves of course both content production/distribution and the policing of “correct guidance.” 

Xu’s final aspect is about the people who will staff and implement this new vision of the Party-led media system.

Fully stimulating the vitality of talent teams (充分激发人才队伍活力)

“The core competitive strength of the media lies in its people, and talent, the unit, is critical to achieving convergence,” Xu says. He talks here about developing the proper human resource and training programs, and also “scientific systems of examination and assessment.”

China’s Story Converges

The “national strategy” of media convergence, Party-led digital transformation, or whatever else one wishes to call it, is an ambitious project with far-reaching implications not just for speech and information inside China, but for the global conversation on a range of issues touching on China’s ever-broadening interests — from security to 5G, from diplomacy to trade and investment, from health to human rights and democracy.

Xi Jinping has emphasized that China must expand its “discourse power” internationally by “telling China’s story well,” which essentially means shifting global narratives to suit the objectives of the CCP, with regime preservation topping the list. Just as it is key to the transformation of domestic media control, media convergence is at the heart of the re-envisioning of external propaganda and influence. In 2016, an article appearing in the People’s Daily and addressing the creation of “a new mainstream media” said that “innovative expression, and telling China’s story well, require promoting the integrated development of traditional media and emerging media, not losing any opportunity.”

In a study published last year, Chinese communication scholars Jia Wenshan (贾文山) and Zhao Limin (赵立敏) wrote for the China Social Sciences Daily (中国社会科学报) — in an article exploring the expansion of China’s “international discourse power” (国际话语权) against a dominant West — that “[how] the media tells Chinese stories well and enhances the dissemination capacity of China’s international discourse raises new expectations for media convergence.”

Understanding the international dimensions of the national strategy of what might also be called China’s “red convergence” will unfortunately require a great deal more attention to insipid events like last week’s China New Media Conference, and to equally insipid documents like the September Opinions on Accelerating the Promotion of Deep and Integrated Media Development. For Xi Jinping’s CCP, global cyberspace is a map of black, grey and red, and it is not at all an exaggeration to say that media convergence is a battle cry.

According to a report from local Hunan media, a top China Media Group executive attending the China New Media Conference, Liu Xiaolong (刘晓龙), said that “mainstream” CCP media must “persist in using offense as defense in transmitting China’s voice.” They must strive, he said, to increase the territory they occupy in the field of international communication, fighting with a “combined punch” (组合拳) in what he referred to, echoing Maoist language Xi Jinping has re-introduced to policy-making on communication, as a “public opinion struggle.”

[Featured Image: color overlay of iphone image by barnimages, available at Flickr.com under CC license.]

In a brief analysis yesterday of a number of key points emerging from yesterday’s release of the bulletin (公报), or communique, from the Fifth Plenum, we noted the phrase “ensuring the achievement by 2027 of the century-long goal of modernizing the army” (确保二〇二七年实现建军百年奋斗目标) – and suggested this might signal Xi Jinping’s determination to remain as the CCP’s general secretary not just through the Party’s centennial next year, but through the centennial of the formation of the People’s Liberation Army, which falls on August 1, 1927.

Coming at the tail end of a passage that includes mention of “Xi Jinping Thought on a Strong Military” (习近平强军思想), an important nod to Xi’s emerging legacy term “Xi Jinping Thought,” the phrase about 2027 prompted Beijing-based political commentator Wu Qiang (吴强) to remark in an interview with RTHK that Xi had effectively set aside once and for all the notion of China’s “peaceful rise,” or heping jueqi (和平崛起).   

And there is other language in yesterday’s bulletin pointing clearly to national security as an elevated priority, having a much more prominent emphasis at the highest levels of the CCP leadership than we have seen at perhaps any previous point in the reform era. One important phrase to note is “comprehensively strengthening training in preparation for war” (全面加强练兵备战), which also comes in the passage about “Xi Jinping Strong Military Thought” and the 2027 goal for the PLA.

If we search the full archives of the People’s Daily, we find that the term “preparing for war” does not appear in headlines at all after 1962 – not until exactly two years ago today, on September 30, 2018. Appearing on the front page that day, the headline included the full phrase on war preparation: “Comprehensively Strengthening Training in Preparation for War, Speeding Up the Improvement of Winning Capacity” (全面加强练兵备战加快提升打赢能力). The report dealt with Xi’s inspection tour of the PLA’s 79th Group Army, and included images of the general secretary in the cockpit of a Z-10 helicopter.

