From Xi Jinping's rise to power to dangerous tensions between China and the United States: the analysis of synologist Li Cheng

From a small table near the window of the China Club in central Hong Kong, the academic Li Cheng he looks at Victoria Harbor and Kowloon, while explaining his arrival in this city in voluntary exile from Washington. At this exclusive club, decorated with antiques and evocations of Shanghai and colonial Hong Kong style, share white peona tea in porcelain cups with Édouard Blanccorrespondent of Financial Times in China.

Li, who spent nearly four decades in the United States, including 17 years at the Brookings Institution, has become one of the most prominent analysts of China's political elite. Throughout his career, he has been a key intermediary between Washington and Beijing, guiding Western officials and experts through the complex structure of the Chinese Communist Party.

In recent years, he has shared with his friends in Washington his decision to leave the United States. Although the country needed to better understand China, due to its transformation into a global superpower, the scholar's influence on bilateral understanding had become very limited. As he explained, the shift in attitudes toward China began much earlier than many imagined.

His career in the United States was marked by a series of precise predictions about the composition of the politburo and standing committee of the Communist Party of China, the main power groups in China. He also rubbed shoulders with influential figures, such as the statesman Henri Kissingerwho played a key role in opening relations with China, and advised in several US presidential campaigns, in addition to teaching and writing books.

Her emigration story began in 1985, when a sister in the United States facilitated her transfer from China. His first university years at Berkeley and Princeton coincided with a moment of great enthusiasm for studies on the Asian giant, during the opening period initiated by Deng Xiaoping. I almost cry when I think of the wonderful treatment I received. Now it's completely different.

Today, Li states bluntly: The United States is in no mood to study China. But there is a deeper pessimism about the changes he has witnessed: economics has become mathematics. Political science has become statistical. History and culture are not appreciated. Do you think this mentality serves the interests of the United States?

Asked by White about the era of the Cultural Revolution, the sinologist and seasoned observer of Chinese politics turns a blind eye and responds without hesitation: Violence. His tone is a sharp line that divides memory: behind each word hides the invisible trace of a childhood prisoner of the frenzy of the Maoist regime. Born in 1956 into a wealthy family in Shanghai, a deadly place during Mao's murderous social cleansing campaignLi was the youngest of seven brothers. It was there that he lost his older brother, in an episode in which the state, with a cold gesture of indifference, informed the family that it had taken his life. Years later, he discovers the truth: He had been beaten to death by the Red Guardswho threw his body on the railway tracks.

Before discussing strained U.S.-China relations, Xi Jinping's rise in the Communist Party, and growing conflict with Taiwan, Li and White stop briefly to talk about the menu. They quickly decide to try the famous duck and dim sumfor which the restaurant is known. With a smile, the waiter, a tough but friendly guy, confirmed that half a bird would be enough to share.

Tensions between China and the United States did not arise overnight. Li, who became a U.S. citizen in 2003, remembers how U.S. politics shifted toward distrust and suspicion, a progressive movement that he says began near the end of Barack Obama's administration and coincided with the early years of Xi Jinping. Today, he says, positions are so radicalized that almost no one is safe from the judgment of paranoia. His departure for Hong Kong, although voluntary, was an almost forced step in the face of the siege of doubt and intolerance that surrounded him. Even at Brookings, his own mentor, Jeffrey Baderwarns: We will soon no longer be relevant at the center of Chinese studies.

Faced with this panorama, and a few days before the elections in the United States, the prestigious academic considers that the elections of November 5 offer little optimism for improving relations between Washington and Beijing. He said Kamala Harris has little experience in China and appears willing to follow Joe Biden's approach of building coalitions, isolating the Chinese regime. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is more inward-looking, but unpredictable. In fact, both are bad. I don't think China has the preference (…) We are entering a very, very dangerous period. There is a lot at stake. There will be no winners.

