Soul-searching for China’s Communist Party elite as they consider way ahead

In a year of monumental challenges for China, what keeps President Xi Jinping awake at night is probably not the trade war with the United States, nor the economic downturn, nor even the festering social unrest in Hong Kong, but the Communist Party itself.

This week, China’s 300 or so of the party’s most powerful elites gather behind closed doors for a long-anticipated high-powered party meeting. As usual, it is shrouded in secrecy, with little information available other than an eye-watering line-up of “important issues concerning how to uphold and improve the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and make progress in modernising the country’s governance system and capacity”.

The meeting, also known as the fourth plenum, is an important occasion for the party elite to discuss, debate and forge consensus on some of the most critical issues.

But, ultimately, it comes down to a matter of soul-searching for the world’s second longest-ruling party: after seven decades of unchallenged rule, how can it steer the world’s most populous nation through uncharted waters of uncertainty and challenges, in order to stay in power?

The country’s economic growth has plummeted to its slowest in nearly 30 years, exacerbated by a bruising trade war with the US. Demands on social welfare and quality of life are growing, with public health and environmental scandals frequently igniting public outrage.

Abroad, China’s activities are coming under increasing scrutiny from the West, as geopolitical and ideological tensions flare. And, in Hong Kong, the ongoing crisis has called into question the viability of “one country, two systems”, squandering all hopes of uniting with Taiwan under the same formula.

In the lead-up to the plenum, the party’s leading theoretical journal Qiushi, or “Seeking Truth”, published a lengthy excerpt of a speech Xi gave to a group of senior officials in January last year, which had been kept secret until recently.