 My name is Steve Sand. I am the director of the Sova China Institute. Welcome to this webinar by the China Institute. For this webinar, I'm delighted to have an excellent speaker touching on a subject which I think many people would be extremely interested in. The speaker is Chen Han Wang. Chen Han is an investigative journalist for the Wall Street Journal. He specialises in covering China's politics and foreign policy. He is particularly well known for his reports on elite politics, the party's doctrine as well as on human and labour rights in China. He is also of course well known for his coverage of the defence and diplomatic matters of China. He and his team covering China's authoritarian turned under Xi Jinping were shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in 2021. Chen Han is a citizen of Singapore and he was educated at the LSE. He is the author of a very interesting and insightful book called Party of One. The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future, which came out last year, 2023. The subject that he is going to speak to us today is China after Xi, pathways to succession under one man rule. An extremely important subject but perhaps one subject that supreme leader Xi would not particularly be willing to endorse because the idea of China after Xi is almost unthinkable as far as he is concerned or sometimes to come. But whether he likes it or not, we are going to have this subject being discussed by Chen Han and everybody else. As usual, I would welcome you to ask questions and comments using the Q&A box If you would like to stay anonymous, please feel free to do so. All I need is that if you say at the start of your message to the Q&A box that you would like to stay anonymous, please still provide information that will help me to know who is raising the question and that is entirely used for me to understand where the question comes from. It helps me to choose questions if I have to choose from a very large range of questions. And I can assure you that all the questions will eventually be put to the speaker even if they are not being raised after the event. With that, let me hand over to Chen Han, over to you. Thank you, Steve, I appreciate the very kind words you have for my work. And without further ado, I think I should put on this presentation that I've prepared for this event. I hope everyone can see it, basically, as the title of the presentation is about succession. But I guess to start the presentation, I'd like to talk a bit about myself, give an overview of my book before I move on to the actual subject of the talk. For those of you who already probably know this, if you've looked at my bio page on the Wall Street Journal, I'll follow my career previously. I actually joined Dow Jones Newsrise in 2010. Back then, it was still a separate newsroom from the Wall Street Journal, but in 2011-2012, the Dow Jones integrated the two newsrooms and I started writing for the Wall Street Journal as well. Initially I covered Singapore, Southeast Asia, out of Singapore, 2010 to 2014. I was given the opportunity to move to Beijing to cover China in 2014 and I did so. In late August, early September of 2014, stayed there for five years until I was forced to leave China. I will probably get to that later in the talk, but suffice to say basically it was to do with writing a story about Xi Jinping's cousin. And it so happened that this particular story came out exactly one month before my journalist visa was to expire. And as it turned out, the Chinese government declined to renew my visa, I had to leave mainland China. And after that I moved to Hong Kong and I was based there from 2019 to 2023. I moved back to Singapore last year and now I'm still covering China. All the various topics that Steve mentioned just now, I'm still covering these issues out of Singapore. And just to give an overview of the sort of work I've been doing, I've been covering things like the politics, you know, how Xi Jinping consolidated power, how he conducts political purges to centralize control over the party and China. I look at issues related to Communist Party doctrine, how Xi Jinping's staff governance has changed the way the party functions, and how the party interacts with society. I look at foreign policy and defense affairs. So things like China's relationship with the US, European and Asian countries. I also look at Taiwan policy. I've also covered perhaps a bit less frequently but still do so. Things about related to human rights and labor rights, things that crack down on activism and religion, Xinjiang Tibet policies, and other related issues. Moving on to the book proper. As you can see, there's two covers. The one on the left, the white one is the US edition and one on the right. The viewers in the UK may be more familiar. You might have seen that in bookshelves where you are. That's the UK edition. But it's more or less the same, exactly the same. I think the spelling is probably different. Essentially, the book is an attempt to provide an account of the life and political vision of Xi Jinping. From his birth in 1953, all the way through to early 2023, which is also the year the book was published. And essentially what I try to do in a book is to answer some key questions. How Xi Jinping came to power, how he consolidated power, how he exercises that power, and what he wants to achieve with this power. And just a quick run through of the contents of the book, basically there's eight chapters and then afterward there's an introduction as well. Introduction sort of sets the stage for the book, but essentially the first chapter looks at Xi Jinping's life up the way all the way through to his appointment as general secretary. The second chapter looks at, you know, how he exercises control so how he has to use anti production purges to centralize power. The fourth chapter looks at legal reforms, how Xi Jinping tries to implement his vision of law-based governance. The fourth chapter looks at the economy, how he has reinstated state control and state dominance over the economy, and how, you know, business is run in China. The fifth chapter looks broadly at history, but also media narratives, how Xi Jinping has tried to enforce the Communist Party's official views and the canonical view on how the China's past means, you know, going to the future. Chapter six looks at, you know, issues related to national unity, how Xi Jinping has tried to forge, you know, a singular national identity, and how he has tried to exert party control over peripheral regions from Xinjiang to Tibet in Mongolia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Chapter seven looks at diplomacy. This familiar phrase to all of all of you will be welfare diplomacy. I try to trace the origins of this particular trend of style of diplomatic behavior among Chinese Foreign Service officials. And also how China's under Xi Jinping, you know, how his international relationships with powers within, you know, is immediate periphery and other global powers have evolved. Chapter eight will be the subject of this talk. It is a chapter devoted to issues related to succession. Basically, how I look at various scenarios related to potential transitions in leadership and what implications they have. And then the afterward I look at media information controls as how they and how they've affected for media coverage of China. This is my time in Beijing. The book looks at essentially tries to explain the key themes of Xi's governance, talking about things like, you know, how he exerted strong and centralized leadership. How the Communist Party exerts control over all aspects of governance in society. How Xi Jinping essentially in the book I described him as the codifier in chief, because he is the most prolific codifier of, you know, state laws party rules and regulations as a way to guide exemplary behavior among party members and citizens. How he has tried to use the coercive tools of the state to encourage the development of a singular national identity, which is rooted in this grand historical narrative about where China came from under Communist Party leadership and where it's going to. And this relates to the diplomatic chapter, how China basically under Xi Jinping is meant to be restored to his standing as a great power. Xi Jinping himself has said in a speech to, I believe, government advisors during one of the annual legislative sessions where he says, you know, China, Chinese people in China finally are able to be in the world, which is to look the world in the eye. We've finally attained our rightful standing among, you know, nations around the world. And with this restoration of China standing, you know, be able to exercise global influence. And I run through the things I look at in some of the key chapters, chapter one, you know, essentially I look at things like Xi Jinping's childhood and upbringing from his birth in 53 through to his formative years when his father fell from grace in 1962. And Xi Jinping's experiences during the Cultural Revolution from 66 to 76, including the seven years he spent as a sent down youth in Nianjia He. And then after that, I look at, you know, his career path from him becoming secretary to come down the who became Defense Minister during that time. From 79 to 82, his tour as an accounting official in Zhengding, which is in Hebei, and then his 17 years in Fujian, where he rose to become governor, and then party secretary of Zhejiang, and then party secretary of Shanghai, before he finally ascended to, you know, close to the upper top ranks of a Communist Party leadership, the Politburo Standing Committee, which he joined in 2007, and then vice president until 2008 to 2013 when he became president proper. In chapter two, I look at this this broad theme of discipline and control. Basically, keyword is, you know, he's put Leninism back in a Leninist party, which is all about, you know, centralized control discipline democratic system, you know, the party has to function as a very tightly disciplined political machine where everyone from, you know, from the top down is executing the central leaderships will. And in this chapter, I look at things like how the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has expanded its powers and responsibilities becoming more than just an anti-crafting agency. And today it looks, it tackles things like political disloyalty, inaction, negligence, punishes officials and investigates them for wide variety of offenses that goes beyond simple corruption or graft bribery. It actually has become a tool of policy enforcement, you know, using purges to scare people into doing what the leadership wants, and to steer policy outcomes. I think the stems from this belief which Xi Jinping has expressed when he was Vice President that, you know, China needs a strong centralized leadership, otherwise the country could spiral into disorder. Another chapter, which I think is a, you know, of people, quite a significant, quite significant interest from leaders is, you know, I look at how Xi Jinping has enforced national unity. And more broadly, how he sort of transitioned China away from a Soviet style model of, you know, managing ethnic affairs and adopted a much more hardline approach to enforce this sense of Chineseness and Chinese national identity. The chapter also looks at, you know, the various campaigns that Xi Jinping has enforced in places like Xinjiang, Tibet, Mongolia, Hong Kong, because basically he's employed different methods, different approaches of varying levels of severity and sort of calibrated tools for what the party leadership decides to be the problem in each area. So Xinjiang obviously, most of which you know it's arguably the region where it's been put under the heaviest pressure with the most hardline methods being used. In Hong Kong similarly, you know, there has been a lot of legal tools, as you know, national security law article 23 that's coming out. So different approaches for different sort of problems as diagnosed by the leadership. And in some areas we've seen, maybe less coercive pressure but no less disruptive to what some people have seen as their freedom to exercise their ethnic identities for example linguistic changes we saw in the Mongolia and to introduce greater use of Mandarin lessons in schools and you know, I explore these various methods that Xi Jinping has tried to use to impose Chinese national identity or what his vision of it should be and the impact that has had. Chapter seven looks at diplomacy. I trace the origins of warfare diplomacy. This quote is very illustrative. You know in 1949 when the foreign ministry was first founded so unlike the premier and foreign minister at the time he said diplomacy is the same as military affairs, diplomacy is just fighting with words. And I think if you look at that you think actually that's not too different from how Chinese diplomats seem to perceive their jobs today. So you could argue that, you know, the increased combativeness that Chinese diplomats show under the under Xi Jinping leadership, you know, it's sort of an extension or revival of that ethos that was instilled into the foreign service right from the beginning. It is both performative for the benefit of the likes of the leadership Xi Jinping senior party officials and the general public who like to see, you know that diplomats stand up for China. And so I think it's also driven by a genuine sense of grievance and, you know, desire to put forth China's position and defend China's interest in the face of what Chinese diplomats see as Western pressure and bullying. And as I, you know, this is called I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with East is rising the West is declining. I think there are people in the foreign service and the broader leadership who actually genuinely believe this to be the case and this underpins a lot of you know, the way they carry themselves on the national stage. And finally, chapter eight, and that will be the subject of today's talk succession. And I've decided to put some of these headlines from event I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with in March 2018 Xi Jinping. Technically speaking the NPC the National People's Congress the Chinese legislature repealed term limits for the president and the vice president and the headlines that came out from that event was to say that you know Xi Jinping now can be president for life. Xi Jinping can rule for life. Sort of this idea that by repealing term limits he's set a stall out to govern till he dies. So, part of the question I try to ask and try to question this this, this use of this phrase, I think is, you know, does Xi Jinping really want to rule for life. And what does that mean, you know, does it mean that he would stay in power all the way to death. We hold former power. I don't want to preclude any possibility. I think it is a bit of a false errand to predict exactly what will happen in Chinese politics but I think it we do need to dig interrogate this, the use of this narrative and use of this phrase more deeply and understand, you know, what are the exact implications of him repealing term limits what is he tried to do how does he think about succession succession and what scenarios could unfold depending on how he decides to handle leadership transitions. And the last question on the screen you see who might succeed him. Don't worry I don't make any prediction because I think it's impossible to predict right now, but I think it's something worth thinking about. I'd like to start with a couple of quotations. So, in Lucent Pie American Scientologists, I'm sure some of you have read his work. He wrote, you know, a couple of these lines that basically said that there's no leader Mao, who can basically leave, you know commit a country to a particular policy cause you know, once these leaders move on new rulers who bring new policies and if it remains the case that his influence ends with his death, his successor, you know, have been able to sweep away what the predecessor did it is only natural for the incumbent to want to hold on to power for as long as possible. And so, looking back at PRC history. We look at how the various, you know, the most prominent leaders since 1949 have handled succession. He was not famously held on to formal power as party chairman until it's death in 1976. Deng Xiaoping took a slightly different path, he laid down succession norms and principles, but he remained, you know, widely known and respected as China's most powerful citizen, essentially, until it's death in 1997. And now we've come to a point where everyone's asking this question, what might Xi Jinping do. When is his turn to hand over the reins. Let's start with some background and a basic understanding of what the rules say. So, to start with, let's, you know, I'm sure all of you know this, Xi Jinping has three main positions, General Secretary of the Commerce Party, Central Commission, Central Military Commission chairman and president of the PRC. But of these three positions under 2018, only one of them, the state presidency was bound by clear term limits and a line of succession. Not that a line of succession extended really long. Essentially the constitution make clear that if the presidency is vacant, the vice president will take over. If both positions are vacant, the MPC chairman MPC standing committee channel step up as acting president, and then the MPC will choose, you know, will fill the vacancies of president vice president. So it's not like the American line of succession where it extends pretty far down into the executive cabinet. Chinese one as formally laid down only stops at the MPC standard committee channel. If you look at the party constitution, there's actually no term limits set for top leadership positions. So, in so far as there's a phrasing in the constitution that sort of put certain frameworks around how long someone can hold office is that it says goddess and leadership positions are not supposed to hold positions for life. They can be transferred really from their posts. And this was put into place after the Cultural Revolution as a way to, you know, avoid making some of the mistakes that milestone famously made. But there are provisional party regulations that state that officials and leadership roles cannot stay in the same post beyond 10 years, or remain at the same level of party for more than 15 years you see the phrasing in Chinese at the bottom of the screen. So, as we've seen with events in 2022 Xi Jinping blew past whatever power this regulation may or may not have over top leadership positions. He has stayed as general secretary for more than 10 years. He, which means that it's quite clearly demonstrated by his actions. He does not believe these regulations occur to him. In terms of what we know about Xi Jinping's views and succession, I think it's used to sort of look at the key moments that give us some basis of reference and points of reference as to how Xi Jinping has handled the succession issue so far. The key moments in his first term was when towards the end of this first time basically the 20th 19th Party Congress, where he inserted this very long rubric this political slogan with his name in it into the party constitution. Xi Jinping thought on socialization Chinese characteristics for new era. It's even more of a tongue twister in Chinese. In the same party Congress you did not elevate a potential successor in the standing committee known was young enough compared to him to be, you know, sort of make clear that this guy is the next in line. In fact, before the 19 party Congress if you remember, one of the key potential successes someone one of the key political members was deemed as a potential successor Sun Zheng Tai was actually perched. That makes it clear that there was no intention to mark out an individual within the senior leadership as a potential person to step up. Then the next big event as already discussed this March 2018 NPC remove term limits and the