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| Chinese President Xi Jinping |
By Mercy A. Kuo and Angelica O. Tang
Insight from Randal L. Phillips
The Rebalance authors Mercy Kuo and Angie Tang regularly engage subject-matter experts, policy practitioners and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into the U.S. rebalance to Asia. This conversation with Randal L. Phillips – Partner at The Mintz Group and head of the Group’s Beijing office and activities across Asia, who previously served 28 years with the Central Intelligence Agency’s National Clandestine Service, most recently serving as the Chief CIA representative in China – is the 32nd in “The Rebalance Insight Series.”
Describe the difference between China’s old and new leadership models, and identify key traits of President Xi Jinping’s leadership.
In trying to provide a perspective of how Xi differs from his predecessors and has legacy power issues with which he has to deal, I often suggest thinking of the film Godfather inspired by the five families of New York. Most of Hu Jintao’s nine-member leadership sought in practice to protect their own family interests and sectors of the economy which they had essentially divided up and from which they derived very significant benefit. Corruption hit a massive scale, and bold decision-making was stifled by the need for consensus and protecting interests. Xi Jinping – along with Li Keqiang who was relatively clean from corruption – saw this clearly and came to power with a plan. Building on his deep understanding of how to wield the levers of power, his status as a first tier princeling, and a personal confidence that he was born to rule, he recognized he needed to attack this issue as an existential threat to the Party’s rule, and to consolidate power in himself quickly. In doing this, as several observers have pointed out, he “talks like Deng, but acts like Mao.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat