Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium
Appendix XXXVI
你儂我儂
In early March 2023, the ‘dual congresses’ representing China’s civilian government are convened in Beijing. Known by the shorthand expression the ‘Two Sessions’ 兩會 liǎng huì they are the annual plenary sessions of the National People’s Congress and of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. These two impotent bodies, one a formal national legislature, the other an advisory chimera, gather every spring at the Great Hall of the People in the heart of the Chinese capital.
In 2023, the National People’s Congress will give full-throated endorsement to Xi Jinping continuing in the position as China’s president and install his hand-picked cabinet. In the process, a major administrative reform will further enfeeble the Chinese state in favour of the Communist Party and its party secretary, again, Xi Jinping.
For over a decade, political revanchism has reversed the hard-won disentanglement of the party from the state, a process that had evolved fitfully over the preceding decades. There has been a restoration of what, in the old days, was known as ‘monolithic Party rule’ 黨的一元化領導. These days it is called ‘comprehensive Party leadership’ 黨的全面領導 or ‘centrally co-ordinated management’ 集中統一領導. The new reality was encapsulated by the revival of a Mao-era dictum in January 2016: ‘Everything in China’, it was declared (echoing what Mao had said in December 1973), ‘is under the direction of the Communist Party: party, state, army, civilian life and education, as are all points of the compass, east, south, west, north and the centre’ 黨政軍民學，東西南北中，黨是領導一切的. From that point for all intents and purposes Xi Jinping has not only been China’s Chairman of Everything, he also became Chairman of Everywhere and Everyone.
[Note: For more on this topic, see A People’s Banana Republic, China Heritage, 5 September 2018.]
The National People’s Congress of March 2023 will merely rubber-stamp publicly behind-the-door decisions made by the Twentieth Central Committee of the Communist Party since October 2022.
We mark China’s legislative farrago by introducing readers of China Heritage to Next Year in Moscow, an eight-part podcast series produced by Arkady Ostrovsky for The Economist. Links to the episodes of the series are provided below.
Previously, we traced the entwined histories of the Chinese and Russian autocracies in We Need to Talk About Totalitarianism, Again, the first chapter of Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium. In Next Year in Moscow, readers may well pick up on some of the eerie parallels between contemporary China and Russia, as well as the political trajectories of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin from around the year 2008. Many would agree with Liza Osetinskaya, founder of the defunct YouTube channel ‘Russians are OK’ (Russkie Norm!), who observes in her conversation with Arkady Ostrovsky that:
‘It’s all ruined by the politics.’
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The Chinese rubric of this appendix is 你儂我儂 nǐ nóng wǒ nóng — ‘you in me and me in you’ — a popular expression inspired by the ‘You-Me Song’ 我儂詞 by Guan Daosheng 管道昇. Guan was the wife of the renowned Yuan-dynasty painter Zhao Mengfu (趙孟頫, 1254-1322) and she is said to have composed her song after learning that her husband was planning to take a concubine:
Surely was never so loving a pair!
For the potter took clay
And he fashioned a me
And modelled a you:
Then, when the whim took him,
He smashed both the urns
And set to again:
Kneaded and worked the clay,
Fashioned another me,
Modelled another you:
So that, you see,
My body is partly you
And you are partly me.
我儂兩個忒煞情多！
譬如將一塊泥
捏一個你
塑一個我：
忽然間歡喜啊，
將他來都打破
重新下手：
再團再煉，
再捏一個你，
再塑一個我：
那期間那期間，
我身子裡有你也
你身子裡也有了我。
— trans. David Hawkes
One version of the ‘You-Me Song’ ends with the line: ‘In life we share a quilt, in death we will share a coffin’ 我與你生同一個衾，死同一個槨。
— from my notes to Xu Zhangrun’s The State of a Civilisation, China Heritage, 8 March 2019
— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
5 March 2023
Seventieth Anniversary of Josef Stalin’s Death
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Related Material:
- Chaguan, The Economist, from 13 September 2018
- Drum Tower, The Economist, from 7 November 2022
From Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium:
- Chapter Seventeen 聚 — China’s Highly Consequential Political Silly Season: Part I (6 October 2022); Part II (14 October 2022); and, Part III (16 October 2022). Epilogue (8 November 2022)
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‘The past can destroy the future.’
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Next Year in Moscow
A Podcast Series by Arkady Ostrovsky
The Economist
Introduction
When the shelling of Ukraine began a year ago, free-thinking Russians faced a fateful choice: lie low, resist or flee. Hundreds of thousands decided to leave. For them the war meant the future of Russia itself was now in doubt. The Economist’s Arkady Ostrovsky finds out what happened to these exiles for a new podcast series. Their stories help solve the mystery of why this senseless war began – and how it might end.
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/
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1: This damn year
For Russians opposed to Vladimir Putin, everything changed the moment they awoke to news of the invasion of Ukraine a year ago. They felt a range of emotions: pain, fury and shame. And they had to figure out what to do next. The Economist’s Arkady Ostrovsky has been speaking to them, because their stories help solve the mystery of why this senseless war began – and how it might end.
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/the-economist-podcasts/id151230264?i=1000601192528
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2: A beautiful life
A decade ago Russia’s middle class was larger and richer than it had ever been. “Russians are OK” was the title of a popular YouTube channel. But Vladimir Putin’s return to power sparked unprecedented protests as two very different visions of Russia vied for dominance.
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/the-economist-podcasts/id151230264?i=1000602746358
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3: Baggage
In one sense, the war did not really begin in 2022. It did not even begin in Ukraine. It started the first time Vladimir Putin invaded one of Russia’s neighbours and got away with it. That was 15 years ago, in Georgia. And in the same place Joseph Stalin, author of the Soviet empire’s darkest chapter, was born.
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/next-year-in-moscow/id1670758917
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4: Hostages
Chulpan Khamatova is one of Russia’s best-loved actors. Once courted by Vladimir Putin, she now lives in exile in Latvia. Her work and fame brought access to the key protagonists in Russia’s recent past. It’s a unique vantage point to contemplate the nature of evil—and its antidote.
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/next-year-in-moscow-4-hostages/id1670758917?i=1000604740839
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5: Through the forest
When the full scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, anti-war Russians began quoting the work of the great novelist Leo Tolstoy. Grigory Sverdlin has been fighting back, as Tolstoy prescribed, with acts of empathy and kindness—from helping homeless people to aiding Russians dodge the draft.
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
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6: Remote work
Soon after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin imposed strict media laws that criminalised any reporting of the truth. Independent journalists working abroad are providing an alternative to the powerful narrative that is broadcast 24/7 on state television. Can emigrés still have an impact on the silent majority inside Russia?
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
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7: The runway
Maria Eismont, a defence lawyer, has remained in Russia. Her clients include high-profile opposition figures who have received long sentences for spreading “fake news” about the war in Ukraine. Facing long odds and great personal risk, she guides the Kremlin’s enemies through their day in court. Why has she chosen to stay and do this work?
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/the-economist-podcasts/id151230264?i=1000609085438
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8: Arrivals
Sooner or later, Vladimir Putin’s most formidable opponents end up in jail. Oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s wealth and power made him a target. He was arrested in 2003 after making a risky return to Russia. When opposition leader Alexei Navalny flew back to Moscow in 2021 he never made it through passport control. But for him, prison is not the story’s end, it’s where a new Russia begins.
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/the-economist-podcasts/id151230264?i=1000610223481