In the middle of the conversation, the waiter leaves six hours dumplings which give off a tempting scent. Trying the first ones, one with vegetables and another have left of shrimp and bamboo shoots, nothing particularly memorable stands out. However, according to White, the true test of good dim sum comes across xiaolongbao, considered the true king of soup dumplings. This one in particular is exceptional for diners: its delicate skin contains a mixture of ground pork and a hot, aromatic soup, achieving a balanced and irresistible flavor. The correspondent of Financial Times He admits his remorse for not having asked for more.

According to Li, China's political system is not that opaque, although it is impenetrable to most foreigners. In his analyses, this specialist in Chinese politics was able to predict movements and emerging personalities by combining his knowledge of the institutional rules and precedents of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as the requirements regarding retirement age and limitation mandates. He says that by applying these principles, one can very quickly discover who the rising stars are.

Li's innovation lies in his emphasis on education, personal networks, and loyalty lines among senior Party officials. This method allowed him to group the leaders into factions, including the taizidang or little princes, sons of the Party founders and revolutionary leaders; tuanpai, of the Communist Youth League; and the Shanghi clique, or Shanghai bang, made up of those who owe their rise to Jiang Zeminwith whom they worked in this industrial city in the 1980s.

Since the time of Mao ZedongWesterners have attempted to decipher the workings of the Communist Party and the thinking of its leaders, as well as the variations of their influences. However, this structure remains largely misunderstood in the West.

The waiter briefly interrupts again to present, as if it were a bottle of wine, the big star of the lunch: the duck. He takes it back to the kitchen to slice it, and puts it back at the table. The breast is tender, not fatty and the skin is crispy and not chewy. There's a reason this dish has survived since the 13th century. In the meantime, White changes the focus of the conversation and begins asking Li about Xi Jinping.

Li, who met Xi Jinping in the early 1990s and has held repeated talks with the Chinese leader – which now allows him to maintain access to inside information from Beijing – analyzes the psychology of the leader Chinese. Considered by many to be the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, Xi exceeded the two-consecutive term limit and filled Party leadership positions with people from his inner circle, dismantling dominant factions. His main fear, according to Li, is avoiding Mikhail Gorbachev's mistakes and the possibility of a slow marginalization of the Communist Party. For international critics, Xi is responsible for the transition to authoritarianism, the crackdown on freedoms and the rise of electronic surveillance, as well as the militarization of Taiwan and the South China Sea, and his uneasy alliance with Vladimir Putin.

Despite this, The sinologist assures that preparations for his succession are already underway. According to him, it will be in 2027, at the start of his probable fourth term, that his project will be clarified, which could lead Xi to extend his leadership until 2032, when he will be 79 years old. Although the Chinese establishment has accepted the rationale for his third term, Li maintains that it does not imply a blank check for a president for life. Even if his collaborators are loyal to him, the degree of fidelity is differentindica.

For Li, Xi rose to power after years of so-called collective leadership, a period marked by internal conflicts and corruption, culminating in the fall of Bo Xilai. This system was not perfect, Li says, adding that in China a narrative was consolidated in which Mao is credited with lifting China up, Deng Xiaoping with making it rich, and Xi with making it strong.

Aware of Xi's unpopularity among liberal intellectuals, the business elite and some lower-ranking officials, the academic believes that the Chinese leader has been effective and strategic in his political maneuvering since taking over the leadership of the left in 2012 and of the party. armed forces, an operation that left illusions about Xi's style of government, which He has been ruthless in eliminating his rivals in the race for power.

White and Li finish eating. The correspondent of Financial Times He orders a coffee and the synologist a tea. The journalist counter-argues and reviews a long list of complaints against Xi. When asked about the repression and mass detentions of Uyghurs and other Muslim groups in XinjiangLi questions the definition of these events as genocide, officially used by the United States and much of the West.

The conversation concluded with Li Cheng's personal reflections on his life and his continued struggle to find a space where his opinions are not used in a partisan manner: Empathy is crucial right now, he concluded .