Civicidea

China’s acceptability in Tajikistan comes after Russia – the Tajik people and the Tajik government; why Russia is popularly accepted as a significant or dominant power – is clear; China comes after Russia. According to the Kenan Institute (based on a Central Asian Barometer survey), 54% of people strongly favor/support (in contrast, 73% strongly favor Russia and 40% strongly prefer the United States); 30% are somewhat favorable, and only 13% don’t know or refused to answer; 20% of people think that China is a reliable and friendly great power – it’s significant considering the number of percentages for Russia is 78% and for the US is 2%. Elizabeth Wood and Thomas Baker summarized the Central Asian Barometer Survey on Public Perception of China in Central Asia conducted from 2017-to 2021:  China’s public diplomacy wins the Tajiks’ admiration through culture, language, and civilization; the degree to which citizens and leaders view the PRC favorably could also be instrumental in advancing other economic, geopolitical, and security interests.

Tajikistan presents high approval rates for the leadership of the PRC (63 percent on average). In contrast with the USA, it is less favorable (35 percent on average). Tajikistan is the case of China’s “extract” strategy, in which there are significant economic interests for the PRC, and the PRC has maintained high approval rates there.

Favorability ratings may indicate appreciation for a foreign power’s norms, rules, and values and China’s engagement to contest the US hegemony in the region. According to the Gallup World Poll, 2006-2020, based on AidData Analysis: How do citizens and leaders in SCA countries view the PRC versus other great powers? Consistently favorable (Pakistan and Tajikistan), China is perceived in Tajikistan as a great friend as it offers help without strings attached (this narrative was established by president and elite circles). The State imposed this narrative which welcomes blind emerging dependency on Chinese investment. Tajikistan. This will see Chinese investment in all spheres of economy. The leading government parliament-based newspaper Narodnaya gazeta described China in 2014 as “Good neighbor, true friend and reliable partner”. The leading scholars, experts on China in Tajikistan, Abdugani Mamadazimov and Rashid Gani Abdullo express their optimism that the Chinese vector of Tajik foreign policy as the “path toward future well-being of independent of Tajikistan”.

“China Threat theory” is non-existent in public spheres in Tajikistan. Some negative publications usually go around environment problems of renovation and construction of heating plants in Dushanbe, and about invasion of Chinese workers, leasing of agricultural land to Chinese farmers. Rustam Haidarov warns that the entry of Chinese farmers is only the first step towards something bigger: “It is China’s strategy to resettle its people in different countries. It’s China’s policy,” he said. “They occupy slowly, cautiously. They realize their own goals in Tajikistan and affect our economic policy. In time this will lead to an influence in politics”. Asia Plus, and Ozodi, covered the issue of disappearance of flora and fauna – snakes, turtles etc.

In Tajikistan construction sites, where Chinese labor are present. Unfortunately, with the lack of reporting about BRI, or even the lack of any systematic discussion of challenges and risks characterize Tajikistan in BRI, there is no public discussion and awareness about China’s BRI rapidly increasing control of resource extraction in Tajikistan. The general public has limited access to information related to Chinese involvement.

China’s “Going Global Strategy,” launched in 1999 to encourage Chinese investment abroad, has boosted Chinese overseas investment and lending. Since then, China has become one of the country’s largest creditors. China began allocating nominal sums for grant assistance. However, in 2016, China emerged as one of the largest donors to international development assistance, accepting the part of grant-based foreign aid engagement with developing countries. China’s lending abroad policy typically involves relatively high interest rates and short maturities, in contrast to the mostly concessional lending terms of other official lenders such as the World Bank, IMF or OECD governments. For the 50 most indebted recipients (located in low- and middle-income economies) of Chinese direct lending, the average stock of debt owed to China has increased from less than 1% of GDP in 2005 to more than 15% of debtor country GDP in 2017. For these countries, debt to China now accounts to 40% of external debt, on average.

China is pursuing “debt-trap diplomacy,” which involves luring poor, developing nations into agreeing on unsustainable loans to follow infrastructure projects. When they face financial difficulties, Beijing can seize the asset, thereby expanding its strategic or military reach. China lends money to countries, which must surrender control of vital assets if they cannot repay their debts. Sri Lanka is a good example of debt-trap, having taken significant credit for a large port project in Hambantota with Chinese investment years ago. In July 2017, Sri Lankan government and CMPort entered into a lease agreement, which saw the port leased for $1.1 billion, which Sri Lanka used to pay down other debts and increase foreign reserves. In exchange for debt relief, China offered to help. No right of the port was transferred, and no debts were forgiven. Colombo was provided with liquidity to repay Western creditors; the obligation to China remained the same as reported by Chatham House.

The researchers at AidData research lab developed a global dataset on China’s official development spending from 2000 to 2014. It has identified more than $350 billion in Chinese foreign aid and other forms of state financing through a thorough search of official public sources and verified by media and other additional sources. In official debt statistics, half of China’s lending to developing countries is not recorded (hidden debts). It is frequently kept off government balance sheets, rather than going directly from the government to the government, and directed to state-owned businesses and banks, joint ventures, or private institutions. Sebastian Horn, Carmen M. Reinhart, Christoph Trebesch at the US National Bureau of Economic Research went further and developed dataset spanning from 1949 until 2017, and covers a total of 1,974 Chinese loans and 2,947 Chinese grants to 152 emerging or developing countries, with total commitments of 520 billion US$. The Chinese loan projects do usually share some key characteristics:

1) All Chinese lenders’ contracts, including the debt itself, especially from Eximbank contain confidentiality clauses that prevent borrowers from disclosing their contents;

(2) A typical “No Paris Club” clause is present in the Chinese contract sample and are found in 43% of China Development Bank and 81% of Exim bank projects contracts;

(3) Collateral or security clauses to ensure that the lender has cash available in the event of default. Security arrangements are used in 75% of China Development Bank’s and 22% of Exim Bank’s contracts, whereas only 7% of OECD bilateral creditors and 1% of multilateral creditors set do so.

(4) Escrow or special accounts are used to secure repayment and are used by Chinese state-owned banks; Throughout the life of the loan, sovereign borrowers agree to maintain and fund bank accounts at the lending institution or at a bank “acceptable to the lender,” as well as route project revenues and cash flows through these accounts that are unrelated to the project funded by the loan; (5) Cross-default clauses are present in 100% of China Development Bank’s and Exim Bank contracts, “When the debtor defaults on its obligation to Creditor B, a cross-default clause allows Creditor A to pressure the debtor and protect its claim priority. If the debtor misses a payment to B, both A and B would have the ability to demand entire loan and accumulated interest repayment at the same time under a creditor-friendly version of the clause. A creditor may retain the right to cancel the loan and demand immediate repayment under various circumstances, including political and economic developments not directly connected to the lending relationship. Once the contracts are signed, the debtor’s exit options are very limited”.

After the Central Asian republics gained independence in 1991, the countries began to diversifying their infrastructure-based project by receiving grants and loans and external debts from international financial institutions as well as China; Each country of the Central Asian region total external debt had risen, making China the largest creditor in Asia: for example, Kyrgyzstan – 1.7 billion (40% of the total); Tajikistan – 1.2 billion (48 per cent of the total); Why is it easier and faster to get credit from China? A former president of Kazakhstan said: “China doesn’t dictate how we should live compared to Western creditors? What structural changes must be made before the Chinese credit becomes available? We will help you to become like us, China”.

