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China’s Communist Party finds it easier to win hearts and minds at home than overseas
- President Xi Jinping has warned challenge to government’s credibility could undermine China’s rise
- Slowing economy, zero-Covid grievances and lack of transparency among challenges faced by Beijing
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Ahead of this year’s 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, we take a look at how the country is responding to three potential traps highlighted by President Xi Jinping in the past decade. In the first of a three-part series, we examine the Tacitus Trap and how the party can shore up its domestic legitimacy amid a host of challenges.
When Xi Jinping became China’s president in 2013, he showed he was determined to maintain the Communist Party’s mandate to rule by winning the people’s hearts and minds.
At the start of his first term he ordered bureaucrats across the country to confess any loss of touch with the grass roots to the party. The campaign ended up lasting for more than a year.
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He also kicked off a far-reaching anti-corruption campaign, with graft busters setting up a website and a social media account that enabled people to report corruption via their phones.
Xi also famously warned the party in 2013 of the risk of losing the people’s trust, using the term Tacitus Trap, which describes a lack of trust in a government regardless of its actions.
02:04
China’s President Xi visits far western Xinjiang region for first time in 8 years
China’s President Xi visits far western Xinjiang region for first time in 8 years
Yet just months before Xi is set to begin his third term as the party’s leader at this year’s 20th party congress, crises have emerged that point at the heart of trust in the government, including a banking fiasco in which thousands of people risk losing all their savings in local banks.
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