Who Is Xi’s Real No. 2? |
Since the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), there has been no shortage of debate over who is President Xi Jinping’s second-in-command. As the 70-year-old official Cai Qi’s role has grown, many observers have come to identify him as that “No. 2.” A recent article in the Economist takes precisely this view, arguing that Cai—as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, first-ranked member of the CCP Secretariat, and director of the CCP General Office—has long accompanied Xi at important events and controls the top leader’s schedule, documents, meetings, information flow, and security arrangements.
Cai is indeed one of the people closest to Xi in Chinese politics today. But proximity to supreme power is not the same as being close to holding it. Cai is of course important, but he is not China’s de facto second-in-command. Such a figure, under a leader as paranoid about sharing power as Xi, doesn’t really exist.
Since the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), there has been no shortage of debate over who is President Xi Jinping’s second-in-command. As the 70-year-old official Cai Qi’s role has grown, many observers have come to identify him as that “No. 2.” A recent article in the Economist takes precisely this view, arguing that Cai—as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, first-ranked member of the CCP Secretariat, and director of the CCP General Office—has long accompanied Xi at important events and controls the top leader’s schedule, documents, meetings, information flow, and security arrangements.
Cai is indeed one of the people closest to Xi in Chinese politics today. But proximity to supreme power is not the same as being close to holding it. Cai is of course important, but he is not China’s de facto second-in-command. Such a figure, under a leader as paranoid about sharing power as Xi, doesn’t really exist.
In a highly personalized power system, a gatekeeper role can often carry very real power. The great eunuchs of ancient China held genuine power not because they had formal institutional standing, but because they monopolized the channel between the emperor and the outer court. They were the gatekeepers of what memorials the emperor read, whom he met, what he heard, and how the outer court understood the emperor’s will. They depended on imperial power, but that gave them enormous reach.
But even measured by this standard, Cai is not the de facto No. 2. He has not monopolized the channels between Xi and the party, government, military, and other systems, nor has he formed an independent power bloc. Perhaps it is not that he does not want to, but that he cannot.
Xi is not an emperor sealed off by Cai, able to reach........