presidency and vice presidency. I'm sure a lot of you who were in China or have Chinese friends at the time they would have told you how much of a shock this came to the system. I remember ordinary friends who don't really care about politics that much they themselves only paid attention is like oh wow we are not what we thought this country is not what we thought it was becoming. All these jokes. I'm sure some of you have heard that China was becoming like West Korea was, you know, she's how she is making a joke of reference to North Korea. And so at a time this event was actually quite a significant one, it actually was delivered quite a shock to a lot of ordinary people who otherwise hadn't paid attention that much to you know how the country was governed because there was a sense that China was involving into a more predictable way when it came to leadership succession, and this really reminded them actually is all quite fragile and things can change if a top leader proved to be strong enough to change certain precedents. And then the next big event to 2022 Xi Jinping circuit is certain as General Secretary and as of now, he can remain in all of his three key positions indefinitely. I prefer to use the term indefinitely rather than rule for life because rule for life sort of commits you to this idea that he will definitely hold on to all these positions until his death. It is possible, but I think we should be more circumspect in making such predictions. So I think indefinitely is is more a more accurate way to describe it because it sort of lays out, you know, it is it makes clear that various possibilities are valid is open he may not hold on to these positions for life. He may do so, but it's up to him. So next I probably should set a bit of the more is the more abstract the more theoretical element of the succession issue, which is how an incumbent leader might think about the problem. And the problem and a lot of people study this issue will call this is successes dilemma. And in short, basically, the autocratic leader a personalized, a leader of a very highly personalized regime, generally prefers handing over power to those who they trust to uphold their legacy and protect them in retirement, because you don't want to step down. And the next guy turns around and destroys all your achievements. And in fact, you know, perhaps accident interests of people who have been offended or had an interest damage by the outgoing leader and take, you know, revenge on him. So someone who is stepping down from position leadership wants to make sure he will be safe, you know, in retirement until his death from natural causes, if you can, if you know he can help it. But at the same time, you know, if you had to designate a successor, you must allow the successor to start building the own power base ahead of time, because otherwise, this person may not be able to hold on to power. You may engineer a transition to a person of your choice, but you fail to give him enough one way to establish himself. Turns out that he gets ousted as known within a matter of years after you had overpowered him. And, you know, essentially your legacy is also damaged or potentially destroyed by the next successor who takes over. So another problem with when you, if you do decide to designate a successor is the people around you, the political elite, inevitably will start to realign their loyalties. This is something you cannot control. It is sheer human nature. The moment it's clear who's next. People will start building relationships with him and inadvertently or, you know, on purpose that would damage their relationship and their loyalty to the current leader. So this is the sort of various considerations that any incumbent must consider. You know, when to head over power, whom to head over power to, you know, once you head over power, how do you somehow maintain your own authority while transferring enough to make sure that the next guy actually can hold on to the authority when he fully assumes it. And we know from past experience in PRC history that this is not an easy problem to handle. Mao Zedong himself, designated successes three times. The first two didn't go very well. Liu Xiaoqi died in 1969. Ling Biao died in 1971. In a mysterious plane crash, and then Hua Guofeng, he did actually take over power, but he turned out to be a very transitional figure. You know, within two years, he had more or less been ousted from significant influence in the party leadership by Deng Xiaoping. So you could say that actually Mao Zedong essentially screwed up succession because he failed to ensure that his legacy was defended. Deng Xiaoping also had to change his choice of successor a few times. Hu Yaobang was purged. Zhao Ziyang was purged in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square massacre. And then Jiang Zemin, who eventually did take over as general secretary. You could argue that perhaps there was a success, but even then it was not so certain at the time. There was, you know, quite a few twists and turns along the way before Jiang Zemin fully established himself as party leader. At the same time, Deng Xiaoping could arguably be said to have anointed a fourth successor because he approved the elevation of Wu Jintao to the Senate Committee in 1992, which more or less marked him out as the person to take over Jiang Zemin. From the perspective of the incumbent Xi Jinping, he's lived through all of this. You know, he was very much alive. A teenager when Liu Xiaoxi was purged, when Lin Biao died, and when Hua Guofeng, you know, his career was ended by Deng Xiaoping. And then Xi Jinping also experienced the various chops and changes that happened under Deng Xiaoping in the 80s and 90s. So, and Xi Jinping being someone within, you know, the party with very good connections to the elite, he had inside views, he had very close up views of these succession problems. And so he, you could say he definitely has a very clear eyed perspective on the difficulties of managing succession. Moving on, I'd like to talk a bit about what we, you know, know about Xi Jinping's views and succession. Obviously, this is based on analysis. This is based on, to some extent, conjecture based on what he has said, but he has done. And what I would argue to be universal principles that anyone in position like what Xi Jinping is in, would have to think about when he just doesn't, you know, plan for handing over power. You know that Xi Jinping speaks a lot about entrenching Communist Party rule in China. That is essentially that is number one job if you're the leader of the Communist Party, you must make sure the CCP endures. You know that Xi Jinping in speeches and writings he has talked about this concept of Wang Zhengxi. I know I'm not sure I have a rise to sink translation to English but essentially literal translation is when a person dies in a certain governance also expires. He uses his phrase to discuss the longevity of the CCP rule, but it also can relate to a leader's legacy. You know, when the leader dies, the system of governance he puts in place may well expire with him. So he clearly has put some thought into this issue how to make sure that his legacy survives him. We also know how Xi Jinping has put great premium on centralizing power in the in the one undisputed leader who controls all key positions of power. And Xi Jinping has also put his own name in the party constitution. Essentially, he's only one of three men with this honor, where is the name is a party constitution associated with political slogan of a political guiding principle for the party. This is Mao Zedong Mao Zedong thoughts we have those having theory and Xi Jinping thought, which is, well, much more long phrase but there are suspicions that he may one day shorten it to put himself, you know, closer on the power with Mao Zedong. But the very fact that his political theory is in a party constitution indicates that you can exert influence, even if he doesn't hold formal power. That's because what he says is essentially as far as a party concerned, the law, and when you've given yourself this authority, you've given us every chance of exerting influence, all the way to expire. And I think here, you know, here are some basically key points I like to make about what Xi Jinping thinks about succession. Obviously, as I mentioned, this is based on analysis conjecture by think these are reasonable assumptions to make based on what we know. Xi Jinping likely wants his legacy to live him. Xi Jinping wants to be able to choose his successor Xi Jinping likely wants to be able to change his choice, if he decides that his initial decision was wrong or misguided. And if he decides to retire, he likely wants to make sure his personal safety is taken care of by whoever succeeds it. And also taking a step back into the sort of trends in history that give us some insight into how Xi Jinping by look at this problem. In general, retiring autocrats have very few guarantees for their personal safety, other than the fact that they somehow retain certain leverage over the people who take over them so they ensure the loyalty of their successor and in turn make sure the successor protects them. We have some, you know, statistical backing for such a view. There was a 2010 academic paper in which more than 1000 autocrats were analyzed and more than 40% essentially suffered a terrible fate. Exile imprisonment or death within the year leading office. Their security was not guaranteed and as it turned out, in fact the security was highly jeopardized. In contrast, Democratic leaders just 7% suffer such fate after the exit office. So, any autocratic leader is very well aware of the risk involved if they hand over power without installing sufficient guarantees for their personal safety. So what are these options in terms of succession. So one, you know, he could doesn't need a clear successor, hand over power to him, and then retire. But as of now, having just taken a third term, two years ago, and what on