However, China does impose some conditions on Central Asian countries: the recipient nations should only use Chinese equipment types, and labor for infrastructure projects should also come from China. Conditionalities work and they provide Chinese banks and companies such as Tebian Electric Apparatus (TBEA), China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and others with access to Central Asian natural resources. One China policy means the recipient nation must recognize mainland China as the only legitimate Chinese government, and the recipients also cannot have official relations with Taiwan. In addition to one-China policy, Beijing expects recipient countries to refuse supporting the Uygur cause, collaborate in the extraditing the dissidents, and possibly expects support for China at the UN Security Council, as reported by Sherzod Shamiev.

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (including Djibouti; Laos, Maldives; Mongolia, Montenegro; Pakistan) were all identified as highly indebted countries and unsustainable with possibility of falling into a debt-trap in a report in 2018 by the Centre for Global Development, meanwhile in top 5 countries located in a worst debt situation, Kyrgyzstan is enlisted (along with Djibouti, Tongo, Maldives, Congo). Export and Import Bank of China is the country’s largest single creditor, with reported loans totaling $1.5 billion by the end of 2016, or roughly 40% of the country’s total external debt. Kyrgyz and Chinese authorities are discussing the construction of a hydropower plant network, a China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway system, additional highway development, and the completion of the Central Asia-China gas pipeline. Risk of debt distress, Kyrgyzstan is still vulnerable to shocks due to a significant exchange rate depreciation, which is compounded by the scaling up of public investments.

Tajikistan is one of the poorest countries in Asia, and the IMF and World Bank have classified it as having a “high risk” of debt distress. The total foreign debt of the country is 3.2 billion US dollars which is 38.2% of Gross Domestic Product. Sputnik Tajikistan reports that it is coming to the critical point – 40% is defined in the country Strategy in Public Debt Management. Meanwhile, in a joint IMF/World Bank Debt Sustainability Analysis A public debt-to-GDP ratio above 25 per cent of GDP is considered. in 2006 China didn’t plan in Tajikistan debt structure, however by 2016 the country had borrowed more than US$1.1 billion from China. Tajikistan still plans to increase its external debt at concessional and non-concessional rates to fund infrastructure investments in the power and transportation sectors, including those supporting BRI. The single largest creditor in Tajikistan, China, accounts for nearly 80 percent of the total increase in Tajikistan’s external debt. Tajikistan in return for constructing phase one of Dushanbe coal plant granted TBEA rights to explore and mine gold deposits at the Eastern Duoba mine and Upper Kumarg mine. Tajikistan has swapped its natural resources to complete an initial phase of the coal plant, thus opening a risky dynamic of funding infrastructure projects by giving away licenses to mine precious metals.

Since Joe Biden came to power, relations between the US and China have been strained. Unlike Trump, the Biden administration directly opposed China’s policies in relation to Taiwan, human rights abuses, and economic and technological spheres. On November 14, Joe Biden met Xi Jinping face-to-face in Bali, Indonesia, on the sidelines of the G20 Summit. It was the first time since his presidency that the US president met with his Chinese colleague in person after numerous video and written correspondence. The meeting lasted for 3.5 hours and, as publicly announced, touched upon the following issues: US-China strategic competition, the Taiwan issue, the Russian-Ukrainian war, North Korea’s missile tests, and further grounds for improving relations in various areas, comprising technology, trade, climate change, and so on. A delegation of nine government members accompanied each side: while Biden showed up with senior officials including Antony Blinken, Janet Yellen, Jake Sullivan, Kurt Campbell, Daniel Kritenbrink, and members of the National Security Council, Xi Jinping brought all his trustees, who were promoted during his reelection for the third term a few weeks ago. For more information about the high-level officials traveling with Xi Jinping, see the previous blog “Inside the 20th national congress of the Chinese Communist party: What to expect”.

While shaking hands with his American counterpart, Xi Jinping did not seem very enthusiastic and avoided eye contact, which clearly manifests tense relations between the two states. Both parties realized that it was impossible to work everything out in one meeting; therefore, they agreed to frequent discussions. According to the white house readout, to keep the communication and talks dynamic and systematic between Washington and Beijing, the US president will send the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China for the first time without specifying the exact dates of the trip. Moreover, Biden mentioned the possibility that National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin will participate in negotiations with their Chinese colleagues as well. Since the meeting, the US president has been very convinced that no new cold war threatens humanity, as specifically outlined during his press conference.

