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KARA:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Kara Jensen-Mackinnon - this is 7am.

Xi Jinping is ascending to a historic level of power. He is the head of the Chinese Communist Party, which has 95 million people as members, and is the most powerful leader of China since Chairman Mao. Now, he is set to become what experts have called China’s ‘leader for life’. Some have argued, that makes him the most powerful man in the world.
Today, former Australian prime minister and recent recipient of a doctorate in Xi Jinping’s ideology from the University of Oxford, Kevin Rudd, on the coronation of Xi Jinping and how his ideology has changed China forever.
It’s Monday, October 17.

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KARA:

Kevin - The Chinese Communist Party is meeting for their National Congress, and it's presumed that Xi Jinping will be granted a third term as leader, which is something that hasn't happened since Chairman Mao led the party. So what does a third term mean for Xi Jinping and how significant is this Congress?

Archival Tape – Newsreader

“It was decided that the 20th CPC National Congress will be convened from October 16th in Beijing.”

KEVIN:

Very much the 20th Party Congress will be a coronation of Xi Jinping…

Archival Tape – Xi Jinping speaks in Mandarin

KEVIN:

…not so much to become leader for a third five-year term…

Archival Tape – Xi Jinping speaks in Mandarin

KEVIN:

…but in all probability, to become leader for life. And that's where the analogy with Mao Zedong comes in.

Archival Tape – Xi Jinping speaks in Mandarin

KEVIN:

Once you've broken the previous convention of a leader's more or less being in position for two five-year terms…

Archival Tape – Newsreader

“Removing China's presidential term limits will have major consequences, of course, inside and outside the country.”

KEVIN:

…and for their successors to be apparent in the second of those five-year terms. Once that's been broken, you are back to becoming virtually leader for life.

Archival Tape – Newsreader

“He is an incredibly powerful politician. He is now the head of the Communist Party. He is the head of the military. And now he could be president for life if he so chooses. That means that China is basically now under one man rule.”

KEVIN:

So therefore, what Australia… what the rest of the world needs to adapt to is that barring an act of God, this leader is going to be with us for a very long time.

Archival Tape – Xi Jinping speaks in Mandarin

KARA:

And can you give us some insights into how this national Congress actually works? I mean, I'm guessing they don't have sausage sizzles and that sort of thing. So what does the process of electing a leader in China actually look like?

KEVIN:

Well, at a technical level, they go through an exhaustive selection process for all local representatives to the Congress, some 2300 plus, from right across the country. And again, there's been a difference in the past under Hu Jintao, the previous general secretary. At a local level, they often conducted what's called straw ballots, that is to identify amongst themselves who would be best to become the representative to the national Congress. Xi Jinping, amongst other changes he's brought in the last decade, has got rid of that nonsense. Thank you very much. And so these are very much all selected delegates by the local office of the Central Organisation Department. And the organisation department of the party centre is effectively the personnel department and it accumulates files on who is totally reliable and who is less reliable. And finally, this group, 2300 plus of them, will spontaneously vote 2300 to zero to appoint Xi Jinping to a third term.

KARA:

And I want to get to the broader political implications of this third term but first, I wonder if we can go back a little and speak about Xi Jinping and who he actually is. Can you tell me about the circumstances that he was born into and how those circumstances have shaped him as a person?

KEVIN:

Xi Jinping is the son of a previous Politburo member, whose name is Xi Zhongxun. And Xi Zhongxun, - while not being a major revolutionary figure pre ‘49 - was a significant military figure during that period and was responsible for the military in north western China during the period that Mao was consolidating his own power…

Archival Tape – 1967 Cultural Revolution events field-recording [applause and music]

KEVIN:

…before the end of the war against Japan in ‘45 and before the Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army then launched the second civil war against the KMT.

Archival Tape – Vintage Newsreader

“The Communists suddenly take the initiative. The reds, strengthened by fresh native troops sever the railroad lines and cut off Kuo Min Tong supply. Companies, regiments and then whole divisions surrender to the rebels. The tide of war has turned.”

Archival Tape – Chairman Mao’s victory speech 1949 in Mandarin

KEVIN:

So from all that, his father has some revolutionary standing, and for those reasons, rose steadily through the ranks in the new China. That is after 49, but was also purged by Mao in the early sixties and then purged again during the Cultural Revolution.

Archival Tape – Newsreader

“Xi Jinping himself as an adolescent, was sent down to the countryside with millions of other privileged youths.”

