Kerry Brown

Quick Take | Opinion: The real message for the world in China’s first global congress

Xi Jinping may be the lead character in the latest episode of a play unfolding since 1921, but the plot is about the Communist Party

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Two Chinese in front of the slogan ‘Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China’ ahead of the party congress in Beijing. Photo: AP

Kerry Brown

Published: 8:17am, 21 Oct 2017Updated: 3:40pm, 23 Oct 2017

Looking at various congresses over the past nine decades, one can map a narrative of the Communist Party and its development. They form the backbone of the organisation’s story.

The first, in 1921, was an epic of endurance and survival, held over nine days – the first seven in Shanghai and the last two in neighbouring Zhejiang after police disrupted proceedings. Of the 13 delegates who attended, more than half were to end up murdered, exiled or purged in the ensuing years.

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From such inauspicious beginnings the 19th party congress, held from Wednesday in Beijing, has grown. Over the decades, it has been at congresses that major strategic decisions have been made, decisions which have fundamentally shaped the party story. To adopt an agrarian rather than an urban form of revolution in the 1920s and 1930s; to accede to Mao’s dominant role in the 1940s. In the Maoist era, the three congresses held – the 8th in 1956, the 9th in 1969, and 10th in 1973 – marked moments before or after upheavals such as the Great Leap Forward in 1957, the Cultural Revolution in 1966, or the fall of Lin Biao in 1971.

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Since 1978, they have acquired a five-year rhythm, giving a sense of party continuity and predictability in a China convulsed by marketisations and social change. Each congress over this period has come to contribute to the unfolding tale of the reform era.

The 1982 congress saw the acceptance of socialism with Chinese characteristics – 1992 deepened this, with Deng Xiaoping’s final swansong. In 2002 it was the affirmation of Jiang Zemin’s “theory of the three represents” and the then radical notion of entrepreneurs being allowed to enter the party. In 2007 Hu Jintao introduced “scientific development”. The last congress, in 2012, saw the rise of Xi Jinping. We now know much more about how this subplot is developing – 2017 will be the start of a major new episode.

We still do not know what the specific ingredients will be in the new episode of this grand drama, but we get the drift of the overall plot from all that has come before.

China's President Xi Jinping. Photo: AFP

We know we are not watching a tragedy. That belongs to the past – the era before 1949 – when there seemed to be no hope. The party has now progressed through the years of purgatory under Mao, into the sunnier period of optimism – of the promise of happy endings and bright messages. For all the talk surrounding this congress’ likely challenges and problems, there will one dominant metanarrative: things will turn out well in the end.