- 3 months ago
Jonathan Czin of the Brookings Institution explains why the Chinese Communist Party's Fourth Plenum, the most important party meeting of the year, matters for the country's next five-year plan, recent military personnel purges and Beijing’s continued focus on techno-industrial policy. He also discussed the timing of the meeting ahead of an expected Trump-Xi meeting at the APEC summit in South Korea and the plenum's impact on cross-strait policy.
Jonathan A. Czin is the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies and a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center. He is a former member of the Senior Analytic Service at CIA, where he was one of the intelligence community’s top China experts. He also served as director for China at the National Security Council during the administration of US President Joe Biden.
Jonathan A. Czin is the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies and a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center. He is a former member of the Senior Analytic Service at CIA, where he was one of the intelligence community’s top China experts. He also served as director for China at the National Security Council during the administration of US President Joe Biden.
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00:00We're here with John Zinn. Thank you so much for joining us today.
00:03Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here.
00:06For people who don't closely follow Chinese politics, what exactly is this plenum meeting?
00:12And what do we expect to see out of it? You know, when you were at the Biden administration or in
00:16the CIA, is this the kind of meeting that you would watch really closely?
00:21Yeah, absolutely. And a big part of the reason that we will watch it so closely is that it's
00:25really the most important political meeting of the year. And what the plenum is, is it's
00:29the entire central committee of the Chinese Communist Party. And so what that means is,
00:34it's the top 200 or so officials from across China, provincial officials, heads of various provinces,
00:42key military leaders. For this particular plenum, I think it's going to be especially
00:47consequential for two reasons. Number one, on the policy side, the party will kind of endorse
00:55the next five-year plan and won't be fully finalized until next spring.
00:59But we'll get an outline of the next five-year plan, which will lay the groundwork for China's
01:03development in the coming five years from 2026 to 2030, which of course would bleed over into Xi
01:08Jinping's fourth term. The other big piece of the equation here for this particular plenum
01:14is the personnel side of the equation. We just saw this last week, where a number of members of the
01:19military high command were purged, including the Central Military Commission Vice Chairman,
01:26the number three officer in the military, was purged. That's the first time that's happened
01:30since the start of the Cultural Revolution under Mao. So what's going on on the personnel side with the
01:34purges, and especially within the military, is really quite dramatic. And it's something that
01:39we've seldom seen in the post-Mao era.
01:41Yeah. And what does that purge of these officials from the party mean for the greater direction of
01:48the party and for China? Does it have some significance beyond just Xi putting his own
01:53people in positions of power? Or is there something more going on?
01:58I think there's something more going on, right? And the interesting part of this equation is that
02:02because we're in Xi's third term, he's accrued so much power. And at the start of this third term,
02:08he had actually gone to considerable lengths to stack the deck with his own political allies.
02:12So I think this isn't necessarily what a lot of people would have expected. If he's already got
02:17his allies in these key positions of authority, why would he start purging them, right? And for
02:23for folks like me, this is really kind of the analytic conundrum, because Xi seems to have
02:26stopped going after his rivals. And now he started going after his putative friends in the system,
02:32right? I think there's a few different reasons for that. I think one is that corruption remains
02:37kind of an endemic issue within the party, and Xi knows that. I think number two, for an authoritarian
02:42leader like Xi Jinping, these kinds of anti-corruption campaign and these kinds of purges are
02:47politically useful for him. I think for the military in particular, I think there's more at play there.
02:51And I think it's a couple of different things. I think number one, even in an opaque system,
02:55like the Chinese Communist Party, the PLA is really an opaque, technologically advanced empire
03:02unto itself within the party, right? And that only nexus of civilian penetration into the military is
03:08Xi Jinping, right? So he has an incentive to constantly be trying to puncture that wall,
03:13understand what's going on, and maintaining his grip on that institution in particular, because that is
03:20the lodestar of his power, any political leader's power in China. I think the last part of it is
03:25that I think Xi Jinping is very serious about wanting real military options. He wants a military
03:31that he can rely on if he feels like he needs to use force either in some kind of existential crisis
03:37at home, if it ever came to that, which seems unlikely at the moment, or for some kind of Taiwan
03:41contingency. And I think he feels, despite the PLA's very considerable strides in its military
03:46modernization program, that they're not quite up to snuff yet, right? And that he remains skeptical
03:52about what it is that they're able to do. And he wants to be very serious about that.
