By Wen-Ti Sung
With the creation of the SSC at the recent Third Plenum, Xi consolidates the domestic security leviathan.
The recent Third Plenum of the 18th Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee inaugurated a number of significant reforms. Among the most interesting developments is China’s establishment of a new “State Security Committee” (SSC), an important step in further centralizing power into the hands of the party’s top leadership. Its primary implications are two-fold: the top leadership now has greater direct control over internal security and Chinese President Xi Jinping can now better streamline civilian and military sides of the foreign and security apparatus.
In China, as in other countries, creating a new organization carries political costs, as it invites political and factional struggles as well bureaucratic turf-fights over who gets what and at whose expense. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) already has two Leading Small Groups (SLG) on Foreign Affairs and National Security that serve as the civilian leadership’s decision-making mechanism for foreign and security policies (though the two groups are essentially one entity). It also has a Central Military Commission, as chaired by Xi, that coordinates such policies with China’s military.
Creating the new SSC, then, should be able to either bring Xi political benefits that outweigh the costs, or the SSC should assume new portfolios not already covered by the existing SLGs, or preferably both.
Read the full story at The Diplomat