The talks about Taiwan had a major significance due to the deteriorated US-China peace dialogue after Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei in August 2022. The two states even threatened one another with military interference. Beijing initiated arms mobilization while frequently violating Taiwan’s airspace and pressuring its economy. During the meeting, Biden assured that the official position of the US government has not changed, it seeks “peace and stability”, though it is ready to intervene conventionally in case the PRC invades Taiwan. Nonetheless, the president highlighted that such an occasion is unlikely to happen in the nearest future despite the warnings coming from US officials about Beijing’s plans to seize Taiwan several weeks prior to the Xi-Biden meeting. On the contrary, Xi Jinping called Taiwan the PRC’s core interest and the “first red line”, once again pinpointing that no such thing as “Taiwan Independence” exists within the policy of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and it is directly related to state’s internal affairs. Therefore, the contradictory statements of the leaders of the two countries do not prevent us from losing grip over further escalation. Indeed, both parties agreed on maintaining peace and stability in Taiwan; however, none have specified how to ensure these incentives.

More common grounds were found during the discussion of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Both presidents agreed that nuclear war should never happen and condemned the threat of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. They also decided to continue talks and avoid further confrontation. In this respect, President Biden also stressed the constant provocations from DPRK concerning its continuous pursuit of nuclear weapons development and urged the PRC to try to talk with North Korean leaders regarding acting more responsibly.

Even though both parties clarified that there would be no joint statement after the meeting, certain tendencies have still been identified and left nobody wondering that the US-China struggle for power and world domination will continue. Nevertheless, both parties prefer to call it a competition rather than a conflict. As stated by Joe Biden,

“The United States will continue to compete vigorously with the PRC, including by investing in sources of strength at home and aligning efforts with allies and partners around the world”.

Despite certain confrontations, Xi Jinping seeks to stabilize the situation in the international arena after the turbulent year of his reelection. According to his statement,

“It should not be like you win and I lose, and I survive and you die…Both sides should view each other’s domestic and foreign policies and strategic intentions correctly and establish the tone of dialogue exchanges rather than confrontation.”

Both leaders intend to ease the tension between their respective states by foreseeing coexistence in competition.

A Smart City is a city built on the combination of endowments and activities of self-decisive, independent, and aware citizens. It follows strategies through the innovation and use of its natural resources, the city areas that collect large amounts of data and use it to improve city operations. Developers can produce applications based upon managed data to be converted into insights and insights into tools. These applications can serve as a form of public-private partnerships and create opportunities for the public sector, private sector, and the citizens. Privacy International  brings some clearance to the definition of “Smart Cities” based on global multinationals – For IBM – it is about finding “new ways for the city to work”; For Google’s Alphabet, “building innovation to help cities meet their biggest challenges.”; For Siemens, “open-air computers” make them “healthier, more comfortable, and more relaxed.”

The development of “digital cities” or “smart cities” in China started in 2011 with the adoption of the 12th Five-Year Plan, when it was announced the intention “to accelerate the construction of new-generation IT infrastructure, mobile communication networks, internet infrastructures, digital and television broadcasting networks, satellite communication facilities, and an ultra-high-speed, large capacity, and brilliant national trunk transmission network, broadband connection throughout urban and rural areas to strengthen interconnectivity.”

This is the basis of modern China’s smart cities and citizens’ surveillance.49% of the smart cities are located in Asia. Smart Cities projects are expanding in Central Asia; the main countries and tech companies introducing them are tech companies from the People’s Republic of China.

