As Xi Jinping was coronated the most powerful Chinese communist leader since Mao Zedong, his predecessor Hu Jintao was literally dragged from the Communist Party stage on Saturday. Then, on Monday, the Department of Justice announced various indictments against people involved in Chinese intelligence activities. Though separate and distinct, these indictments underline Xi’s obsessive ambition to establish his global political dominance.
The indictments are big news. The U.S. has charged two Chinese intelligence officers who paid an FBI double agent for what they believed was classified information related to a U.S. government prosecution against China’s Huawei telecommunications company. This public documenting of Chinese obstruction underlines how Huawei is not a private business so much as a not-so-deniable extension of the Chinese Communist Party. Deliberately riddled with network flaws that would allow for espionage activity, Huawei’s services exist to establish Beijing’s intelligence access to and technology influence over Western democracies. The Huawei announcement on Monday joins separate indictments, including against Chinese intelligence officers/agents who terrorized a U.S. resident in an effort to force him to return to China.
This documenting of Xi’s shameless struggle for supremacy bears note alongside his very public humiliation of Hu.
Hu is despised by Xi and his communist hawks for the more cautious stance he took to foreign relations and domestic politics. That said, it is striking that Xi had so little interest in upholding his direct predecessor’s dignity. Even if Hu had become ill and confused during the Congress — there are rumors that Hu is suffering from a mental health ailment such as Alzheimer’s — he was not actively disrupting events. Even if Hu had been suffering from nonvisible symptoms such as a loss of bodily function control, he surely could have been left in his seat until proceedings came to a close.
But that’s not Xi’s way. As with his ruthless purge of political competitors, aging publishers, and those who make clown jokes, Xi is not satisfied simply with being the supreme leader. He requires that his power is broadcast and perceived with reflexive understanding. He requires that any effort to counter his interests is met with enraged resistance (hence Xi’s “wolf warrior” diplomatic strategy). Underlining Xi’s paranoid need for control, the massed Communist Party Congress delegates sat uncomfortably and avoided looking at Hu as their former boss and his ideas were purged.
Yet even if China has suffered an espionage defeat over Huawei, it scores far more successes every day. And Xi’s security cadres are only rising in influence. As the South China Morning Post observes, “Chen Wenqing, the 62-year-old minister of state security, landed a coveted seat in the 24-member [Communist Party Politburo], becoming the first Politburo member in decades who has served as a spy chief.” Facing new restrictions on access to U.S. technology, China’s intelligence apparatus will move only to steal more of that which it struggles to buy. American corporations and research institutions should improve their cybersecurity and counterintelligence defenses. And the Biden administration should restore the Justice Department’s “China Initiative.”
And if nothing else, we should look to Hu’s treatment and these indictments for the proof they provide as to the nature of Xi’s regime.
