人民总理与孤家寡人：中共政治中的“君相关系” | The People’s Premier and the Solitary Ruler: The ‘Ruler–Minister Relationship’ in CCP Politics
By Timothy Huang
2026年8月12日，朱镕基去世。几乎与此同时，为纪念江泽民诞辰一百周年而制作的十二集纪录片《江泽民》正在播出。二十多年前中国政坛上的这一对“欢喜冤家”，就这样以一种颇为诡异的方式重新出现在同一个历史时刻。在1949年以后的中国，“自古以来”似乎就存在一种传统：总理的社会风评往往优于总书记，李鹏或许算得上一个著名例外。这种现象究竟从何而来？它首先涉及一个非常中国式的政治心理问题；而总书记与总理之间的关系如何安排，又反过来折射出中共在不同时期所采用的统治方式。到了习近平时代，这套关系更出现了一种颇为有趣的新发展。
一、“奸臣误我”还是“君命难违”？
从普通人的角度观察，中国传统政治中的所谓“君相关系”，往往可以简化为一个问题：当政治治理和民生政策出了问题以后，人们究竟相信皇帝所说的“奸臣误我”，还是相信官员所说的“君命难违”？
中国人显然更容易相信后一句。
原因其实很简单。忠奸究竟如何辨别，是一个具体而复杂的问题；“君命难违”却是帝制时代延续两千年的政治常识。不论一个高级官员说这句话时有没有甩锅的动机，至少它在制度逻辑上完全说得通，而普通人对此也心知肚明。
当然，这从来不妨碍官员利用皇权。作恶时借皇帝的威势增加自己的政治筹码，遭到清算时又宣称一切皆属奉旨办事，这种事情并不少见。然而，这并不会改变那个更加基本的事实：高度集权的政治制度天然存在最终责任问题。
与此同时，还有另一个更重要的心理机制。一个社会如果在两个混蛋的统治下生活了十几年，却始终在政治上忍气吞声、在经济上闷声发大财，那么事后回忆起来，多少会令人感到尴尬。于是，人们需要重新组织自己的记忆。
最令人舒服的故事，自然是一个坏的一号人物和一个好一些的二号人物长期相互斗争。升斗小民无力参与他们之间的政治角力，只好把有限的精力投入经济生活。如此一来，每个人都获得了一个令人满意的位置。
错误当然都是江泽民的；或者江泽民其实也不错，至少比习近平强，那么错误就是中共体制造成的。与此同时，自己仍然可以补上一句：我可不是反贼，我一直支持人民宰相朱镕基。
在我看来，这才是朱镕基长期获得相当一部分中国人好感的重要政治心理背景。它与朱镕基具体做过什么、哪些政策成功、哪些政策造成严重社会代价，并不存在简单的一一对应关系。同一套政治心理模板，完全可以套在温家宝、李克强甚至周恩来身上。
因此，如果只是争论朱镕基究竟应该得到八十分、六十分还是四十分，或者急着替他写一篇盖棺定论的历史判词，其实很容易错过真正有趣的问题。
与其争论朱镕基究竟是“好人”还是“坏人”，更值得讨论的是：中国政治为什么如此稳定地产生“人民好总理”？答案可能比朱镕基本人有趣得多。
二、江泽民或许才是改革开放时代的“总工程师”
再把视线转向这次“百岁蛤诞”的另一位主角——江泽民。
江泽民百年诞辰纪念活动期间，朱镕基恰好去世，这种时间上的重合之所以有意思，正在于中共政治中的“君相关系”从来不只有群众心理这一面。它同时体现了最高领导者如何分配权力、利益与政治责任。
现今的官方历史叙事通常把邓小平称为中国改革开放的“总设计师”。在我看来，这个称号当然具有其历史依据，但如果进一步观察改革开放作为一种统治模式的形成过程，邓小平更接近最初确定方向和政治边界的人，而江泽民时代才真正完成了大量制度化工作。
