20 TH NATIONAL CONGRESS OF CPC –CHINA

SOURCE: The Indian Express

CONTEXT

The Communist Party of China will convene in Beijing for a week-long gathering The 20th National Congress of the CPC, a once–in–five–year event, will mark sweeping changes in the leadership of China's ruling party, and amend the party constitution.

OBJECTIVES OF CONGRESS

• Choosing new leadership
• Amending the party constitution
• Setting the main policy direction

CPC CONVENES NATIONAL CONGRESS

• The CPC convenes a national congress every five years.
• On Sep 25, the party announced it had chosen 2,296 delegates to attend this year‘s event, representing various provinces, the military, different ministries, and branches of government.
• The delegates vote on various resolutions, including amendments to the CPC‘s constitution and in theory, choose a new central committee, which in turn is supposed to elect a new Politburo and Politburo Standing committee.
• In practice, however, the amendments and personnel appointments are decided in advance by the party leadership, and not by the delegates who merely rubber stamps the decisions.

STRAW POLLS

• The system was introduced in 2012 to elect the Politburo.
• However, it was discarded in 2017at the 19th congress on the pretext of corruption by current General Secretary Xi Jinping
• In 2017 Xi abandoned the voting system and held direct consultations with 57 serving and retired party leaders to decide on personnel appointments.

LIKELY CHANGES IN OFFING

• Most significant is the selection of the next PBSC, the party's highest ruling body
• Sweeping changes in the rest of the top leadership, including the 25-member Politburo and the 7-member PBSC with
• The Chinese military will also see a sweeping change in its top leadership, with the Central Military Commission, which Mr Xi will continue to lead for another five years, set to choose new members.

IMPLICATIONS

• Besides the personnel changes, the congress will pass amendments to the party constitution, and indicate the broad directions in policy for the next five years, which will be outlined by Mr Xi in a speech to the congress.
• New amendments may formalize Mr Xi‘s status as a "Core" of the party leadership.
• Recent pronouncements have called on the party to uphold what it calls "two establishes" –enshrining Mr Xi s "core status" and his ideology as a leading priority for the party. This will likely indicate even more centralization of power in the coming term.
• On the policy front, continuity, rather than change is expected.

• The immediate concern for many in china however is whether Mr Xi will decide to continue with his "Zero COVID" policy or begin to finally consider an exit strategy, after the conclusion of the congress which is expected to hail the success of China's pandemic response as one of Mr Xi's biggest legacies.

For Prelims & Mains