In Central Asia, the countries are accelerating the development of safe cities to focus on security and order with Chinese assistance in developing and financing them: Tajikistan in 2013, Kazakhstan in 2007, Kyrgyzstan in 2019; In China in the World index developed by Taiwan-based Doublethink Lab, Central Asian countries, at least Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan collaborated (such as data collection or exchange agreement, or adoption of related hardware) with the PRC government or PRC-connected entities on facial, voice recognition or other applications involving biometrics achieved by AI.

Xinxiang became a kind of frontline laboratory for “Smart City” and surveillance technology, where start-up and tech companies first test surveillance technologies. Xinjiang – a model of digital repression that China has developed first and foremost for security reasons and for enabling severe human rights violations and developed many novel forms of surveillance, making it a world leader in repressive uses of digital surveillance such as facial recognition and biometric data collection integrated widely in the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region in western China. In 2017, the government officials in Xinxiang started collecting Uighurs, 3D portraits, voiceprints, fingerprints” and iris scans from all residents of ages 12 and 65 in the framework of a free public-healthcare program called Physicals for All and collected.

The military personnel check the residents’ smartphones for banned mobile apps and require each vehicle to have a GPS tracking device.  Smart cities in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) already form part of the state authorities’ systematic surveillance and repression of Muslim ethnic groups in the region. Facial and gait recognition, coupled with CCTV outside mosques, and powered by AI and analytics technology, enables authorities in Xinxiang to maintain a “digital police state.”

Famous tech company Huawei worked with facial recognition start-up Megvii in 2018 to test an AI camera system that could scan faces in a crowd and estimate each person’s age, sex, and ethnicity. The plan could trigger an ‘Uyghur alarm’ if it detected an Uyghur, flagging them to China police, where members of the group have been detained en-masse in the re-education camps. One of the authorities in Uighur studies, author of The Xinjiang Papers – Dr.Adrian Zens, an expert on Xinjiang, says that the companies like Huawei can develop such systems in regions like Xinjiang in tandem with the security services, which can enable intrusive surveillance – makes surveillance accessible and possibly palatable in other nations including Central Asia.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), based on a database leak discovered by Victor Gevers in MongoDB from SenseTime, which provides video-based crowd analysis and facial recognition technology, reported about live-tracking the locations of about 2.6 million Uighur residents of Xinjiang: the records include individuals’ national ID number, ethnicity, nationality, phone number, date of birth, home address, employer, and photos. Within 24 hours, 6.7 million individual GPS coordinates were streamed to and collected by the database, linking individuals to various public camera streams and identification checkpoints associated with location tags such as “hotel,” “mosque,” and “police station.” Police in Xinxiang force the residents (targeting Uyghur Muslim population) to install the mobile app called JingWang (Citizen Safety) developed by police forces from Ürümqi, Xinjiang’s capital. Urumqi Municipal Public Security Bureau launched the “People’s Safety” app on April 25, 2017, as information reporting software used by the municipal public security bureau to take the initiative and technical attack and successfully develop the grass-roots and ordinary people. The app (spyware) sends the government a user’s WeChat and Weibo chat records and the device’s IMSI and IMEI and Wi-Fi login details. Adam Lynn from Open Technology Fund confirmed that the JingWang app significantly lacks the security to protect the private, personally identifying information of its users: The app extracts a phone’s IMEI, MAC Address, manufacturer, model, phone number, subscriber ID, and filenames with hashes for all files stored on the person’s device; Jing Wang scans for specific files stored on the device, including HTML, text, and images, by comparing the phone’s contents to a list of MD5 hashes. A hash is a digital fingerprint of a piece of data. Full Jing Wang Report of OTF is available here.

Georgia is often “accused” of being an American project in Russia’s “Near Abroad” neighborhood. Tbilisi’s relation to Washington has been shielded from geopolitical developments, becoming an independent variable, even as Baku, Yerevan, Kyiv, Tehran, and Ankara’s US relations have been tested. Georgia has developed a partnership with the United States that permeates the Georgian state and society. Georgian institutions, strategic infrastructure, military culture, elite education, political and economic aspirations owe much to this strategic partnership. The foundations of this partnership were cemented during the first days of Georgian independence, while the guns were still smoking in the streets of Tbilisi.