this way without having a clear successor and the leadership right now he may be positioning himself for another term. So for now it seems rather unlikely that, you know, he would pursue option one, option two, he could doesn't need a clear successor, prepare this person for power. And then, you know, slowly transition himself into a more like a region role, sort of like the shocking where you retain preeminent influence, you can change things and influence things from an elevated position of authority. But you allow this person to go into the job establish himself and given every chance to succeed after you actually pass on. The option is to choose a successor, but only in secret. You don't tell anybody. You might not even tell the successor himself. But you then hold on to power until you die or become incapacitated and then the choices revealed. And then things unfold from that. This will be akin to how Yongzheng, Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing dynasty handled it. You know, wrote his choice of successor on a piece of on an edict, one copy kept on this person, the other copy is put in a box that's put behind a tablet in the forbidden palace, forbidden city in one of the palaces, where you know it's behind this tablet This is Zheng Da Guang. I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with this with this legend. And this approach, while it worked for some time in the Qing dynasty hasn't really been successfully replicated since. So I so highly doubt that you want to adopt such an option. Another option is simply not to do anything. You know, he can refuse to designate a successor and just govern until he dies or is incapacitated. There is one more option which is not an option in the sense that he wouldn't, you know, actually choose this route, but it may happen in the course of him deciding what options to take, which is he might be trying to designate a successor, but before he successfully does so, he becomes incapacitated or dies in office and nobody knows who he had preferred to take over, and then you have a sort of open field for people who are still alive to figure it out themselves, who's going to take over. In terms of if he does decide to designate a successor. There's various ways for, you know, various steps he can take to do so. First of all, he can establish a framework and I think this is an important thing that he can do because there are implications for him establishing a process for handing over power. Even if he doesn't hand over power immediately, even if he takes time before he actually executes the plan, just by letting people believe him know that there is a succession time succession timeline. The elite actually can calibrate expectations, they have something to look forward to. They have something to expect. And therefore they align themselves and prepare for the eventual transition. Alternatively, if Xi Jinping doesn't set this framework, and the elite actually has no idea what would happen next, they sort of see Xi Jinping hang on to power indefinitely they themselves have no idea if they can rise further, their own prospects are jeopardized. They feel threatened, then they become actually perversely few incentivized to challenge Xi Jinping. In some ways, you could argue that it is in the incumbent's interest to actually let your broader elite understand that there is a plan. So don't jump your guns, don't try anything funny to challenge me because there is a plan you will unfold, await your turn. And there is there is some historical evidence for this. Professor Yu Hua Wang actually did an analysis of Chinese Empress through antiquity, and nearly half of them of the 282 Empresses analyzed actually named a successor. The rest either didn't have a son or they use other succession rules and based on Wang's findings, he found that people, the Empress who designated successor actually live longer. They were less likely to be posed because you sort of allow the rest of the elite to calibrate expectations, you know, plan their own, they plan their own political machinations in a certain way that doesn't have necessarily involved them challenging the incumbent leader. If you don't prepare them this way, you might encourage them to actually take action against you. So how Xi Jinping might actually do succession. Once he decides to start the process. These are the steps we can expect him to take. He would probably elevate this prodigy to the standing committee, given major titles and portfolios things like vice president, vice chairman of central ministry commission, and other positions that Xi Jinping would see fit as a way to test this person's capabilities because you don't want this person to go into the job. You know, unprepared, Xi Jinping himself had five years in the standing committee before he took on the top job, and he will likely want to make sure the next guy has had a similar betting in process. And then, after that process, Xi Jinping will probably hand over former power at a party congress or NPC session that was choosing. And if he decides to hand over power in this format, he will likely, you know, he has other, he has various options for stepping back. One is to retain influence retirement. So like those helping he gave up all of his positions eventually. So by 1989 he gave up his position as chairman of the state central ministry commission. And the following year the sorry, 1999 gave up his position as the party central ministry commission chairman and the following year in 1990 gave up the state chairmanship. Step back and but by virtue of his authority over the elite, he could still exercise control as he famously did in 1992 with a sudden tour he rejuvenated economic reforms. And by the grace of the argue by sheer force of will, even without a formal position. You could follow the gentleman boot, which is to stagger transition you had over seven positions where you keep others. So the key position that gentleman kept was the CMC chair for two more years. Well, you know, Hu Jintao remain vice chairman for a bit longer before he took over. That is another way to do it. So, one option that various pundits have discussed. I'm sure some of you have heard this before which is the idea that Jinping could take on a titular role that doesn't involve him doing day to day leadership responsibilities but has a formalized position within the party structure that gives him the formal authority to intercede if he sees the need to. And a lot of people have speculated the party chairman a position they hold for life, while the general secretary position or another position is sort of the de facto, you know, day to day leadership position. And Xi Jinping takes this more hallowed role, like, you know, a thai shang fang emperor narratives, and, you know, steps in when he sees the need to. Because by doing so, you know, if his chosen successor turns out to be incapable, or he decides that he's not, he's deviating from his legacy, Xi Jinping can choose a new successor. That's the other problem with succession for especially for someone like Xi Jinping, who has established himself as a supremely powerful leader. As many people say, the most powerful leader in China since Mao Zedong. The problem is when you're someone of such a hallowed position of such authority, you tend to be followed by weak leaders. This is, you know, just the way it is, because the strong incumbent will never allow potential rivals to emerge. People who, you know, the tall poppy principle, you know, they start popping up above the crowd, you chop your heads off. So by virtue of maintaining this outsized authority, you would make sure that everyone who's in position to follow will be substantively weaker than you. So the associate of that is the person you end up choosing as a successor will be too weak to retain power once they actually take office and we saw this happen. You know, in the past, after Stalin died, Malenkov was supposed to be the successor, but eventually lost the Nikita Khrushchev. And more closer to home. Another issue that I'm sure a lot of you have talked about, talked about and thought about is when, in terms of timeline, when my Xi Jinping step aside. As we know, born in 1953, June, Xi Jinping will be 74 years old by the time this third term ends. By comparison, Zhang Zemin was 76 when he stepped down as Secretary in 2002. So actually Xi Jinping, even by recent precedent, he's quite young. By the time he finishes his third term. So looking ahead, how long could he stay? There's been speculation that some of the key dates he gave in his 19th Party Congress report. For example, 2035, which is one of the key target deadlines. He may choose to stay on to that date so he can claim credit for having delivered some of the key goals that he set out in the Party Congress report, including things like economic development and ministry modernization. By 2035, he's only 82, which in the current context given the age of many world leaders is actually still relatively young, I say relatively. And by 2037, which would be the 23rd Party Congress, you would be 84. Still around the age of the current American president. Looking into the other scenario where we just discussed what might happen if he decides to head over power and choose the successor. If he, you know, what happens if this doesn't work out? Either he doesn't choose one or he fails to choose one in time. I personally would argue that Xi Jinping is more inclined to choose successor than not. The reason being, it is your number one prerogative as an incumbent leader. It is, I can't see of any reasonable argument for an incumbent to give up this power to say I don't need to choose the successor, I'll leave it up to them to decide who should follow me. This is the number one thing you can do to defend your legacy. So you will not give up this prerogative easily. The problem is, given what we described just now the various factors, he may struggle to choose suitable as because they're all too weak or he doesn't