China: the president’s men

Usually it is a well-oiled ritual, unsurprisingly confirming the decisions announced by the Chinese Communist Party at its congress a few months earlier. This time, the meeting in Beijing of the People’s National Assembly and its 3,000 delegates, which will end next Monday, is of major political interest. Xi Jinping has just been confirmed as head of state for a third 5-year term – this is unprecedented – and the six members of the new political bureau of the Central Committee officially take office.

What are Xi Jinping’s priorities?

All of the president’s men – not a single woman – are loyal followers who have followed and served him during his own rise – starting with new premier Li Qiang, hitherto party leader in Shanghai. Almost complete renewal of personnel at the top of power, reorganization of government structures to further strengthen control of the financial sector and large conglomerates, priority given to the technological race with the American rival, forecasts of moderate growth in full exit from Covid but continuous increase in military spending: it is indeed the guidelines of the second largest economy in the world which are thus drawn, and the confirmed ambitions of the master of a China who intends to impose a new organization of the world to his advantage. How to understand Xi Jinping’s priorities, what does his choice of the people around him mean, what should we expect from Europe, the United States, Japan and Taiwan?

Stéphanie Balme wrote a publication on the Chinese dream of “scientific superpower”, in the journal

The research (2020). Mathieu Duchâtel is the author of the

Geopolitics of China (PUF, Que Sais-Je, third edition in September 2022). Valérie Niquet is the author of

China in 100 questions, a book published by Tallandier editions. She also contributed, notably with Hubert Testard, to the writing of a collective work published by the Cherche-Midi editions last October. The test in question

The Chinese Files, was prefaced by Mathieu Duchâtel.