← Sharp China with Bill Bishop
Sharp China with Bill Bishop
(Preview) Party Building and Xi’s Dominance; Memory Chips and ASML Accusations; Germany’s Puzzling Push for Plaza Accords
00:14:12
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A
Foreign.
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Welcome to Sharp China. I'm Andrew Sharp and you are listening to a free preview of today's episode.
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Hello and welcome back to another episode of Sharp China. I'm Andrew Sharp and on the other line, Bill Bishop. Bill, how you doing?
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C
I'm doing well, Andrew, I missed you last week. I know. We had some scheduling issues. Sorry, everyone. We missed an episode last week. But it's good to be back.
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It is good to be back. Are you going to be watching the NBA draft on Tuesday night here?
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C
No. Okay. I mean, who are the. Who are the Wizards going to screw up about?
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I like that you almost called them the Bullets for a minute there. Hopefully they can change the name and rebrand somewhere along the way. They are choosing between AJ Debanza and Darren Peterson, guard from Kansas and a forward from byu. And by the time people listen to this, we're recording this Tuesday afternoon, they will have chosen between the two. I want them to take Darren Peterson from Kansas, which virtually guarantees they will take AJ debance of and then maybe
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C
they'll trade for a 40 to 41 year old LeBron.
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A
Oh, my God. I mean, don't get me started. They handed out a horrible contract to Trae Young, their new starting point guard on Monday. So this morning I was on D.C. radio with the junkies excoriating the Wizards for their terrible decision making and they haven't even made the first pick yet. So. All right, all part of the fun with D.C. sports.
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I'm sorry, this is not Sharp Wizards. So we will get back to China.
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But no, I mean, look, if it were Sharp Wizards, it would be far more depressing. So short.
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C
It'll be a very short podcast.
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All right, well, to begin today, I am going to read from your Monday newsletter the best piece I have read so far. You wrote on the new strain of Xi thought announced last week is Xi Jinping's thought on party building and the four major changes in CCP governance by China Thought Express. This time a year ago, you write, the rumor mill was churning about alleged challenges to Xi A year on. The rollout of Xi Thought on Party Building should be seen as a sign of his dominance.
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And.
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And that we have fully entered the personnel planning period for next year's 21st Party Congress. And so the context for that is that the National Conference on Party Building was held last week, June 15, and there was a shift in language from the General Secretary's important thought on party building to Xi Jinping's thought on party building. What else was notable to you from the Party Building summit.
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C
No, I mean, I think what's just notable is how it has now become one of the sub bodies of Xi thought along with, you know, she thought on law, the economy, diplomacy, ecological civilization and the military. And the timing, of course, is interesting just because, you know, Tai Chi, his, his consigliere, the Standing Committee member, longtime sort of, you know, close, close aide, took over the party school. Sort of a strange personnel move in the sense that that he should have been running it a long time ago, but we don't know why it took so long. But you know, that. And then this rolls out and of course, Hai, she sort of oversees this conference on Xi thought on party building last week. We really are in the, you know, gearing up for the 21st Party Congress likely next fall, fall of 2027.
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And, and as we gear up, this just further codifies Xi's premises.
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Everything that's going to be Xi's party, you know, there's a study campaign underway today. We learned that and it will, I guarantee, bestseller. It will probably sell more than the regime change book about Trump that came out today. It's called the Get Ready. It's called the volumes 1 and 2 of selected works of Xi Jinping on Party Building just announced today.
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There you go. Coming to the top of the bestseller list in Beijing, I'm sure.
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And one thing, I mean the one thing is also will be interesting, right, is as we get towards the 21st Party Congress and everyone's going to be looking at, of course, you look at personnel, you look at other people who have arisen to the, say, the Standing Committee of the Politburo, who look like they really, the Politburo, effectively, they look like they could be potential successors to Xi. We don't know at this point. One of the other things to look for is do we finally get just Xi Jinping thought.
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Okay.
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As opposed to Xi Jinping thought on
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xyz, which would be the successor to
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Mao Zedong thought or would just be more similar level of. Because there wasn't Mao Zedong thought on six or seven other categories. I mean, there was, but it was just, it was just mods of own thought.
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Yeah.
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Okay. And that would be the ultimate bestseller if that's ever forthcoming.
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But it is. You know, I wanted to talk about this today just because again, I think we started last June. We remember we talked about, it was kind of early in the rumor cycle last summer. It's usually August, you know, when, when, when they all go away for two weeks for the break or whatever you
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call it and when you were texting me as we were prepping this morning, it had not occurred to me that it had been a full year since the summer of she rumors, the house arrest rumors. I think that lasted into like.
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No, no, it was, it was a. It was. And you know there was clearly stuff going on. Right. I mean we had the you know the fall of telling us ya. I mean and before him the who was it Huedong and Miaohua. But it definitely again a year on. It'll be interesting to see what rumors crop up this summer. So far nothing is really churning about how somehow she's in trouble. You know, there's a coup underway and I think this party building is. It's really all about getting everybody, making sure everybody understands exactly who's in charge, who's running the party. There are no doubts, there's no, no slacking off. And so I think it really should be cited within this broader context of the beginnings of the preparations or the acceleration of the preparations for next year's party Congress.
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Right. And to the extent that she is firmly in charge now as we look back to where we were a year ago, would you say that there was smoke where all the rumors were and that it wasn't a pure invention but that she ultimately just prevailed and retained and further entrenched his control?
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I haven't seen any evidence that I mean there's always smoke in Beijing. I mean air is better. But no, but honestly no, there's no sort of nothing has subsequently come up to say that there are any real, real challenges.
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Okay. Right then the purges and the arrests.
