And that’s great news.
It’s great news for the people of Hunan, whom
he will be representing
as a deputy in China’s National People’s Congress. There’s even the
chance that Wang’s Qishan’s selection is just a prelude to him being named
Vice-President when that legislative body meets in a couple of months—a
position that could well enable Wang to continue to support President Xi Jinping and
his programs.
And it’s great news for all of those analysts
who predicted that Wang Qishan [王岐山] wouldn’t retire and would remain on the
Politburo to continue being the anticorruption czar that Chinese officials
feared and so many China Hands admired.
It’s important here not to mention that the latter prediction was utterly wrong. Nor should anyone note that it came from many of
the same folks whose sage advice for some years was that China would be opening up
economically and politically; that the new generation of China’s leaders
wouldn’t be ideologues but technocrats; and that leadership succession in Beijing
was becoming more institutionalized and therefore more predictable. There were
many conferences and professional meetings about such themes, and those with
such wisdom were well funded for their forecasts. Good for them; they did well, for themselves.
Maybe there’s material out there written by those who prognosticated such matters that explains why and how they missed so much--perhaps an extended essay or two (heck, maybe even a conference) as to what might
be learned from those errors of analysis. There could be; but if there are any mea culpas about and ideas about how to avoid such problems in the future, they’re proving terribly
difficult to locate.
In any event, let’s just not mention those
things.
Here's what we should know: Nothing in the analysis of Chinese politics
is easy. And there’s a planetary difference between those who examine Chinese
sources and statements and do the hard slogging of actual reporting, and those
who seem to rely on China Daily and
their assistants for their weekly dollop of charting the country’s direction—and
poke fun at those in the former camp.[1]
It’s just that a little more humility and a lot less hubris in this project of
trying to understand the nature and trajectory of Chinese politics wouldn’t go
amiss.
But back to Wang Qishan.
Maybe he’s headed for Vice President, using
the back door of China’s legislature to continue to help Xi.
That's not inconceivable. Wang has been brilliant at many things, and he is purported to have a warm relationship with Xi.
At the same time, getting Wang elevated may not be (or have been) a political deal easily done. Indeed, forgotten in all the gushing about Wang by foreign diplomats
and bankers and others who’ve shaken hands for photo ops with him is that Wang
has made a whole lot of enemies in the party ranks with his anticorruption
campaign; more than a few local officials haven’t been shy about privately
condemning the crusade and Wang’s tactics. Actually, at this time last year,
there were clear
and strong signs that the antigraft crusade was being put aside for a time, probably
in part because Beijing wanted to try other strategies and maybe also because local
resistance and outright opposition to Wang and the campaign had taken a firmer hold.
So, did Xi have to burn some
political capital to get Wang back—that maybe
Xi isn’t quite the dominant leader so many assure us Xi is, and that he now needs Wang to step back in, in some formal way?
Is it also possible that Wang isn’t exactly the
fabulous mentor and political ally that many have made him out to be—or that he
had been, but that Wang is worried that Xi is listening to advisers who have
been urging the Party leader to double-down on the increasingly radical hardline and is desperate to be heard once more?
Is it at all conceivable that more than a few
observers are projecting their own hopes on Wang—that he’s the latest version
of, say, deposed Party leader Zhao
Ziyang [赵紫阳] and former Premier
Wen Jiaobao [温家宝] —where many Western analysts
saw qualities that they wanted because the existing alternative was unpleasing? That is, could Wang's reappearance be bad news for those who hoped that liberal reform might at least be hiding out, holed up in the NPC?
Yes, and yes and yes.
It’s all possible.[2]
Just as hardly
anyone predicted that Wang would return to an official position of some
power,[3]
there’s not a lot of reason right now to think that Wang’s return is a
major event--at least not yet. No one can know—which is fine, so long as those of us who try to
decipher Chinese politics come out and say so.
Still, it’s strange stuff to be reading about
Wang, especially the confidence among some quoted as if they know what this is all
about. Up to now, Xi was in total command, and the National People’s Congress
was a do-nothing, rubber-stamping legislative body. Suddenly, Wang being named
as a NPC representative from Hunan is presented as a portent of a new political situation
here in China. Nothing is said about what any of this means in terms of policy;
just that Wang helps Xi with securing power that everyone was being told Xi had
plenty of already.
Ok, maybe that’s fine. But really it's not.
Amidst all of this speculation, apparently there’s no possibility that
Wang Qishan is a patriot and a loyal comrade; that he believes that the
National People’s Congress does good and important work; and that still wants
to serve the Party and the nation, even in a far more subdued role.[4]
Nah. Nuance isn’t nearly as much fun when nefarious
explanations will do just as well.
Well, here’s another possibility.
If there’s one thing we do know about Wang Qishan
is that he’s a warrior.
So, as the
NBA trade deadline approaches and with growing concerns at Golden State if
one of their stars were suddenly injured, expect Wang to be signed to a
10-day contract, coming off the bench to relieve Draymond Green at power
forward.
Look for Wang Qishan to do a lot of posting-up, setting picks for the real scorers, and playing excellent defence on behalf of the team.
After all, that's been Wang's role up to now and he clearly
has a few moves left.
Long live Wang Qishan.
[1] If you have to ask yourself which camp you
reside in, you’re in the latter one.
[2] That there is clear disagreement between the
two best newspapers for reporting on China—The
Wall Street Journal and The
New York Times—about what Wang’s selection portends is telling and should be instructive. It probably won't be.
[3] The media outlet that did predict that possibility and could well
be on the mark with Wang--South China Morning Post-- is clearly receiving instructions from certain parties in
Beijing to leak or spin information for an English-reading audience.
[4] After all, there’s precedent for that in
Chinese politics: former Premier
Zhu Rongji [朱镕基], for one.
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