The upcoming Third Plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, scheduled to convene on July 15, 2024, is predicted or advised to be an exercise in advanced Marxoid-Leninoid abstractitis.
Seeming like a propaganda outlet of the CCP, though it really perhaps is not—since it publishes a “myriad of voices…projected from the unique vantage point of multi-ethnic Singapore”—thinkchina.sg offers the perspective of one of the myriad, Lance Gore. Gore is a deep thinker at the National University of Singapore (“China’s Communist Party faces tall order at third plenum,” July 9, 2024).
Support and legitimacy
Right away, the reader is awed by the article’s prefatory blurb, a stunningly incisive boiling down of all that is at stake.
“While rebuilding the Leninist model enjoys strong party support and legitimacy, the Chinese Communist Party must confront various issues and challenges amid national and global contexts and current trends. Failing to address these issues could hinder China’s emergence and national rejuvenation, says EAI senior research fellow Lance Gore.”
Tall order? Seems so. Think about what the Third Plenum must cope with:
● various issues
● various challenges
And it must do so:
● amid national contexts
● amid global contexts
● amid current trends
Issues, challenges, national contexts, global contexts, and current trends is a crowded agenda for even the most plenary of plenums. How does one even start? Well, Professor Gore, as translated into English by Yuen Kum Cheong, will show us the way.
The supreme leader’s “integrity and innovation” in ideology have been the reasons for the party adapting to new situations without losing its foothold or vibrancy….
The proposed emphasis to “further comprehensively deepen reform” is related to “Chinese modernisation”, which has been articulated and summarised at the CCP’s 20th Party Congress. The re-introduction of this term means that it now either has new meanings or a more systematic summary that forms a new theoretical framework. It appears that ideology is an important item on the agenda of the upcoming Third Plenum.
“Important”? Forget about “important”! We’re beyond that now. The vista is one of new meanings, brand-new ones! Or at least a more systematic summary—more systematic than ever before, time for those flash cards. Forming a new—brand-new!—theoretical framework!
All this to be done while still retaining foothold and vibrancy? Amazing.
A Plenum of plenty
Anyway, looks like Xi Jinping Thought is getting a brushup. The Third Plenum attendees are in for a treat for sure.
“There is a grand vision behind all this,” one that will help the CCP plaster-patch any corruption, handle always pesky “emergent interest groups,” and stiffen “slackening party discipline.”
According to Professor Gore, “It would be significantly advantageous to China in both the domestic and global contexts, if it could promptly rectify its ills, formulate an effective system to ‘achieve unity in thinking, will, and action’ ”—a hive mind, so to speak—“and continuously advance towards the set goals through appropriate policies and strong leadership.”
Looks like the professor has hit all the nails on all the heads here. Basically—if we, like Gore, set aside just for the moment any consideration of the CCP’s mass surveillance, mass censorship, cultural genocides, torture, murders, forced organ harvesting, harassment of other countries, transnational repression and whatnot—sounds like the Third Plenum will be paving the way for quite a happy shared global future. Fixing problems, achieving unity, moving toward goals.
“However,” says Gore, “the party has different tasks in different times, requiring different thinking in guidance.” Jesus, enough already.