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But the purges are not necessarily, you know, we don't know what really triggered them. And of course some of the folks who are more forward leaning on some of the ruse summer want to say oh well this, you know the purge is a reaction to what was going on. It's possible have not seen anything or heard anything that would would what I would consider to be convincing or dispositive of the at all. Dispositive.
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Yeah.
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Okay. Yeah. It's also worth noting I think this party building, you know, the chief thought on party building conference and announcement pretty much coincided with his birthday last week. So I mean you know, if you're Tai Chi and this is a. This is a great present, right?
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Indeed. Well and we'll see what awaits us at the 21st Party Congress and whether there's any indication of a potential successor somewhere along the line. Like what would you look for as we search for potential successors?
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I Mean somebody who is in the, you know, again, the, the operating assumption is Xi will continue in his role, continue as a leader through the 21st Party Congress, which would mean four terms at least 20 years. Right. He's already on his 14th year, coming up on 14 years in November. I think it would be somebody who is most likely in their, you know, late 50s, early 60s.
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Okay.
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And has significant experience running a province or more or running large cities as well. So. But you know, there are a lot, there's lots of stuff going on. There are people being reshuffled at the provincial level and you know, space being made. People are being retired maybe or they should have been because they want to promote younger officials that get more experience in the like running a province, which again is like running a province, is like running a country for most countries in terms of the size and the complexity of the population, the economy, et cetera.
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Well, but to date, if you as a China watcher were trying to put together a short list, you couldn't really do that right now as far as potential successors, is that right?
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It would be extremely speculative and not super useful at this point because we just really don't know. I mean people are trying.
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Signs are that she is powerful.
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I shouldn't say it's not useful. It's useful. It's useful to go through the exercise, but I'm not sure that I certainly have not seen any indications of, you know, these are the top five people you should be watching.
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Indeed.
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And actually find that convincing. And frankly, if you're one of those five people, you probably don't want to be on the list because being the sort of successor in waiting has right.
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Generally cheese power is not necessarily a secure place to be. Well, we shall see. I enjoyed the rundown from China Thought Express. There was one piece that I wanted to read from their write up of thought the Party building summit. Anti corruption also continues to occupy an important place in the 14 upholds advancing in one integrated way the conditions in which officials dare not, cannot and do not want to be corrupt has been retained while quote using strict discipline to manage and govern the whole party has been added or strengthened. This shows that anti corruption is no longer only a political campaign a of quote taking down tigers and swatting flies nor only a judicial process of clearing out corrupt officials. It has become a normalized mechanism of control here. However, there is also a large paradox. The stricter the discipline, the safer cadres may be. But the less willing they may become to act, the more centralized the organization, the faster execution may come, but the fewer chances there may be for correction, the stronger party character becomes, the steadier loyalty may be, but the less real feedback there may be. I thought that was a good articulation of the paradox.
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It's good. And it's also, I think when you're looking at, you know, the recent economic data out of China hasn't been great. You know, when you're looking at the feedback mechanism and what officials are going to be focused on, you know, we see in the U.S. oh, midterms are coming up. Therefore, you know, the president, people, you know, elected representatives are all worried about the economy. You know, the economy obviously matters, but first and foremost, and I think this, this is a reminder in this new study campaign, you know, of this, of this Xi Jinping thought on party building is just a reminder that the focus really over the next 18 months, the primary focus will be on the politics even more than usual.
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Yes. And we'll see. I mean it's the eternal question is like as Xi further entrenches his power and retains all this control, how much does his assertion of control come at the expense of competence and a capacity to self correct?
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Well, you know, it's interesting part of the, you know, there, I think we're up to number eight in sort of a series of commentaries on, from Xinhua. They're going through the 14 upholds. We're not going to read them to you. Like we could put a link in the newsletter where I wrote them out. Okay. But you know, one of the things this new version or this new sub branch of she Thought addresses is the whole question of, you know, how does the party effectively stay in power and self correct or have their self revolution. And so this is part of it. This is the sort of extension of the self revolution. And you know, this is answering the question of how do we avoid the dynastic cycle that's plagued Chinese history where, you know, dynasty rises and then falls.
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Yeah.
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So they're thinking about it.
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They've been thinking about it for a long time. You know, Mao had the famous conversation about it and that's what's, that's where it sort of comes from the conversation in the cave. We can put more info, you know, we'll sort of put a link to, to give a background on that. But anyway, the point is, you know, this is the party is going to self correct. The party is going to self police, self monitor and above everything else will be more discipline, more ideological conformity. And of course, Xi Jinping thought of XYZ is primary, as is, you know, the primacy of the party center, which of course is the primacy of Xi Jinping.
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Yeah, well, I can't wait to see what sort of rumors emerge in this environment over the next 18.
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I mean, I think, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, he had to do this out of weakness. Right.
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Perhaps. And he's on house arrest.
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Fighting back from house arrest. Yeah. Well, look, you.
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Credit to you because you did nail it last summer over and over again. I think we had to talk about the rumors at about five different podcasts, and each time you said, I don't really see anything. And I think all of this is frankly pretty ridiculous.
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And then he'll. And then, then, you know, something will happen on Friday and don't, please, you know, again, like, you did this with the weather two weeks ago.
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You know, maybe, hey, look, who knows? Anything is possible and opacity still carries the day with all of this. So, yes, for now, we can shift gears elsewhere on the domestic front.
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All right, and that is the end of the free preview. If you'd like to hear the rest of today's conversation and get access to full episodes of Sharp China each week, you can go to your Show Notes and subscribe to either Bill's newsletter, Cynicism, or the Stratechri Bundle, which includes several other podcasts from me and daily writing from my friend Ben Thompson. I'm an incredibly biased news consumer, so I think both are indispensable resources, but either way, Bill and I are going to be here every week talking all things China, and we would love to have you on board. So check out your Show Notes, subscribe, and we will talk. Talk to you soon.