Archival Tape – Xi Jinping, translated from Mandarin to English

“I remember it very clearly, it was January 1969, everyone was crying, there wasn't anyone on the train who didn't cry. But I was the only one laughing. At the time, my relatives beside the train asked me: 'Why are you smiling?’ I told them that if I had to stay, then I'd be crying, because I wouldn't even know if I'd live or die."

KEVIN:

But the reason I mention all that is that in his own career is therefore had direct exposure to the Machiavellian political survival skills necessary in order to navigate central politics. So what he brings to the table is a privileged political family background, but one which is known political violence as well, and also as a first hand observer of the craft necessary to survive and advance in a one party state.

KARA:

Hmm. And so once he did return to the fold of the Communist Party, as you said, he ended up pursuing a political career within that party. And while he was rising up the ranks, you actually met Xi Jinping several times. And I suppose perhaps most significantly, as prime minister, you hosted him at the lodge back in 2010. What were your impressions of him at that point?

KEVIN:

Yeah, we did run into each other, ironically, back in 1986 when I was bag carrying for Bob Hawke, when Bob was visiting China and I was doing the advance work actually in a Chinese provincial city called Xiamen, which is on the coast of Fujian. But more importantly, though, in terms of substantive conversation, when he visited in 2010, this was not long before he became general secretary of the party, but it was clear that he was going to take on that position. I had a long number of conversations with him in Canberra and that's because I knew that this would be a critical relationship for Australia for the future. What emerged from all that was the first Chinese political leader that I'd ever engaged who didn't depend on detailed notes to engage his foreign interlocutors. He spoke extemporaneously for hours on end about any subject that I raised when I was cross-reference this with others from around the world - that's been their experience as well. That's not to say that he shoots the breeze and talks at length about Essendon in the grand final. But he doesn't rely at least obviously on the agreed formalised political position to express his point of view.

KARA:

And so eventually Xi Jinping rose to become the man that everyone presumed he would. That is the next leader of China. So how had politics been run in China until that point? And how did that shift when Xi became leader?

KEVIN:

When Xi Jinping became leader at the end of 2012, in what's called the 18th Party Congress, two party congresses ago. It was at the end of what we now refer to as the reform and opening period, this period of reform and opening is the China most of us have become familiar with across the last couple of generations, where, despite the apparent camouflage of what was still technically called a Marxist-Leninist state, underneath it all it was becoming an increasingly rollicking, rambunctious and robust, I suppose, state capitalist system. Still Leninist in the sense that they would crack down, as they did in '89, violently against political dissent, but increasingly a pro-market economy. Ideology during the previous 35 year period became increasingly a type of formalism. Xi Jinping from 2013 on made it very clear to the party's centre that one of the reasons that the Communist Party, the Soviet Union, imploded and the Soviet Union collapsed was because they had relaxed ideological control from the centre. So right from 2013, you see the re-emergence of Xi Jinping as something of a Marxist-Leninist, ideological fundamentalist.

KARA:

We’ll be back after this.

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KARA:

Kevin, we've been talking about Xi Jinping's leadership of the Communist Party and how he's fundamentally reshaped Chinese politics in his image. Can you tell me what he's achieved in his first two terms to transform the country's political landscape?

KEVIN:

On the political level, he is so radically consolidating power around himself. He now has more power than any Chinese political leader, on the individual level since Mao. He has quite viciously purged anyone who looks like a serious source of political dissent against him and sent them to jail. In fact, he finished another such purge recently of senior officials within the security apparatus who were attacked for running an anti-party clique. It's also effectively rolled out a reign of terror in the country, which was called the anti-corruption campaign and the party rectification campaign more recently. The latter, drawing upon what Mao himself did. And this is basically to root out corruption, but also to send a clear message to the rest of the system that if you're politically suspect, you'll have an anti-corruption investigation launched into you and they'll find something. And so in a Chinese Communist Party of some 95 million members in the last ten years there's been something like 11 million incidents of disciplinary action against party members for corrupt activity. It's about 15% of the entire party. So if you're sitting down there as Joe Wang, you're pretty anxious about doing the right thing by the centre for fear of what will happen to you.

So underpinning everything else that Xi Jinping has done in economic terms and in foreign and security policy terms since 2012, we need to be very clear about what he's done in the pure political domain to underpin all of that.

KARA:

As you say. Xi Jinping is set to become something like a leader for life. How far do his plans for the future of China actually go?