Unlike the Soviet imperial world, in which Georgians were “a minority,” the United States emerged as an ally that did not require us to limit our aspirations. It is said that the United States is the only nation in the world whose identity is founded on an idea rather than common ancestry and uniform culture. “We find these truths to be self-evident,” as President Biden likes to underscore. This idea of limitless aspiration and self-realization is inclusive. If you have to pursue a dream, however unrealistic, it might as well be American.

I recall that President Shevardnadze made clear in no uncertain terms that “if Georgia navigated relatively safely the collapse and chaos after the Soviet Union dissolved and preserved its independence and sovereignty, that is because of American assistance!” Indeed, little American assistance went a long way in a small country like Georgia. In the 1990s and early 2000s, as America was building new bonds with “post-Soviet Eurasia”, we often came together to celebrate the American appetite to engage with our part of the world. While assistance packages were timid by American standards, their cumulative value was significant. Each million spent in “our part of the world” was a geopolitical commitment to all of us. In effect, the United States was sponsoring our aspirations rather than buying out our destiny (as I learned from US Ambassador Degnan, the US has provided Georgia with almost over $6 billion in assistance, as well as other support).

In 1998 the State Department invited me to a ceremony celebrating the first US $31 million Government assistance package to Uzbekistan. The host was Ambassador Richard Morningstar, Special Adviser to the President and the Secretary of State on Assistance to the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union. The guest of honor was Hilary Clinton, the First Lady at the time but much more than that. The ceremony was opened by short emotional remarks of Ambassador Morningstar, followed by the First Lady’s eloquent tribute to America’s immense power and utmost generosity. Naturally, the Uzbek Ambassador and good friend, Sodiq Safoev, was the keynote speaker. To my horror, I was asked by Ambassador Morningstar to close the event with an impromptu speech. No diplomat likes to “think on his feet,” but it would be undiplomatic and unfriendly to say “no.”

Following Sodiq’s lead, I opened by thanking the US Government for its immeasurable assistance, later straying towards a more personal tone. By the way, personal is political. I talked about my son, Nika, who since 1994 (when we arrived in the US) grew into a typical American suburban teenager and was about to sit his final exams at Bethesda High School (BCC) in Washington DC. So, I added his American experience to the multi-billion-dollar package of US assistance that literally laid the foundations of the newly founded Republic of Georgia. And then I wondered whether Nika’s generation – or any generation thereafter – would ever repay the loan people of Georgia got from Washington. I wished that our country would grow into a state with a rule of law, irreversibly democratic, affluent, on its feet, substantially sovereign, and capable of paying back its debts. I was never afraid that my son would be “Americanized”: I knew that his American experience would enrich him without threatening his Georgian identity. 

The point I made in my closing remarks of that afternoon event was that Nika’s debt and our collective “loan” were not merely financial but also moral. The Greenback is an international currency, but the generosity of the American taxpayer is very much national and personal. Washington is the capital of a nation with a mission in which no one is really a foreigner. Framing the issue at hand in these terms was appreciated; the thank you note I received from Ambassador Morningstar reassured me that I could still think effectively on my feet. But more importantly, the point I made then had lasting value: Georgia’s commitment to the United States was not countable; Nika’s American experience is part of his Georgian heritage.

At the end of September, right after Xi Jinping visited Central Asia, false information about a coup against him in China was spread all over social media. The emergence of these rumors was caused by thousands of canceled flights in China, Xi not showing up in public (in reality going through a mandatory quarantine after his international trip), and footage of military equipment moving towards Beijing. In fact, such information was not confirmed but labeled “wishful thinking” coming from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. One could believe that it is plausible for Xi Jinping to encounter the coup one day due to the mounting discontent of the Chinese elite following the economic and policy breakdowns. In fact, the country’s ruler, Xi Jinping, was found to have completely different plans that are far from facing a military coup and include making himself a supreme force in the country and ensuring China’s return to the list of the leading global powers after economic and political stagnation.

