By Bill Gertz
Xi warns party of political explosion
Chinese President Xi Jinping warned in a major speech this month of growing risks and dangers for the Chinese Communist Party in its ideological confrontation with the West.
“Now, various risks and dangers are highly correlated, strongly linked, and rapidly transmitted,” Mr. Xi said in a speech to hundreds of senior officials at an internal meeting Feb. 7. “A little carelessness can cause a butterfly effect. Small risks will become big risks; risks will become general risks; and economic and social risks will become political risks.”
Party officials were urged to “identify risks early, act quickly, take command at the front, and make immediate judgments as soon as they arise.”
免費獲取每週兩期簡報精選每週兩期中國政經時事分析精選，直送你的信箱。免費訂閱，隨時可取消。“Do not let small things be delayed to become big things, and big things be delayed until they explode,” Mr. Xi said.
The speech was first reported by the Sinoinsider newsletter, which closely monitors developments in China.
Mr. Xi began warning of political dangers facing the ruling Communist Party several times since coming to power in 2012. By 2018, he voiced concerns about worsening relations with Washington amid a trade war with the Trump administration.
The decade-long warnings are indications Mr. Xi’s policies of seeking stability and a consolidation of power are not working, Sinoinsider stated in its analysis of the speech.
“If anything, it is becoming increasingly observable that Xi’s ‘solution’ to defusing risks and preserving the regime (i.e., intense power centralization, strengthening of the national security state, and elevating Xi and the Party‘s position above all) are accelerating the regime’s headlong dash towards disaster and failure,” the newsletter stated.
The current policy of power consolidation and greater Communist Party controls are leading to increasing social tensions and political risks. Attempts by Mr. Xi to strengthen Party control over the financial sector are driving away foreign capital and sparking factional struggles.
Sinoinsider predicts the problems will not be easily solved: “Unless Xi abandons the CCP and moves China towards genuine reforms, he will almost certainly go down with the communist regime that he is currently striving hard to save,” the newsletter said.