think they're strong enough to defend his legacy. Xi Jinping may end up exiting office unplanned, either to death or incapacitation before he chooses someone to take over him. So associated this, I'm sure you've indulged all of us indulge in such power games, which is monitoring the health of the incumbent leader. Everyone has, you know, poked part things like Xi Jinping coughing too much during a speech Xi Jinping, you know, was seen sort of limping when he was doing a state visit to France and Italy in 2019. People started speculating, did he have a physical ailment. And obviously famously in 2012, before he took power, he disappeared for two weeks. We canceled meeting with Clinton and other dignitaries they were supposed to meet and during this two week period, and it was never really explained what he did in those two weeks. In essence, all these episodes remind us that Xi Jinping represents key person rich on a global scale. And this is also another reason why we need to think very carefully about succession issues because, you know, company, a big company fails in succession, you know, shareholders might get affected. Xi Jinping, you know, leading one of the most most populous countries, most powerful militaries second largest economy. If he mishandled succession implications are truly global. So looking at potential scenarios for unexpected or unplanned exit. The incumbent leader to illness or accident is no longer able to do his job. These are potential outcomes, the government may fall into limbo where well the existing officials they sort of heads between whether he can come back, or he might die. This actually played out very dramatically. If you watch the movie in 2017, made by Amanda Yanucci, who also made deep and a thick of it is a brilliant satirist. The movie the death of Stalin sort of dramatized this process very vividly where after Stalin collapses from a stroke, the, the inner circle was sort of squabbling along themselves you know what should it get doctors. You know, who should they call should they get a good doctor but actually they realized there were no good doctors left because they touched them all. You know, and they're worried that if they got a bad doctor in Stalin might find out and they realize if if he dies that you'll never find out you know things like that. Obviously that's a bit of a satirical take on what might happen but in real life. Who's to say a similar process might not happen. In the this political limbo we just described, you know, latent fishes with an elite might erupt, you know, the party is a broad church, there are different groups of people with different persuasions in the party, although currently we may not see any things remotely sort of like the sort of factionalism paradigm I think is outdated, but you know there's still different people with different beliefs of various degrees they have different persuasions. They may in a time of crisis like this start to coalesce into different groups, and each group may have a preferred successor, and then you have sort of a infighting that could emerge during this process. Key coercive apparatus will become important the military and internal security services will likely play a crucial role in deciding who wins. So this happened in 1976, when the central guards bureau that was in charge of leadership security took a side they basically help walk off on the rest again or fall. So that was a bloodless crew, so to speak, where you know people in charge of certain coercive tools of state played a crucial role in deciding who wins the power show. Another personal outcome is where silent officials may see this as an opportunity to come back into power, you know because the leader is incapacitated or dead, this that chance to know, get back into the fight. Moving on to this is purely analysis and speculation now so take this as a picture salt take this with, you know, for just just as a guide, you know, this I'm not making any predictions I think it's making any predictions because this stage is setting ourselves setting yourself up for failure. But in terms of who's next, the current standing committee. As you would see, due to various reasons I've listed on the screen, they're too old, right, or they don't have a necessary experience. Therefore, they're all sort of not seen as the natural possibility of successor. Lee Chang was only six years younger than she told us he's only two four years younger than she one holding only two years younger than she Tai Chi as well. Think she sound is the one with the biggest age gap to see, but he has never governed a region right here's the in this sense. He lacks a key prerequisite for taking on national office, you can argue like right now his vice premier executive vice premier so he has experienced that is accumulating right now. At the central leadership level, but it's still quite a different job to what it would have been like you didn't have that pathway, taking on jobs of increasing importance to the regions. So it could be a strike against him. She is also too old looking broader into the rest of the Politburo. We have a lot of people doing all the post sixties. Here's a list of them. But you'll still struggle to see among them a clear successor. Not to say that one might not emerge in time to come. But one thing I like to put in your heads is this idea that it is possible that this crop of leaders may also be passed over. Because if Xi Jinping was to retain power for a significant time to come beyond a third beyond a fourth term, then these people would also become too old to take over. This gap would be too short. Even if they do take over, they will also last in power for particularly long. So it may it may be more wise for Xi Jinping to actually choose someone even younger and start the grooming process now if you groom someone in the post seventies generation for example, this person will be even more beholden to Xi Jinping because his rise in the upper tiers of the party leadership will be completely under the patronage of Xi. And Xi Jinping may more feel more secure in knowing that this person from a younger generation is truly his guy that could be a factor. Again, this is speculation. This is just educated guesses. You're entitled to your own opinion. You may have better guesses than me but you know just want to lay out sort of the thinking of some of the thinking I've done about this issue. And with that, I conclude my presentation and I'm willing to take questions now. Thank you very much indeed. Chunhan absolutely fascinating and I'm particularly grateful to you for your courage to look into the crystal crystal ball for the potential successors. I'm sure others have many questions to ask you but let me start off by asking you this. You have outlined all kinds of reasons why Xi Jinping really should want to have a successor is a power that he should not and there's no reason for him to want to forsake. But have you seen any actual evidence to suggest that he is a himself thinking about eventually he will need a successor. And be that of any of your generations that he's looking at, including the generations to be groom that there is the possibility of anybody who is great enough to merit being his successor. For he is, after all, the greatest of them all, since 1949, there's no leader greater than Xi Jinping, not even Mao, certainly not Dong Xiaoping, let alone your Zhang Jimin and Hu Jintao of this world. Who could fit that big shoes? What are his thoughts on that? What are the evidence that he has even allowed that thought to be contemplated by him or anybody else? On the first question, I think, obviously Xi Jinping hasn't said all that much specifically about his own succession planning in public. But I think he must, it is an issue that in some ways when you become the leader of any major organization or country, it is one of the key things you start thinking about your legacy and what's next. Because, especially when you set yourself up, as Xi Jinping has done to be seen, you want to be respected as a great statesman, someone of consequence, a consequential leader who's taken China onto a new path, someone an epoch defining leader who can be compared with Mao and Dong. He is someone who clearly thinks a lot about his legacy, and it is sort of inseparable for someone to think about his legacy. And he therefore has to also think about succession, because you cannot separate the two. There's no way to think about protecting and building as protecting a legacy without thinking about how do you protect it after you die. So I think, obviously Xi Jinping hasn't actually said it publicly himself, how I want to handle succession or that, you know, I am thinking about succession but I think it is a given that he would be given how he has, you know, sort of positioned himself, promoted himself, positioned himself to be one of great men of history. And for that status to endure, he has to do something within his power. He may or may not succeed, but I think from his position, he should at least have to try to make sure the succession is well handled enough for his legacy to survive. He also has said, in terms of what he has said publicly, he has said things like, you know, the longevity of the party role, the longevity of Communist Party control over China is dependent on us grooming, you know, successions of generations upon generations of worthy Communist Party members. So he says it in a broad sense that, you know, the party must continue to renew itself to ensure fresh blood comes in they are worthy of becoming Communist Party members they can take the mission forward. They can continue to govern China well into the future to ensure the CCP and yours. That is a very macro perspective but I think, you know, embedded within that is understanding that he himself in his position. He must also think about his succession to the next General Secretary or whatever position, whatever that position may become to be called. Sorry, what was the second question. No, no, I think I think I think I think I think we move on. I was really asking about actual evidence that he actually willing to contemplate that. Yeah, sure. Let's, let's, let's move on because there are quite a few questions in the box already. Wonder of them. The first one I picked comes from Matthew Kennedy at Warwick University. And he wanted to ask you about something that you have not touched on in your talk, which is the road that the PLA placed in any future succession to process. What role would that be. So it sort of depends on, you know, whether it's a planned succession or unplanned, you know, succession where we don't even have a clear or sort of a parent in position. So if it's a planned succession then the road the PLA would play will be much more you ensure the process plays out as intended. They would be the custodians they'll be the, you know, the guarantors of the process as they've always been there the ultimate guarantor of Communist Party power. But I don't have to do any active for they just have to make sure the process unfolds as it's meant to be as the leadership had designed. So in that sense they don't actually have to do much, but in the event of a contested succession and unplanned succession, then the role potentially becomes very critical, as mentioned just now the example in 90s and the six, where the joint which we actually played, arguably, you know, crucial role in deciding the outcome of the purge of the gang of four. The military can play a significant role in deciding who wins, because by pledging their loyalty to a particular would be successor. You know, you give this person almost 100% study of success because they control the most important tool of power in the country. In fact, if you remember, some of my colleagues this was back in 2012, I believe, when we were covering the downfall of Bo Xilai. Bo Xilai, obviously was purged, ultimately convicted and jailed for life for corruption abuse of power, but it turned out, through my colleagues reporting that before he was purged, there was one visit that he made to a PWA base in the southwest, where his father was, you know, had roots, he had connections to this particular PR unit, and he was seen as courting that sort of, you know, sort of tapping that history, using that family connection to sort of build this relationship or to flaunt this relationship that he has with this particular PR unit. And that was a big no no for the Communist Party edition, because no more factualism, they've seen that happen. And that would be the worst manifestations of that happened in Cultural Revolution, where there were, you could argue instances of an outright civil war between, you know, different armed groups including PR units so there was, this is understanding that you cannot allow, you know, upstarts and want to be, you know, leaders to try to use the PWA in a way that other than is truly intended for, which is to guarantee party power, you cannot use it as, you know, as a sort of tool to sort of use that power or try to protect yourself against the central party leadership trying to purge you. So I think that that that episode reminder for a lot of people the risk, you know, and and the influence influence that the PWA does have any potential power struggle within the party. Okay, next questions I pick comes from Madrid, the Autonomous University of Madrid, from Blanca, Morabini, St. Martin. And the question is about the leading small groups, now some of them been renamed but they've been, leading small groups. And the question is, how can we seek to understand their influence on Chinese policy process when they are so opaque, and thus greatly limiting access to empirical evidence. What strategies do you have for overcoming the problems of access to data about the leading small groups? Unfortunately, there's a reason why I wrote, if you remember I mentioned the start of the presentation, I had an afterwards which talks about media and information controls actually discuss this problem of opacity and lack of access to information in that section of the book. Basically, I'm not sure we can overcome this problem but we can try to, you know, peel away at some of the walls that the party has erected we can try to find cracks here and there to get information but I don't think we can truly overcome this problem. It is a challenge that arguably as long as these, as long as a party remains a land in this party, and there's no reason to think if it exists and remains in power it wouldn't be a land in this party. It will have erect these walls and a lot of these books be highly impenetrable, we can only do our best to try to peer over or somehow get some people inside the world to offer us some more insights as to what's going on within the leadership. As mentioned, you know, central leading groups now they have reading commissions, they are, there's very little visibility into what they do. They have routine disclosures like sometimes they will tell you they have met, who are the key attendees, they'll give you a readout as to what they've decided, but this is as much often as much as it gets. And unfortunately we're sort of going back to the era of, you know, the Mao era where a lot of the China watching was done from the outside and back then it was done out of Hong Kong. A lot of people will basically read the people's daily religiously every day to the extent that it is second nature to you you understand the language that the party uses to communicate to its people, as well as they do. And then you pick up on very minute and small changes in inflections and tone and vocabulary that gives you, you know, this inkling that things are changing. There's a policy shift, or you notice things like so and so hasn't appeared in any of these public reports for six months, what's happened to him. In fact, that's what we've been doing in some to some extent like we've noticed things like you know when Qingtang and Li Shang food disappeared. When Wei Fenghe stopped showing up in public after retired and that he was not seen in this list of, you know, retired state and party leaders will receive Chinese near well wishes. That's the sort of analysis we're doing again, because we have very few other ways of trying to get direct information. But ultimately, the party is a 90 million member party that controls a bureaucracy of huge size governing a part of governing a country of one point for the people. There's certain directives and instructions that can be disseminated totally to what we call Hong Tou Wenjian and secret documents. But there's a lot of things that can be and has to be communicated in the clear in public through the People's Daily to Xinhua, through publications like the Chiu Shi Journal, through books, through educational political education material for party members to study. A lot of what the leadership wants people to think down the chain, that is actually accessible to us. And if I guess the only solution or the only approach that's left to us as outsiders is to be better trained and better adapt into picking up signals that some of them would emerge in these outward facing public documentations that are put. So open source research essentially is the only solution I can offer. Okay. Next questions come from an anonymous participant. Not entirely sure why the question is being put in an anonymous way, but here goes. Why is it helpful to compare Xi's regime with pre-modern Chinese emperors in terms of your succession of arrangements. So I think, well, I wouldn't want to compare, broaden the comparison too much. I did use the Qing dynasty, specifically Yongzheng in the final, the last chapter eight of my book to talk about succession because imperial drama, imperial succession dramas are very well known among Chinese people. These legends are taught in schools. It is portrayed in television dramas. Some of you who, if you're old enough, you would have seen some of these television dramas in the late 90s and early 2000s. The CCTV dramas portraying the three most famous emperors of the Qing dynasty, Kang Xi Yongzheng Qianlong, the epic CCTV dramas for each emperor. And Yongzheng, I remember when I watched that I was very taken by his depiction of the of this episode known as the Jiu Wang Duodhi, you know, the nine princes fighting for the throne. It was very bloody, international, you know, fratricidal fighting among princes to fight over who would take over. Obviously Yongzheng was the one who won. But, you know, this stuff is legend. This stuff is well understood by the man in the street. Everyone has heard these stories. They understand, you know, If you remember actually a few years ago when there was a Yanxi攻略, this famous television show about, you know, caught politics. I think a lot of ordinary Chinese people actually, that's imperial history gives them that sort of understanding, you know, how caught politics works, how succession is a problem for autocratic rulers of China's imperial past. And there are some parallels. And I think even current leaders, even people within the party elite also think of themselves in those terms, to some extent, in the sense that they're understanding our Chinese history also informs how they see events of today. You know, some of the people who criticize Xi for what he's done since taking power, those are his friends, you know, I, you know, Prince fellow Princelings who point out to, you know, in conversations I've had with some of them, like they have, you know, they make certain analogies, they use that sort of language and invoke those sort of parallels. So it is something that they think about, you know, it informs them, it is shapes that will deal with shapes how they look at politics and tradition. So, in the reason why I make this comparison is because it's also to some extent how they think about this issue. You know, it's not necessarily directly comparable because obviously the key differences in how the party is run and how a monarchy is run. There are a lot of influences and