03:57You know, you mentioned that the five-year plan isn't finalized until next spring. There will be
04:03a communique that comes out at the end of the plenum on Thursday. So what do we expect to find out
04:08in that communique? I mean, how much are we going to know about what actually took place
04:12in these closed door meetings? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting,
04:16because as important as this meeting is, this is not a debating society, right? They've already,
04:22to a fair extent, already pre-cooked the outcomes of this, right? So I think that the documents are
04:28important because it is the most authoritative document that you're going to get from the party
04:33in a given year. I fully expect since Xi Jinping is this far along in his tenure, I think he feels very
04:38confident in the trajectory of his economic policy and his industrial policy that this focus on
04:44advancing China's techno-industrial prowess, advancing its manufacturing prowess. I think he sees it as
04:50being on the right path, even with the problems that it's causing. I think his calculation is that
04:54China will eventually emerge in a stronger position because of that focus. There has been throughout the
05:00past year, a real focus on a lot of official party documents and state documents on boosting consumer
05:05demand. But I think I'm a little skeptical about how much there there is there, because we just
05:11haven't seen a lot of follow through, right? There's kind of some nibbling around the engines,
05:14pilot programs, kind of modest gestures in that direction. I think the real thrust, and I think
05:19Xi has made this clear in his own speeches on this, is really going to be focused on the supply side and
05:25on focusing on that techno-industrial policy. You know, this meeting is coming just weeks before,
05:30or even days before, you know, Xi is scheduled to potentially meet with Trump. It's not clear if
05:37it's actually going to happen, but obviously the outcome of that meeting is going to have a big impact
05:43on the Chinese and American economies for the next year. So how difficult does it make planning,
05:49you know, a five-year plan, when you're not really clear about, you know, potentially your biggest
05:55export partner, you know, what your relationship with them is going to be in the near future?
06:01Yeah, I mean, I think that's the really interesting part of this, right? Substantively,
06:07I think it's really striking that Xi has continued to double down on these policies,
06:11even though they aggravate the trade imbalances that ostensibly animated the trade war in the first place,
06:18right? And I think even after the past year that we've had, I think it's really striking that it's
06:23not blown Xi off course at all, right? He still thinks this is the right path for going forward.
06:28And I don't think that, you know, any one-off meeting between him and President Trump is really
06:33going to fundamentally change that calculus. And I think it's a sign of real confidence on Xi's part,
06:39right? That this is the right trajectory. I think more tactically, as we're talking about a summit too,
06:44I think it's no accident that Xi Jinping scheduled the plenum to occur just before he's supposed to meet
06:50with Trump, right? There's no fixed date for the plenum that he can have this big meeting at home
06:56that would enhance his R of authority going into the summit with President Trump. And what's striking
07:01to me as an American and disconcerting is the juxtaposition, right? Xi is going to walk in this
07:07meeting having just put his imprimatur on the next five-year plan for China. And meanwhile,
07:12the US government here in Washington may or may not still be shut down.
07:16What about cross-trade relations? You know, how might this plenum meeting or the next five-year
07:20plan affect the cross-trade policy and the relationship between Beijing and Taipei?
07:26I think the plenum meeting itself won't necessarily affect things too much. I think the really crucial
07:32moment for cross-trade relations probably came over the summer with the failed recall elections by the
07:39DPP against the KMT legislature. And my suspicion is that probably the failure of that effort probably
07:46led to some relief in Beijing, right? Because their talking point ever since the 2024 election
07:55has been the fact that the KMT helped regained control of the LY demonstrates that, you know,
08:00the broad swath of Taiwan people don't support, quote unquote, independence and the DPP. And I think
08:06it's a convenient talking point for them. But I also think that they rightly or wrongly believe that to
08:11be true, right, themselves. So I don't see, you know, I don't see the plenum itself having a big impact.
