China’s Linked Struggles For Power

The Chinese military is expanding disputed islands under its control in the South China Sea, alarming its neighbors. How worried should the world be that supreme leader Xi Jinping is making China into an expansionary power? The history of the People's Republic offers some useful clues.

Leadership transitions within the Communist Party have often been settled by internal power struggles. And even after one man emerges on top, he still has to jockey to move opponents out of important positions and install his own allies. The domestic turmoil repeatedly spilled over intoforeign conflict, and that may be happening again today.

The first border clashes between China and India took place in August 1959. That coincided with Defense Minister Peng Dehuai's open challenge to Mao Zedong over the failure of the Great Leap Forward and the effectiveness of his People's War military strategies. Soon afterward, Peng was stripped of his military rank and his Party membership.

In 1962, Mao, now facing a challenge from his chosen successor, Liu Shaoqi, initiated a conflict with India that rallied the military to his side. Mao regained control and four years later, Liu and his supporters were purged.

Seven years later, Mao faced a mounting threat from Defense Minister Lin Biao, another chosen successor. China launched a border attack on the Soviet Union that stoked nationalist fervor and again restored Mao's leadership over the military. Two years later, Lin was dead and his supporters eliminated. In each case, the threatened leader bolstered his political position by initiating an international conflict before purging his rivals.

Like Mao before him, Deng Xiaoping used international conflict and internal purges to consolidate his position. After Mao died in 1976, Deng supported the arrest of the late leader's wife, JiangQing, and later unseated Mao's third chosen successor, Hua Guofeng.To defeat Hua, Deng touched off a border war with Vietnam in 1979 - a conflict that revealed the impotency of People's War tactics on the battlefield.

China's military was embarrassed, but Deng scored a tactical victory. After a poor showing against Vietnam, he pulled Chinese forces back, deposed Hua asparamount leader and replaced scores of Maoist generals with his own allies.

According to Gen. Liu Yazhou, the war secured Deng's authority: "We should understand the [1979 China-Vietnam] war from a political perspective. The meaning of the war lies far beyond the war. [Deng's] reforms required authority. The quickest way to establish authority is to start a war."

A decade later factional struggles again split the Party after reformist Party Secretary Hu Yaobang was forced to step down. The conflict contributed to the eruption of nationwide demonstrations and clashes that culminated in the brutal crackdown on Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

The outcome was a ruthless purge of liberals in the Party and military that ensured the position of the hardline faction. Lacking a ready target abroad, the victorious rightists portrayed the protests as an "overseas plot" and launched a crackdown on foreign influences that rolled back China's nascent political opening.

In the wake of these bloody conflicts, the Party sought to make its power transitions more routine. Leaders at the ministerial level are now forced to retire at 68 and the country's president is limited to two five-year terms. During their time in office, both Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao worked as power "balancers" between two or more factions.

This "rule by committee" approach to decision-making succeeded in limiting intraparty conflict. But the collegiality diverted competition from ideological empire-building into patronage networks. China devolved into the kleptocracy that Xi Jinping inherited in 2011.

Rather than balancing among party factions, Mr. Xi is consolidating power at their expense in a manner reminiscent of Mao and Deng. He has rallied domestic support through confrontations with China's neighbors, purged party and military rivals through an unprecedented anticorruption campaign, and taken control of the "leading small groups" initially created to spearhead collective leadership.

To assert his authority over the army, Mr. Xi has donned a military uniform, gushed jingoist rhetoric, advocated the concept of "Asia for the Asians," and expanded island reclamation in the South China Sea. Such bellicosity has precipitated crises with Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, Vietnam over the Paracel Islands, and the Philippines over the Spratly Islands.

These aggressive moves help Mr. Xi gain the support and assert his authority over the military, which remains a central actor in Chinese politics. Meanwhile, his continuing crackdown on corruption,bureaucracy and foreign influence is reminiscent of the techniques of the late 1960s and 1989-90: Between January and April of this year, 10,125 Chinese officials were disciplined for graft - 2,508 in April alone.

Like Mao and Deng, Mr. Xi's power consolidation is likely to bring China political stability in the short run. But what happens when his term is up in 2022?

Having smashed the rice bowls of so many powerful leaders and packed the Politburo with loyal allies, Mr. Xi is unlikely to retire completely. He may upset established party norms and seek to remain in office. More likely, he may select a successor and control the Party from behind the screen.

Either of these approaches will provoke factional struggle and belligerence reminiscent of the tumultuous times of 1962, 1969, 1979, 1989 and 2011. Policy makers in the U.S. and around the region may get a breather in the short to medium term if Mr. Xi does succeed in consolidating power. But they should ready themselves for2020, when an impending power transition means Beijing is likely to become more bellicose.