<![CDATA[Forget the trade war and Hong Kong. Beijing just showed everyone that Xi Jinping is more powerful now, not less]>

Reading the tea leaves of China's secretive and opaque politics is very much a necessary but thankless job, particularly in this age of wild speculation fuelled by social media.

The latest case in point concerns the intense rumours of major political infighting and a possible shake-up of China's senior leadership team that emerged last week in the run-up to the Communist Party's Central Committee meeting, an annual event that brings together 371 senior officials to discuss and approve the party's and country's policy agenda.

So when the four-day meeting ended on Thursday, the 5,000-word communique of the meeting, full of jargon and lacking in details, was nothing short of an anticlimax.

At first glance, it offers nothing substantially new on most fronts except for the Hong Kong issue. It mostly reaffirms the existing policies, although it also employs stronger and ambitious language to call for more efforts to strengthen the control of the party leadership and improve its capacity for governance in the face of mounting challenges at home and abroad.

But it would be wrong to dismiss its importance because it is still significant on several levels.

First of all, the meeting has reinforced the message that President Xi Jinping, already dubbed China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, has continued to tighten his grip on power, contrary to constant speculation that his leadership was under increasing pressure, both internally and from outside the party, because of the slowing economy, the US-China trade war, and the anti-Beijing protests in Hong Kong.

As some credible China analysts, including Jude Blanchette from the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, have pointed out, the fact that the Central Committee devoted the whole four-day meeting to discussing improvements in the party leadership's capacity for governance and decision-making process, a key component of "Xi Jinping Thought", is a very strong signal.

There were rumours President Xi Jinping had been looking to promote Chen Min'er (pictured), party secretary of Chongqing. File photo: EPA-EFE alt=There were rumours President Xi Jinping had been looking to promote Chen Min'er (pictured), party secretary of Chongqing. File photo: EPA-EFE

By comparison, it is interesting to note that some other analysts still hold on to what can only be termed anachronistic thinking that Xi was compelled to shake up the party's highest governing body, the Politburo Standing Committee, in the middle of his second term by promoting one or two of his allies to cement his hold on power.

Rumours swirled ahead of the meeting that Xi wanted to elevate Chen Min'er, currently a Politburo member and the party secretary of Chongqing municipality, to the standing committee, and some even suggested that Xi intended to expand the size of the committee from the current seven to nine, to include Hu Chunhua, currently a vice-premier and also a Politburo member.

Chinese Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua. File photo: EPA-EFE alt=Chinese Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua. File photo: EPA-EFE

This has proved way off the mark. It is true that the previous leaderships under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao have used the middle-of-the-term annual meetings in the past to announce major reshuffles.

However, since Xi came to power in late 2012, he has managed to transform the ways the party and the country are governed by succeeding to consolidate the power around him as the "core" of the leadership. Thus there is no urgent need or necessity for him to elevate one or two allies, or carry out a shake-up in the middle of his second term that would signal weakness and instability at the top.

The suggestion that he intended to expand the standing committee to nine makes even less sense. When Xi's immediate predecessor, Hu Jintao, first came to power in 2002, the size of the standing committee was expanded to nine from seven in the name of collective leadership.

But Hu's 10-year reign had proved less effective, to say the least, thus paving the way for Xi to reduce the size back to seven when he became the party chief.

As Xi continues to strengthen his hold on power " helped by the abolition of term limits for the presidency and the massive campaign to build a personality cult around him " perhaps it makes more sense to suggest that he might consider shrinking the size of the standing committee at the party's 20th congress in 2022, if he decides a smaller committee would be even less constraining.

The Politburo presides over the fourth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua alt=The Politburo presides over the fourth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua

Secondly, the communique suggested the Communist Party would further enhance the controls of the party at all levels of society and the economy, at a time when economic indicators have painted a dismal picture at home.

Abroad, China is facing strong resistance from the United States, which is forcefully taking to task what it sees as Beijing's competing ideology and values, governance model, and intentions for international domination.

In fact, the leadership signalled as much last Sunday, a day before the meeting started, by announcing the publication of a new book titled On the Party's Leadership over All Work, containing 70 excerpts of speeches and documents by Xi over the past nearly seven years, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

It said that ensuring the party's leadership overall work was an important part of Xi Jinping Thought, which is consistent with the line Xi has repeatedly preached, that "the party leads everything".

As previously explained in this space, from Xi's own perspective, the biggest danger to the rule of the party is the party itself, as it is fraught with systemic risks which makes it inherently difficult to effectively tackle long-term and complex challenges.

According to the communique, the meeting discussed and approved "a decision on some major issues concerning how to uphold and improve the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and advance the modernisation of China's system and capacity for governance". Translated, it basically means that the party leadership would try to enhance their capacity to strengthen and legitimise their power.

But exactly how the Chinese leaders would achieve that remains unclear as the authorities have not released the full details of the document. Some of the details may be made public in the coming weeks as the propaganda authorities have already announced that they would launch a major publicity campaign nationwide to study the document.

By contrast, the communique was more explicit in signalling Beijing's intention on getting tougher on Hong Kong where violent anti-government protests are set to enter their fifth month. In particular, it stated that the leadership would "establish a sound legal system and enforcement mechanism for safeguarding national security" in Hong Kong and Macau.

Many analysts have interpreted that line as Beijing preparing to push for a national security law in Hong Kong, among other steps. China's constitution and Hong Kong's Basic Law grant Beijing the power to enact such a law, though in 2003 the local government shelved a plan to do so following mass protests.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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