examples and lessons they would have learned from how Soviet political success was handled and how Mao Zedong and the shopping handle succession. But in the grander scheme of things, the imperial history does play a role in shaping how they think of some of these issues. In fact, some of their, you know, self image as well. So effectively you are saying that the system may have changed. The mindset for thinking about power struggle and succession in China has not fundamentally changed from the imperial dynastic days to the socialist Communist Party era. In some ways, yes. Ironically so, because that was the sort of feng jian, you know, to those system is meant to overflow but the power structures as their design. Unfortunately, there are parallels and I think it will be, it will be remiss of us not to look at some of these parallels, obviously understanding the limitations as comparisons. So I have to be careful about, you know, taking, drawing too straight of a line between imperial history and what's happening today but there are parallels it does shape how some of them look at these issues within the elite. So, you know, even if it's just like the sort of analogies they reach for the sort of historical examples that they reach for, you know, it's a shorthand right like when I say this particular emperor did this, you know, a lot of people who understand the politics within the system, they understand what you mean. You know, when I say Zhu Yuan Zhang, you know, as the thing about Li Li Chang said he wouldn't, well, we announced that Li Chang wouldn't do a press conference at the end of Liang Hui just couple weeks ago. A lot of Chinese citizens, they went online and made, you know, oblique commentary and one of the ways they made oblique commentary about this cancellation of press briefing was they posted a video of drama series about Zhu Yuan Zhang and this this this the clip that they posted was basically scolding a courtier saying, I don't want, you know, a chancellor, a prime minister, I don't need one, I can control things myself. You know, that's the sort of analogies and historical examples that they reach for because it's familiar to them. They see certain parallels, you know, and it helps them understand what's going on and explain what's going on. So even though there's key differences, but I think there's enough similarities that, you know, people consistently reach back into imperial history to make a critique of what's going on today. Okay, let's move on. James Sinclair has a question, which is about how did Xi Jinping persuade the party in 2018 to agree. Or 2017 to agree to the end of the term limits for himself. I think it was 20. Yeah. Yeah. So this was done. As far as the public record shows, this was done at the plan on one of the, you know, so there were two plans before the 2018. In Taipei, where the term limits are scrapped, and if you remember actually the announcement was came on a very weird way, actually came out in the Xinhua tweet headline. English that the tournament have been scrapped. The Chinese reports on the proposed changes of constitution actually soft-pedaled this bombshell. English Xinhua, they actually told the world like almost in the clear like, oh, this is happening and people reacted accordingly. In terms of how he did it, this is something where, you know, it's hard to know because obviously we're not there. We have limited insight into decision-making processes. But I think there's some interesting signs that you can take away from how the process unfolded, which is interestingly for something so monumental given the impact that it had on public discourse in the years since and the shock it made, the shock it delivered to a lot of people at the time when it was announced. It wasn't leaked, right? It was such a monumental decision, but no one actually really talked about it before it happened. And you look, for example, the plenum, basically a congregation of 370 plus people, including alternate members of the Central Committee. I always tell this, I mean, this is just a more facetious way to make this point. So don't take it too seriously. The driver, you know, every Central Committee member has a driver. On the way home from the meeting, you tell your driver, you know, you tell your secretary, maybe you tell your wife. So 370 times four, you know, more than a thousand people, maybe close to, you know, 2,000 people, in fact, might have heard of something along the lines that something this big would happen, but it wasn't leaked. It only became public information at the moment when the party released information. That tells you that Xi Jinping has done a very good job at information security. He's convinced, you know, people to protect the party's secrets, you know, especially a sensitive secret like that. Something which, if prematurely released, could have caused backlash and jeopardized his attempt to repeal the term. But it was held very closely. It came out only when the party was prepared to release it. And I think that shows the level of control and secrecy he has been able to enforce at that point to make sure there was discipline at the upper ranks that, you know, this key decision, this arguably, you know, a moment in Chinese political history that sort of defined the difference between, you know, a sort of clear turning point between the Deng era and the Xi era. I think the question of the question really is about why did the party upper echelon, whether you're talking about the central committee or the political, why did they go along with it when it was being put forward, rather than resist it at the first moment it came out? I think that's the question. Yeah. So I think what I was trying to make, my point I was trying to make obliquely from what I meant about the information security was that he had this control of the central leadership. You know, they didn't have to go out of line. The fact that you could enforce such tight information security I think is a symptom or is a reflection of the sort of control he had already established over the party leadership, the party elite, the three assembly people that constitute the central committee. None of them had a step out of line. None of them tried to leak the information early beforehand to try to jeopardize this potential momentous decision. And this goes back to what I mentioned earlier presentation Xi Jinping's use of anti-corruption purges to consolidate power. Xi Jinping has two main tools for inspiring to consolidate his personalised control over the party in China. You inspire further and you inspire fear. And I think fear unfortunately is probably the more compelling of the two factors and we've seen it continue to today. To today, anti-corruption purges have rolled on. Just today on my phone I've seen plenty of headlines about further officials getting punished. One of them was I think a former assistant minister of the Ministry of Public Security. This is the 11th, 12th year of Xi Jinping's leadership. You know, the anti-corruption purges have not abated. The use of these purges to enforce discipline and fear and therefore consolidate leadership authority has only continued. It would be a, I would, you know, this is obviously speculation, but I think it would have been a very brave person within the leadership to step out of line and say, what do you think you're doing as well? Because you're therefore exposing yourself to retaliation, exposing yourself to being targeted by Xi Jinping through the very awesome use of forces done. By that point he had been doing it for more than five years. So the examples have ready to make clear that that execution of his power I think was the key in making sure no one there stepped out of line to oppose it. Okay, sorry. Next questions come from Norman Stockland from Scotland, Aberdeen area I think. The question is about whether the top level officers, the three top officers could be fragmented again or separated again moving forward. Or do you see them as being impossible to separate any longer and in personal procedures for replacing them one by one? Would that still be an option? Does that come into your succession? Nothing is forever, I would say. It's a tried answer, but I think I think basically in the book I actually go into a bit more depth about this, which is can the system of governance that Xi Jinping set up survive him? And my presentation just now talked about the mechanics of the succession, but it actually closely related to this idea. Like if you choose the successor that is not able to be strong enough to defend your legacy by this by the same token, this person cannot wield control over the bureaucracy, you know, tensions within the party will emerge, he may get deposed, people who oppose the Xi program of the past 10, 15, 20 years, whenever he decides to head over power would try to repudiate him or at least water down or dilute some of the worst accesses that they believe to have been implemented under the previous leadership. We've seen this happen before, after the Mao era. So Mao Zedong died and Deng Xiaoping over the course of the 80s steadily dismantled some of the key tenets of Maoism and put forward his own program. And there's no reason why if Xi Jinping doesn't choose successor who is strong enough to defend his program and defend his vision of government that another batch of leaders can't dismantle what Xi Jinping has set up. I'm quite sure Xi Jinping understands this as well because he saw this process unfold before his own eyes. He was part of this process, his family was affected, his father was affected. So there is no reason why the current setup where you have the three positions essentially completely bounded into one person with no time limits forcing him to give up one position earlier than the rest. There's no reason why a future leadership that you know decided that this approach to leadership is outdated, we need to revert to something you know more akin to separation of powers where you have different persons