China Briefing | Confidence or arrogance? For Chinese propaganda, it’s a fine line

President Xi Jinping has demonstrated his grip on power is as tight as ever. But not everything is business as usual – on some policies, there has been an interesting change of tone

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A poster for the film ‘Amazing China’ at a cinema hall in Shanghai. Photo: AFP

Published: 12:32pm, 1 Sep 2018Updated: 12:32pm, 1 Sep 2018

Since July, the Chinese leadership has faced a series of nasty surprises. It has been hit by a wave of criticism at home and abroad about its handling of an escalating trade war with the United States, the economy, and a vaccine crisis as well as over-the-top propaganda. This has led to some rampant but unsubstantiated speculation about the purported pushbacks against President Xi Jinping’s autocratic style of leadership.

But any lingering doubt about Xi’s iron-fisted control should have been put to rest over the past two weeks after he re-entered the public limelight and chaired a number of high-profile meetings. At the beginning of this month, he vanished from the public eye for nearly two weeks, when he is understood to have presided over the secretive annual summer retreat of Chinese leaders in the seaside town of Beidaihe in Hebei Province.

According to official media, starting from August 19, Xi led a three-day meeting of the top generals on the Central Military Commission to strengthen “the party’s absolute leadership” of the armed forces and demand their “absolute loyalty”.

That was followed by a two-day national conference on propaganda and ideology in which he called for greater efforts to “unify thoughts”, and the first meeting of the newly established Central Commission for Law-based Governance, which is in charge of the country’s massive law enforcement apparatus.

Chinese flags fly at the Great Hall of the People. Photo: AFP

For the Chinese leadership, the guns (military), the pens (propaganda and ideology), and the swords (law enforcement) are the three most potent weapons to exercise tight control and maintain political stability. That Xi managed to convene three national meetings of the three branches within less than two weeks demonstrates his undiminished power.