Sorry Prime Minister, Joe Biden is right, Xi Jinping is indeed a dictator

It’s not every day that New Zealand’s prime minister takes China’s side in a split between Washington and Beijing over whether the Chinese leader is a dictator.

But these are extraordinary times.

At Tuesday’s fundraiser, U.S. President Joe Biden found himself talking about the Chinese spy balloon incident In February. The President exclaimed, claimwhen I shot down the balloon that contained two boxcars full of spy equipment, Xi Jinping was very disturbed because he didn’t know it was there.

He went on to say that this is a great embarrassment for the dictator. When they don’t know what’s going on. That shouldn’t go where it was. It was blown off course.

The next day, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said at a press conference in Beijing: Biden’s comments were called It is irresponsible to say that it completely violates the facts, seriously violates diplomatic protocol, and seriously violates China’s political dignity.

But from a strictly factual perspective, Biden’s dictator rhetoric is correct. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a dictator as the absolute ruler of a country. Xi Jinping seems to fit the bill.

He is the general secretary of the Communist Party of China. According to the 2022 Party Constitution, the Party is committed to safeguarding the people’s democratic dictatorship.

Theory and Practice of Democratic Dictatorship

The concept of people’s democratic dictatorship was formally proposed for the first time landmark speech In 1949 it was led by Mao Zedong, who led China from 1949 to 1976.

This concept is the cornerstone of China’s political system, laying the theoretical foundation for the Chinese Communist Party’s historical leadership of all classes of people in China—working class, peasant class, petty bourgeoisie, and national capitalists:

Maintain dictatorship over the lackeys of imperialism, the landlord class, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and the Kuomintang reactionaries and the lackeys representing these classes, oppress them, make them behave, and not allow them to speak nonsense.

Read more: To understand what Xi Jinping’s concentration of power really means, we have to look back in history

It is also one of the four basic principles of the CCP. According to the Constitution of the Communist Party of China:

Adhering to the socialist road, adhering to the people’s democratic dictatorship, adhering to the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and adhering to the four basic principles of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought are the foundation of the country.

So far, it’s all theoretical. But how does the idea of ​​a people’s democratic dictatorship work in the real world?

Essentially, it legitimizes Xi Jinping’s rule of China (from 2012 to the present). In fact, he is widely regarded both inside and outside China as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.

dictatorship by any other name

This is where Prime Minister Chris Hipkins comes into play. On Thursday, a reporter in Lower Hart asked him if he agreed with Biden’s dictator comments.
his response Yes: No, the form of government in China is a matter for the Chinese people.

The obvious reaction is to observe that, under Chinese law, Xi Jinping is the leader of a political system in which competitive multiparty elections do not exist. The seven members of the CCP Standing Committee elect the CCP General Secretary, not citizens.

Read more: U.S. and China locked in struggle – Secretary Blinken’s visit is just the beginning of improving relations

The CCP’s careful planning ensures that there is zero uncertainty about who will be elected as China’s leader at each party congress held every five years. If this is not dictatorship, then what is dictatorship?

We might debate whether the country is a benign dictatorship or a malign dictatorship. But this is a dictatorship.

Hipkins was also asked how the Chinese people could actually change the way they govern. He replied that that was their business. But precisely because China is governed by the CCP through the mechanism of people’s democratic dictatorship, it is not their turn to decide this matter.

bourgeois liberalization

I hope that the Prime Minister will seriously consider these issues before his visit to China meeting with xi jinping next week. After all, history clearly shows that authoritarian regimes have always been hostile to liberal democracies.

Former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping described liberal democracy as a model of bourgeois liberalization launched a campaign In 1987, to counteract this ill effect.

Read more: New Zealand just joined an openly anti-China coalition, is the economic risk worth the risk?

The CCP’s party constitution stipulates that the party must not only uphold the people’s democratic dictatorship, but also oppose bourgeois liberalization.

The turmoil the prime minister has descended into in Lower Hart highlights the complex reality of heightened ideological divisions caused by great power competition in the 21st century.

It also underscores the point that New Zealand must develop foreign policy to meet these challenges in the third decade of this century.