08:20You know, one of the things that I am still on the lookout for as we get to the end of the year,
08:24though, is that, you know, they did a big cross-trade exercise, straight thunder, back in April of this
08:32year. But it was a straight thunder A, which means that they will probably do like they did last year,
08:35a straight thunder B at some point. You know, I think the other point of discussion on cross-trade issues
08:40that's been more consequential here in Washington, at least, is this discussion about, is Taiwan
08:46going to come up in the conversation or in subsequent conversations between President
08:50Trump and President Xi? I think what we've seen from the Trump administration already throughout
08:53the summer has been an attempt to really curb U.S. gestures of support for Taiwan. But I don't
08:59know that this will necessarily come up. You know, there have been stories floating around that
09:05Xi might push Trump for additional rhetorical concessions on Taiwan, right, switching from
09:09not supporting Taiwan independence to actually opposing it. You know, the kind of distinction
09:15that might be lost on a leader like Trump, who's not necessarily immersed in these issues. But what
09:22I've been hearing more recently is actually the Chinese don't want to set the precedent that this
09:26is up for negotiation, right? They don't want to introduce this into the equation because they want
09:30to be able to say, we have a principled approach to Taiwan, and so we're not going to talk about it,
09:35talk about this at all with the Americans right now, especially since they don't have
09:39that kind of trust in Trump that whatever they agree to, he'll actually stick to it.
09:43So I think the strategy in the meantime is to continue to keep up the pressure on Taiwan,
09:48you know, continue the coercive tactics that we've seen that have accelerated, especially since Nancy
09:54Pelosi's visit in 2022. And I think what they're really hoping and praying for is a return to the KMT in
10:022028. Right. So for the last couple of years in Washington, so much of the conversation has been
10:06focused on 2027. But I really, I don't think that's the crucial year. But I think what happens
10:10in 2028 is going to be really crucial for Xi's Taiwan policy. Right. And in my mind, the reason that
10:17this is so this is so key for him is because he'll be in his fourth term at this point. He's been dealing
10:23with the DPP for a decade. Right. And at the end of that fourth term, he's going to be almost 80 years old.
10:29Right. And I think Xi will start to think more about his legacy. In Xi's own mind, what looms large for
10:36him is the fact that a decade ago, he met with Ma Ying Zhou, the head of the KMT in Singapore. Right.
10:44And that was the first meeting of its kind since the Marshall mission in 1946 when Chiang Kai-shek and Mao met.
10:50Right. And so I think from Xi's perspective, for him to get, you know, either towards the end of his life
10:55or start to be thinking about his legacy and not have at least that kind of gesture, that ability
11:02to say that there's some kind of political engagement going on between the two sides.
11:06I think that's when he starts to get antsy. And I don't think that means, you know, he goes for
11:10an invasion or something really high risk like that. But it does mean he might consider some of
11:15the riskier options that have been floating around out there for some time, maybe seizing an offshore
11:19island. So when he's said in the past, you know, that we can't leave this issue to
11:25future generations, you take him at his word there. I think so. I think I think so. I think
11:29he's serious about it. But the question is, what does that what does that actually mean operationally?
11:33Right. In a kind of very real sense. And, you know, this has almost become more of a theological
11:39question in Washington than an evidence based one, just given how little is out there about what she
11:44actually wants. But my thought is that that meeting with Ma Ying Zhou kind of sent the minimum
11:48threshold. Right. He needs at least more than that in order to say, I've made progress on this issue.
11:54Right. And I'm not just handing down a unfavorable status quo to my successor. Right. We're either
12:01engaging or there's some kind of meaningful political talks underway or something, some kind of
12:07fig leaf in order to in order to be to be able to claim that. Now, the thing that I would add about
12:12Xi Jinping and how he thinks about Taiwan, too, is that, you know, when you look at at the material
12:17that's that's out there, there's not really one person who's identified as Xi's top advisor on
12:24Taiwan. And my suspicion for a long time has been because I think Xi kind of considers himself his
12:29own top advisor on Taiwan. Right. And I think that there's a few reasons for that. Part of that is
12:34genealogical. Right. If you look back at his father's career, his father spent a lot of time
12:39doing United Front work and dealing with the KMT, going back to China's civil war.
12:43Right. And then when Xi's father was on the secretariat in Beijing in the eighties,
12:48he also spent a fair bit of time dealing with Taiwan and dealing with cross-strait issues.
12:53Right. So I think he feels like he understands it because of his father was so deeply immersed
12:57in these issues and dealing with the other side. And then from when you look at his own career and his
13:02own career biography, he spent so much of his career when he was climbing up the party ranks in
13:06Xiamen and Fujian and Zhejiang provinces right across the Strait from Taiwan. Right. So I think
13:12when it comes to this particular set of issues, I think she feels very comfortable with them and
13:18really keeps his own counsel on these issues. Okay. John's in. Thank you so much for joining
13:24us today. That was really insightful. Yeah. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on.
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