holding the presidency and the general secretary position and the premiership which was something there was actually the case in the 80s. There's no reason why another generation of leadership won't come to the conclusion. But what Xi Jinping can do to avoid this outcome is to make sure from his perspective choose the right guy to take over and defend his vision of governance for as long as possible. The only way he can increase the chance of this happening is to make sure you handle succession well. He cannot guarantee it, he cannot improve the odds from his perspective. Okay let's move on. Next questions come from Lisa which is to ask you about your thoughts on what is so unique or special about Xi Jinping's three year long policy towards the Covid pandemic. What was special about it? Is that the question? What is so unique or special about Xi Jinping's approach to the Covid pandemic? I'm not sure, let me answer the question this way. I think it was revealing in how it was dismantled. I think it was revealing of the nature of the governance and his use of fear as a tool of governance. I think it was revealing of the impact it had on policy making and decision making down the chain. So zero Covid obviously was effective for the earlier, the majority of the three years, the first two thirds of that period, it was effective in doing what the leadership wanted to do which is to contain the coronavirus and restore to a large degree normal life for a lot of Chinese citizens in cities where infection rates were very low or non-existent and for the most part people could go about their lives as if there was no pandemic going on the rest of the world and that for a lot of Chinese was proof of the superiority of the system, the effectiveness of Chinese Communist Party governance. It was touted as you know, see China can do something better than all these Western countries that have let the virus run wild. But after over crowning merged, it really challenged the ability of the system to contain the virus in such a way and eventually for a long time there's not a secret to the leadership they understood as well as anybody else because people have been talking about for a long time was that they needed to start preparing the exit because you cannot do this forever and the way to prepare for an exit is to start vaccinating ramp up vaccination numbers to be fair vaccination rates were quite high but the problem is like sort of the last mile delivery right because you had successfully vaccinated the vast majority population but the people that you really need to vaccinate the people most vulnerable to the reopening the elderly and the vulnerable population there was sort of this courage from vaccinating because there was a period of time where the government narrative was that if you have preconditions you have if you're old you have certain medical conditions should avoid vaccinations because you could exacerbate those problems you may suffer side effects. So it became when the time came the crunch time to drive up vaccination among the vulnerable population they couldn't really do it there was to this gap. They had to overcome sort of the psychological barrier they set up themselves and also I think when the policy was dismantled a lot of officials hadn't actually really followed through in the vaccination drive because if you're a local official you have been preparing for the last three years to clamp down on any outbreaks as they happened lockdown districts lockdown house compounds you know send people into quarantine centers with you know almost no exemptions that sort of high intensity approach requires time and resources and manpower and even if the center was starting to send you signals say we should start preparing for an exit when you start driving a vaccinations you are in from a local official's point of view which one is likely to get me into trouble if I start allow transitioning people money and resources into vaccinating people and start diluting my capability to contain the virus I could get fired tomorrow if an outbreak happens in my district the risk the the downside risk of such a shift is very high for a local official who's being held accountable for his mistakes and they've seen it happen many times a lot of officials were punished for quote-unquote negligence failure to execute their duty when it came to pandemic controls so if you tell me I had the same time I have to maintain strict zero covid controls and transition to preparation for a post-pandemic future by vaccinating people and I only have a certain limited number of resources and manpower to do it the choice is simple I would still primarily focus on the former which is to contain the virus because preparing vaccinating people won't defend my job the the effects are sort of amorphous it's not really easy to define success apart from vaccination rates but it's very easy to define failure if an outbreak happens in my district so a lot of officials clearly did not start preparing hospitals were not stock stocked with the right medicines vaccination drives were not probably executed because I think for a lot of officials down the line under the high pressure top-down approach that Xi Jinping has instituted the choice you know between self-preservation and is very clear they gravitate towards the conservative safer choice and that directly affected the ability of the center to shift course and prepare for a post-pandemic future that contributed I think quite directly to the sort of very chaotic exit that we all saw in late 2022 early 2030 okay I want to move on more quickly I got we got four minutes three minutes left I got two more questions I would try to see where they can squeeze in both but at least one of them and the next one comes from Jonathan Fenby clear short straightforward question does picking a successor automatically weakened an autocratic leader to some extent I think it does because you people start aligning themselves with the successor in so far so obviously this depends on the quality of the successor if the successor is a good one in the sense that he's capable his ability his strong ability to organize and do his own political base you are weakening the leader because you are starting to siphon away authority and influence from the incumbent if you use a weak successor that process may be a bit you know slower he may not be able to siphon as much power and influence from you but you are undermining your true goal in succession which is to make sure the next guy can actually do what you want him to do because he may get end up getting ousted very quickly so in some ways it's you can't have it both ways you choose a good successor he's almost always going to start weakening your authority choose a bad successor he may not immediately weaken your authority but longer term what you truly want to achieve that gets undermined so unfortunately I think that's why it's called the successes dilemma you know you can't have it both ways okay let me try to see we can switch in the last question to come pop in true from University of Sydney I'm not completely sure I get the question so do forgive me if I misunderstood you Mr. True the question is about your analysis of in the book and how does that relate to the politics of China in Hong Kong and in Singapore now I'm not sure whether it's for Chinese politics or Chinese policy worse well there's no Chinese politics in Singapore because we are sovereign nation with our own system of government but in Hong Kong I'm not sure I fully understand the question but I think in terms of what I actually do describe in the book about Hong Kong is I think Hong Kong there's a clear sense that they had let the problem fester for too long they had allowed successive waves of resistance play out over the years since 97 I talked to some of you who know who is Bernard Chan who's like sort of a prominent voice for the poor establishment camp he himself described it to me as we did economic integration we did other forms integration but we didn't do political integration and they kicked that can down the road too far and that meant we had you know waves of protests there was a period of law you know after 2003 article 23 protests but you know they saw it crop up again in 2012 with the national moral education protests 2014 with umbrella movement so successive waves of protests re-emerged again in the early 2010s and I think they increasingly took on a flavor which from Beijing's perspective was anti their authority anti communist party authority and they realized they could not be reconciled anymore either you had to start taking more decisive action or this thing could grow to something that truly gets out of your control so I think by 2019 given the massive scale of the protests given a direct assault on symbols of central government authority it truly galvanized Beijing and taking really drastic action there was no you know two ways about it now either we act and solve this problem once and for all and I believe some Chinese officials based on what I've heard from conversations people in the know is that you know they privately some of them talk about a second hand over you know the first hand over we did the basic stuff the second however we must do it once and for all this will not happen again we must get this right you know there's no second chances we do this once and do it good and that's what we've seen subsequently happen you know NSL article 23 and then from that perspective um there's no questioning their commitment to delivering you know impressing upon Hong Kong society that Beijing is truly in charge okay on that note I'm afraid it is my duties to draw these webinars to a closed thank you very much Chunhan Wang for your very insightful interesting presentation and answers and thank you to all of you who have raised questions I'm glad that I have managed to put them all to Mr Wang I look forward to seeing more of you in some other events that we host moving forward thank you and goodbye