KEVIN:

If you look carefully at what he said at the 19th Party Congress just five years ago…

Archival Tape – Xi JinPing, translated:

"Singing the National Anthem…”
[fanfare trumpets begin]

KEVIN:

He said for the party a set of what's called interim goals to be realised by 2035. Now that's already 13 years away. So when you want an indication of how long Xi Jinping intends to be around personally, this will be phase one, and by then he would only be about 82 years old, almost young enough to become president of the United States. And so he has been quite plain about what he expects of the country and the party by then. One of the principal objectives, he said for 2035 is for the full and final completion of the modernisation of the Chinese military

Archival Tape – Xi Jinping, translated:

“Our military must require combat capability as the criteria to meet in all its work and focus on how to win when it is called on.”

KEVIN:

…to become a modern fighting force of world standards capable of, quote, fighting and winning wars, unquote. It's one of the reasons we are most anxious about what happens in the 2030s, by China on the question of Taiwan.

KARA:

And I mean, it's becoming very clear that China under Jinping has become far more assertive with the rest of the world in pursuing its own interests. So what does this third term and beyond look like for countries like Australia? What can we expect?

KEVIN:

I think we are likely to see a continuation of Xi Jinping's authoritarian regime domestically, which will have continuing human rights interventions, not just in relation to Xinjiang and Uyghurs, but across the board in terms of Tibet, Hong Kong…

Archival Tape – Newsreader

“This morning, anti-government protests in Hong Kong reaching a new level of violence as police now say they arrested over 260 people in just one day. Most are students.”

KEVIN:

…Or the economy. Unless he changes ideological course, the 20th Party Congress, you're likely to see a slowing in Chinese economic growth.

Archival Tape – Newsreader

“China's economy contracted sharply from April to June as the country's zero-covid policy took its toll falling by 2.6% in the second quarter, compared to the first, according to official data on Friday.”

KEVIN:

That's of significance for Australia because the assumptions of 35 years or more has been that China would continue to grow, if not a double digit level, then at 8% levels, but now it's 6% levels. But the new normal under Xi Jinping's more Marxist approach, the economy is actually cut back to something like two or three or three or 4% growth. And that changes radically our assumptions about the historical size and future size of the Chinese market. In foreign and security policy terms, China will continue to become assertive in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific as it will be across the world,

Archival Tape – Xi Jinping, translated:

“The South China Sea islands have been China's territory since ancient times, and it is the founding duty of the Chinese government to uphold China's territorial sovereignty and legitimate maritime rights and interests.”

KEVIN:

There'll be ebbs and flows in terms of the level of tension with foreign governments, including Australia. But by and large, the strategic trend line of a more assertive, self-confident China will continue across most of the policy domains through which we and other countries engage them.

KARA:

And finally, Kevin, these goals of Xi Jinping – they’re in almost direct competition with what a lot of other world leaders would want, in terms of the future of world politics. So how do you see this ideological competition playing out?

KEVIN:

Xi Jinping's future ideological worldview is one which does not accept the idea that liberal democracy and universal human rights should be the norms for the global future. Xi Jinping has signalled that he wants to roll that back in the direction of state sovereignty and a state's power to determine what rights are accorded to their peoples and an international system with state power, that is, the power of the Chinese state, would, in his view, become the organising principle for how China behaves in the region and the world. Learning from the American order post ‘45 as China would see it. So the question for democracies is do you simply accept that as the inevitable consequence of changing global geopolitics or the democracies of the world in Europe, Asia and in the Americas and elsewhere begin to respond by a reassertion of the principles of democracy, the principles of universal human rights, the principles of an open society, of open economies, of open politics, and a rules-based international system anchored in the underpinning principles of liberalism. And if that's the case, then we're in the midst of a sizeable ideological debate with China ourselves, whether we choose to recognise that or not.

KARA:

Kevin, thank you so much for your time.

KEVIN:

Good to be with you and good to be on the podcast.

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KARA:

Also in the news today…

The federal government has announced a plan to increase paid parental leave to give parents six months of paid leave by 2026.

Under the plan, single parents will be eligible to take six months off and two-parent households will have flexibility to decide how they split the leave.

And..

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss sacked her chancellor on Friday after the pair’s so-called ‘mini budget’ threw markets into chaos.

The new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has promised higher taxes than were originally planned, to reassure markets that there will be stability in the UK economy.

I’m Kara Jensen Mackinnon, this is 7am - see you tomorrow

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