Beijing Tightens Its Control Across China

BEIJING -- The June 4 ^th Museum in Hong Kong was opened to remember an event that China's Communist Party would prefer its citizens forget -- the tragic massacre of pro-democracy protesters at Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. Tucked into a bustling district of the territory, the memorial shows documentaries and houses a replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue built by the Tiananmen activists.

Within China, such a display could never exist. The Communists scrupulously block internet sites or any other source of information on the massacres from the eyes of the Chinese public. But in Hong Kong, a part of China but governed by its own, more liberal laws, the memory of those who died on the square has been kept alive, through annual marches on the tragedy's June 4 anniversary, the museum and other projects.

Yet these days even Hong Kong is not immune from the widening crackdown on dissent unleashed by Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, a pro-democracy organization formed in 1989 that opened the museum, recently announced that it will have to close the facility. One of the building's property owners, alleging that the museum violates regulations, has pressed for legal action to force it to shutter, and the Alliance can't sustain the costs of a protracted defense.

But Albert Ho, the Alliance's chairman and a Hong Kong lawmaker, sees the fate of the museum as part of a bigger struggle -- to defend Hong Kong's civil liberties against Beijing's encroachment. "The Hong Kong government wants to preserve its image that it is still an open government, but there is mounting pressure from all sides," Ho contends. Though he has no direct evidence that the campaign against the June 4th Museum is politically motivated, he has his suspicions. Guards at the building where the museum is located have been scaring off Chinese tourists by demanding to know their identities, he claims.

The troubled museum testifies to the stultifying atmosphere Xi has created. Under his watch, the Communist Party is smothering dissent, criticism and civic action to a degree unseen in more than two decades -- with tremendous implications for China's political and economic future. Xi "is a control freak," says Willy Lam, a specialist on China's politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His policies "have been significantly more draconian" than those of China's previous two presidents.

That's not what many China watchers had expected when Xi started claiming the reins of power in late 2012. In sharp contrast to his often robotic predecessor, Hu Jintao, Xi's folksy flair gave off an air of a fresh, modern approach to governing. Having served for much of his career in two of China's most progressive, outward-looking provinces, Xi was widely expected to be an ardent reformer. That reputation was bolstered in late 2013 when a Communist Party plenum unveiled a far-reaching blueprint of pro-market policies that would overhaul the entire Chinese economy.

Instead, Xi has proven surprisingly retrograde. Though China's Communists have never shown much tolerance for opinions or actions that deviated from the party line, Xi appears determined to suppress what little freedom of expression or civil society remains. The government has intensified controls on the internet and social media, clamped down on academic discourse at universities and increased pressure on non-government organizations -- in late April the government passed tougher laws regulating foreign NGOs. After touring China's major state news organizations in February, Xi warned, in the words of one of their reports, that media "must work to speak for the Party's will and its propositions and protect the Party's authority and unity."

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Civil-rights advocates have been routinely swept up by police. In January, Peter Dahlin, a Swedish activist who offered legal aid to Chinese citizens, was detained and paraded on Chinese state television confessing that he "caused harm to the Chinese government," before being deported. Anyone undertaking any civic action, no matter how seemingly innocuous, has become a target of state security. Last year, a group of young women, who became known as the Feminist Five, were detained after doing no more than organizing a public awareness campaign against sexual harassment.

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The crackdown has extended beyond China's borders. Late last year, Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen who publishes tracts critical of the Communists, was apparently abducted from Thailand and hauled into China. He, too, confessed on national television, saying he voluntarily returned to China to face justice for a previous crime.

Meanwhile, Xi has been centralizing power in his own hands more than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, the founder of the Communist regime. Shunting aside the "government by committee" formula employed by his predecessors, Xi has sidelined other senior cadres and taken direct control over most aspects of policymaking. An anti-corruption campaign has ensnared hundreds of thousands of officials, conveniently including some of Xi's powerful party rivals, most notably former security chief Zhou Yongkang. State media is crafting a personality cult around Xi, with a daily barrage of headlines praising his decisions and detailing his every move.

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On the surface, Xi's crackdown seems unjustified and his tactics petty. He is one of the world's most powerful people, and there appear to be no serious threats to his rule or the Communist Party regime.

Yet political analysts say Xi sees the situation differently. Lam, the Hong Kong professor, believes that Xi considers greater party control over Chinese society as critical for the future of Communist rule. Xi, he argues, is haunted by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which the Chinese leader attributes to the way Moscow's Communists lost its grip over the economy and public. To ensure that doesn't repeat itself in China, Xi is intent on maintaining total party dominance over all aspects of Chinese life. "He has been much more orthodox about ideological control, and he is paranoid about civil society," Lam says.

Xi also believes the Communist Party itself needs a serious shake-up. According to some political analysts, Xi frets that he inherited a party organization that had become too corrupt and dissolute, and in order to maintain power, it required a purge of graft and deviant ideas. As a result, Xi has imposed strict party discipline, especially over its ideological line. In early April, Xi instructed members of the Communist Party to undertake a major study campaign, focused in part on his own speeches. Its goal, according to the official news agency Xinhua, is "to consolidate Party members' Marxist positions and ensure that the entire Party maintains a high degree of ideological and political consistency."

Others speculate that Xi may not feel as secure as he appears. In the rough-and-tumble world of Communist politics, Xi has powerful rivals, and his policies may have won him even more. Richard McGregor, author of the book, "The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers," says Xi has reason to be nervous, "because of the forces arraigned against him before coming to office and the enemies he has made since through the anti-graft campaign."

Xi also is presiding over a period of unusual uncertainty in China, most of all with its sagging economy. Saddled with a mountain of debt and excess capacity in many industries, the economy is heading into an era of significantly reduced growth. That presents a challenge the Communists haven't faced since the 1970s. One of the main pillars of public support for the regime has been its ability to deliver rising incomes and good jobs, so the slowdown could undercut the party's legitimacy. Even more, the expected downsizing of Chinese industry could lead to widespread unemployment and even social unrest -- a prospect that Xi and his cadres find especially unnerving.

The big question is what Xi will do with his enhanced power. There is some hope that Xi will press forward more aggressively with economic reform -- which has badly stalled -- once he solidifies his rule. Others speculate Xi may want to become the new Mao, with authority entirely in his own hands. Either way, there will always be some brave souls willing to resist him. In Hong Kong, the organizers of the Tiananmen museum are committed to reopening it in a new location. "The atmosphere is getting tense," says Hong Kong's Albert Ho, "but you can hear the voices of many local groups that are still very deviant."

Michael Schuman is a Beijing-based journalist who has been covering Asia for 20 years. You can follow him on Twitter here.