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The 19th National Congress Of The Chinese Communist Party Should Be An Opportunity To Reflect Upon An Experience Of Governance

October 18, 2017

A decisive moment in the Chinese political life, the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is also an event of great importance for the world.

Like the past similar gatherings, but with even greater intensity, international media, analysts and decision-makers will observe the dynamics unfolding in Beijing as they will make headlines across the world.

This ever-growing interest is explained by the fact that China has never, in its recent history, occupied such a centrality in the world's affairs. One can't separate anymore the Chinese dynamics from the global trends, they are deeply interconnected.

As the world's second largest economy continues to expand at a steady pace, China accounts for about 30% of the global growth. All the multinational corporations have interests in China and the global business community can't ignore the transformation and the specificities of the immense Chinese market.

While China's financial and economic weight is obvious, its political influence is equally significant. Across the world, the management and resolution of crises are increasingly dependent on the positions elaborated and defended by the Chinese diplomacy.

Already one of the key pillars of the multilateral mechanisms, from the system of the United Nations to the World Trade Organization, Beijing works actively to further perfect global governance. President Xi Jinping, whose commitment to the fight against global warming stems from his vision of an "ecological civilization", is one of the major forces pushing for the implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

However, one should not reduce China to an economy or a political entity. The Middle Country is, more fundamentally, a living civilization whose renaissance generates throughout the world a growing curiosity towards its constituting elements, its language, its artistic expressions, its mores and its philosophy.

From the observation of the themes around which major public discussions have taken place in recent years, it appears that "The Belt And Road" project has often occupied the center of the debates. The visibility of this initiative for the construction of 21st century Silk Roads is, in both substance and form, an illustration of China's growing centrality.

After the 18th National Congress in 2012, which witnessed the transition of power from the fourth to the fifth generation, Xi Jinping immediately placed its mandate under the sign of the Chinese renaissance presenting a long-term vision both for the internal affairs and for the external positioning of China.

The 19th National Congress will be marked by the renewal of a part of the team that supports the vision of Xi Jinping and it will confirm the engagement on the path of reforms and opening up initiated by Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997). It is this new Central Committee, its Political Bureau and its Standing Committee which will be in charge of preparing in 2021 the hundredth anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

On a path that is inevitably shaped by a unique historico-cultural context, able to adapt to the world's objective transformations, the Communist Party of China is an invitation to reflect on an experience of governance that enriches the vocabulary of political science.

This experience of governance is rooted in an ancient history, nourished by a singular cultural environment and takes shape by an adaptation to the contemporary world.

In this year of the 19th National Congress, it is to be hoped that the world, far from the usual caricatures, prejudices and simplifications, will take the time to better understand how the Communist Party of China operates, its selection process, its management and training of cadres, its ability to build consensus around political and strategic orientations, its capacity to reform the most populous country on the planet and the sources of its legitimacy.

It can't be seen as a model since it is linked to conditions that can't be transposed, but the time has come to recognize, in a comparative perspective, the advantages and positive dimensions of what is one of the main political references of our time: a political system combining stability and innovation in a subtle relation between the verticality of power and the horizontality of an entrepreneurial society, predictability, the double ability of long-term projection and of rapid change.

It would be gross naivety to assume the perfection of any kind of institution or organization, be it the ancient Vatican, the more recent Western forms of democracy or the Chinese political architecture, but while the Communist Party of China is at the heart of one of the most significant transformations of our time, it deserves to be taken seriously.

Let us, at least, be as much open to this experience of governance as the strategists of this Party are to other political forms, so that we can perfect, in our respective contexts, our political organizations while keeping in mind the imperative of a better global governance that remains to be built.