If the phrase “war preparation,” beizhan (备战), appears in the full text of the 14^th Five-Year Plan, which will not emerge until after next year’s “two sessions,” this will mark the first time in 55 years that the phrase has figured so strongly in CCP planning. The Third Five-Year Plan (1966-1970), which came at a time of intense vulnerability for China, amidst the Sino-Soviet split and ahead of rapprochement with the United States, emphasized the need to “begin with preparation for fighting big and fighting early, actively preparing for war, and putting the construction of national defense in first position [of priority].”

Finally, we should note the emphasis on national security in the paragraph immediately preceding mention of “Xi Jinping Strong Military Thought” in the bulletin, and in particular the phrase about ensuring that “security development runs through the entire process of national development in all fields“ (把安全发展贯穿国家发展各领域和全过程). The paragraph reads:

The plenary session proposed coordination of development and security, building a higher-level of secure China. [We must] adhere to the overall national security concept, implement the national security strategy, maintain and shape national security, coordinate traditional security and non-traditional security, and [ensure] that security development runs through the entire process of national development in all fields . . . .

For observers of Chinese politics who eagerly await word from secretive events like this week’s Fifth Plenum of the 19^th Central Committee of the CCP, the first whiffs of news are generally an anti-climax. The signs emerging from such events are rarely concrete, and require tedious unpacking.

Little surprise, then, that the “bulletin,” or gongbao (公报), emerging this evening from the Fifth Plenum is a vine-entangled wall of CCP rhetoric. If our task is to read the tea leaves, what we have here is sludge. There are, however, a few surprises to note in the bulletin, and these might offer some initial insights.

Banners Not Quite Flying

First, as we have noted repeatedly at CMP, one of the most important aspects of CCP discourse to watch over recent months has been the emergence (since the 19^th National Congress in 2017) of Xi Jinping’s “banner term” (旗帜语) – “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想) – and its gradual transformation from a cumbersome and unpalatable phrase into a short and powerful statement of Xi’s power and centrality, namely “Xi Jinping Thought” (习近平思想). When it comes to the world of Party rhetoric, this is the General Secretary’s end-game, putting his legacy on equal footing with Mao Zedong.

More recently, we have seen more robust talk about various forms of shortened Xi thoughts in concrete policy areas, perhaps signalling a testing of the waters at the top of the leadership. One of the most prominent cases was the opening in July by foreign minister Wang Yi of a new center for “Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy.” Abridged Xi thoughts like this get us a bit closer to the coveted “Xi Jinping Thought.”

What do we find in the bulletin released today? The longer version of Xi’s banner term does appear, but just twice in the text. And in both of these instances the lengthy phrase appears in the context of standardized introductions of the banner terms of past CCP leaders (think of it as the fossil record of CCP legacies):

一致认为，一年来，中央政治局高举中国特色社会主义伟大旗帜，坚持以马克思列宁主义、毛泽东思想、邓小平理论、“三个代表”重要思想、科学发展观、习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想为指导 . . . 

It was unanimously agreed that over the past year, with the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party raising high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, adhering to the guidance provided by Marxism-Leninism,  Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping  Theory, the important thought of the “Three Represents,” the scientific view of development, and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era . . .

The shortened phrase “Xi Jinping Thought” does not appear at all in the bulletin. However,  there is one stepping stone phrase in the arena of national security, the text emphasizing the need to “carry out Xi Jinping Thought on Military Strengthening” (习近平强军思想), which also mentions the need to “uphold the party’s absolute leadership over the people’s army.”

We cannot of course definitively read the internal environment in the CCP from its discourse, but the absence of Xi’s coveted “thought” seems to indicate that the work of consolidating his strength and preparing his legacy is ongoing.