On October 16, the Chinese Communist Party is expected to hold the 20^th National Congress in Beijing, where they will elect new leadership for the next five years, most probably abandoning the “Seven up, eight down” policy tradition and consolidating Xi Jinping’s power. Party congress will also address the most critical issues in the PRC, such as the declining economy, worsening relations with the US, and restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The congress will be attended by 2296 delegates representing ethnic minorities, women, and all provinces and regions. According to the Eurasia Group, with Xi securing the third term, he is expected to enhance the share of his political associates both in the 25-person Politburo and its Standing Committee. Wang Yang will likely remain the Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, while Xi’s supporter members, Ding Xuexiang, Huang Kunming, Li Xi, Li Qiang, are expected to be promoted. Many people believe that congress has a symbolic weight, and the names of the leaders with their positions have already been agreed upon in advance. Besides those projected to be put forward, several political individuals keep close ties with Xi Jinping and will replace the retired ones. For instance, He Lifeng is anticipated to take the post of Vice Premier in charge of economic and financial affairs. The latter has worked with Xi in Fujian province and has accompanied him during almost all domestic or international trips. Miao Hua represents another example, becoming the Vice Chairman in charge of political affairs. Miao Hua, likewise He Lifeng, met Xi in Fujian and since then has served in PLA.

Accordingly, Xi Jinping has begun celebrating his stay in office. After completing the mandatory 10-day quarantine following his Central Asia tour, the Chinese leader took six colleagues and Politburo Standing Committee members to an exhibition dedicated to the achievements of his first two terms.

As stated by Financial Times, while two of Xi Jinping’s colleagues from the Politburo’s Standing Committee, Li Zhanshu and Han Zheng, are expected to step down due to their age, Xi may reduce the age limit even further, prompting the resignation of three other committee members. Premier Li Keqiang is among those three members. Li was considered Xi’s main rival before the latter was appointed a head of the party and the state and, accordingly, enjoyed great popularity among Xi’s critics. Nevertheless, Xi Jinping managed to sideline Li effectively due to the latter’s liberal attitude and loyalty to the CCP.

Xi Jinping will likely change the constitution during the party congress, fully adapting it to his political ideas and thoughts. The new amendment will ensure the “implementation of the eight-point decision on improving Party and government conduct by the Political Bureau of the 19^th CCP Central Committee”, correcting the flaws related to the useless formal procedures and advancing the President’s power. The eight-point decision covers the following aspects:

• doing better research and analysis and truly understanding actual conditions when doing grassroots-level studies;

• streamlining meetings and improving the way meetings are conducted;

• making documents and briefing papers more concise and improving writing styles;

• standardizing procedures for working visits abroad;

• improving security guard work and continuing to observe the principle of doing what improves relations with the people;

• improving news report;

• having strict rules on the publication of articles; and

• promoting frugality and the strict observance of rules on incorruptibility in government.

This way, Xi Jinping is trying to resume the “Great Helmsman” status, most commonly referred to as Mao Zedong. One can assume that his ambitions go beyond those five years of his third term, as Xi has reverted to “Two Centenaries” goals, aiming to return the country among the leading global powers by 2049 when the PRC celebrates its 100^th anniversary. The first part of his policy aims to achieve tremendous progress in the economy, carbon neutrality, military, and technology, while the second phase will be devoted to transforming China into a “strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious and modern socialist country”.

All in all, Xi Jinping’s ambitions for the 20^th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party go beyond the limit as he tries to extend his term in office, ignoring political traditions and adapting Chinese politics to his desires and interests projected until 2049. This is facilitated by the constitutional and economic changes he initiated, as well as the rigid policy of removing opponents and appointing supporters to higher state bodies.