Will Xi’s Paranoia Defeat Him?

Susan Shirk

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Over the past decade, Chinese President Xi Jinping has expressed many of the same anxieties as his predecessor, Hu Jintao, about domestic threats to social stability. Both leaders have worried about the fragility of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule in a rapidly changing society and sought to secure it by exerting greater control over social and economic life. Both, moreover, see security dangers as emanating mainly from domestic problems, though they also cast a suspicious eye on “malign” international forces. As Xi often observes, the security threats confronting China come from the “increasingly complex” external and internal threats that “are interlocked and can be mutually activated.”

However, Xi takes the paranoia that has been endemic to Chinese politics since Mao Zedong’s rule to an extreme. China is stronger than ever. It has a hugely successful economy, a capable military, and growing global influence. The government enjoys a high level of public support. Yet Xi’s fixation on security betrays his persistent feelings of vulnerability. Xi’s “overall national security outlook” is more holistic than Hu’s, more party-centered, and more explicitly highlights external threats.

In 2013, Xi established the Central National Security Commission to focus on domestic security threats and, more broadly, turned China’s political system into what one security scholar has described as a “national security state.” Another has argued that Xi’s grand strategy centers on the survival of CCP rule. Rather than being just a “constraint on foreign policy,” internal security “is one of the chief ends of China’s strategy.” No wonder Xi’s Politburo put political security first in its national security strategy for 2021 to 2025. Security considerations inform every party and government decision. Nearly every phrase in the communique of a CCP Central Committee meeting in October 2020 included the word “security” (anquan); the document itself was an illustration of the goal of “integrating the development of security into every domain,” as the communique put it.