Looking to the Future

While we’re on the subject of Xi Jinping’s legacy, there is the crucial question of succession. Xi Jinping removed presidential term limits back in 2018. Will he have a third, or even a fourth term, during which to further shore up his power and position? The bulletin cannot give us a definitive answer. But if we look at how each of the four most recent plenary bulletins involving new five-year plans have been introduced in their titles, there is perhaps an interesting clue:

In 2005: Proposal by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for the 11^th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development /《中共中央关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十一个五年规划的建议》

In 2010: Proposal by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for the 12^th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development /《中共中央关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十二个五年规划的建议》

In 2015: Proposal by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for the 13^th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development /《中共中央关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十三个五年规划的建议》

In 2020: Proposal by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for the 14^th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and a Vision for 2035 / 《中共中央关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十四个五年规划和二〇三五年远景目标的建议》

The addition in this year’s plan of “and a vision for 2035” is impossible to miss, and could suggest not just the extension of current policymaking through to 2035, but the extension of the current leadership. This could be an important statement of intent, that Xi Jinping plans to continue influencing policy for more than a decade to come.

But we have another important statement as well. In the section on modernizing national security and the military toward the end of the bulletin, there is mention of “ensuring the achievement by 2027 of the century-long goal of modernizing the army” (确保二〇二七年实现建军百年奋斗目标). It’s hard not to read this as a statement of Xi Jinping’s personal determination to preside not just over the centennial of the CCP in July next year, but also the centennial of the formation of the People’s Liberation Army on August 1, 1927.

Celebrations for the centennial of the PLA would be happening several months before the 21st National Congress of the CCP, which should come in the fall of 2027. So we can, by this reasoning, have some expectation that Xi expects to serve at least one more term, through the end of 2027.

Rivalries Between the Lines

On the international environment facing China, and in particular US-China tensions and the upcoming presidential election in the US, we can note that there is no direct mention of US-China relations, which might have been anticipated.

But the section dealing with China’s external relations – coming after a long bit about the war on poverty and how the plenary session “highly appraised the definitive achievements made in the decisive victory in building a comprehensively well-off society” – mentions that the session “deeply analyzed the profound and complex changes facing our country’s development environment.” That is code, certainly, for the US-China trade war and a range of other issues China has faced as it has tried to expand its presence in the global economy, achieve technological dominance, and push programs like the Belt and Road Initiative.

In this same section, we have language about how “today’s world is undergoing immense changes such as have not been seen in a century, a new round of technological and industrial revolution is in deep development, and the balance of international forces is undergoing profoundly readjustment.” This seems to be an indirect reference to the US-China rivalry and changes to the global order, as well as China’s intention to seize the opportunity afforded by the international environment to achieve technological dominance.  

We can also find the phrase “technological independence and self-reliance” (科技自立自强), which has been used sporadically by Chinese media (less by official state media) in the midst of the US-China trade war, but has not yet been given this level of prominence. An article posted this evening at the Shanghai-based website Guancha.cn also notes the significance of the statement in the bulletin about “taking scientific and technological independence and self-reliance as strategic support for national development” (把科技自立自强作为国家发展的战略支撑).

The bulletin concludes with two oft-seen phrases in Chinese diplomacy, “promoting the building of a new model of international relations” (推动构建新型国际关系) and a “community of common destiny for mankind” (人类命运共同体).

The Need for a New Comprehensive

Chinese discourse analysts and other sad souls who follow the world of the CCP’s special phrasings,  or tifa (提法), will be familiar with the so-called “four comprehensives,” a set of political goals laid out by Xi Jinping in 2014. For the past six years, these have been set out as follows:

Comprehensive building of a moderately well-off society / 全面建成小康社会
Comprehensive deepening of reform / 全面深化改革
Comprehensive promotion of governing the nation in accord with the law / 全面推进依法治国
Comprehensive strict governance of the Party / 全面从严治党

But of course 2020 was established long ago as the year during which China was to fully accomplish the building of a moderately well-off society, and its success in doing so, and “definitively,” is mentioned in the first one-fifth of the bulletin. Before you applaud, do remember that there was never any way that the CCP was NOT going to reach this goal, which is how goals work under the Party’s leadership.

So clearly the “four comprehensives” must change, right? Right. And this is exactly what we see. The formula now enshrined in the bulletin – as we witness the birth of a new set of phrases – is led by a new objective, ”promoting the comprehensive building of a modern socialist country” (推进全面建设社会主义现代化国家).