毛泽东死后，文革政治联盟迅速瓦解，以持续制造“阶级敌人”为核心的治理模式逐渐失去可持续性。毛时代的一个根本困境在于，在一个经过土地改革、社会主义改造和公有化以后已经高度同质化的社会中，如果仍然需要持续进行阶级斗争，那么阶级敌人就只能不断从原有社会内部被重新定义出来。
这种统治技术的政治成本极高。
邓小平面对的政治条件已经完全不同。经过毛时代最后十年的剧烈冲突，能够真正挑战其政治地位的建政元老所剩无几。此时继续沿用“杀敌一千、自损八百”的统治路线，收益已经十分有限。扩大统治基础遂成为更划算的选择。于是，曾经被排斥的知识分子重新进入体制，年轻人通过恢复高考进入新的社会上升通道，技术干部获得更大的政治空间，海外华人资本开始被积极利用。拨乱反正、恢复高考、干部年轻化以及经济特区等一系列措施虽然具有各自具体的历史背景，但从统治逻辑观察，它们共同完成了一件事情：重新扩大中共政权能够容纳的人群。
江泽民所面对的，则是同一个问题的第二阶段。经过十余年的改革开放，一批此前几乎不存在，或者至少并未被中共认真视为政治基础的社会力量逐渐壮大起来。其中包括真正依靠市场经营成长的民营企业家，也包括旧城市居民与新一代“做题家”共同形成的大规模城市中产阶层。与此同时，经济全球化开始加速，中国社会的利益结构迅速复杂化。
这些人究竟算不算体制自己人？江泽民给出的答案，总体上延续了邓小平的方向。当然，也可以按照中国政治爱好者最熟悉的“听床学”解释，说江泽民只是被邓小平按着脑袋写出了同一份答案。这一点并不影响结果。“三个代表”最终为民营企业家等“新的社会阶层”进入共产党提供了意识形态空间。这一步在政治上的意义，其实远远大于一句今天看来颇为无聊的政治口号。
邓小平解决的是“过去被共产党排除的人能不能重新回来”；江泽民进一步解决的是“改革开放自己制造出来的新社会力量能不能被吸收进来”。
两者解决的是同一条政治链条上的不同环节。这也使得江泽民在改革开放历史中的位置颇为特殊。在1989年以前，胡耀邦、赵紫阳以及支持他们的邓小平所推动的许多改革，如果单独拿出来观察，与当时东欧共产党政权尝试进行的经济、行政乃至一定程度上的政治改革并无根本上的不可类比之处。真正改变历史轨迹的分界点，是1989年。当天安门广场上的政治危机最终以武力镇压结束以后，中国与东欧进入了两条截然不同的道路。一边是共产党政权相继崩溃或完成政治转型，另一边则是在保持一党统治的前提下继续拥抱市场经济和全球化。
江泽民恰好站在了这个“历史行程不可预料”的节点上。从这个意义上说，即使不愿意把“中国改革开放总设计师”的称号从邓小平头上摘下来，至少也应承认：江泽民与其说是一位官方宣传中所谓“继往开来的领路人”，更接近中国式改革开放的总工程师，甚至可以称作副总设计师。
他真正完成的事情，是找到了一套让经济自由化、全球化和共产党一党统治长期共存的政治结构。而在权力与责任的分配问题上，江泽民甚至做得比邓小平更加轻松。李鹏和朱镕基两任总理都拥有相当鲜明的政治形象。江泽民既没有必要让自己与他们完全绑定，也没有必要消灭外界对于最高领导层内部存在分歧的想象。这种若即若离的关系本身就是一种政治资产。
邓小平对胡耀邦和赵紫阳的支持太重要，所以两人的政治路线一旦出现问题，邓小平最终必须承担处理他们的政治责任。欲戴王冠，必承其重。
江泽民的优势恰好在于，他头上的王冠在很多时候没有那么沉。于是，在公共记忆中，国企下岗职工可以骂朱镕基，民运人士可以骂李鹏，党内其他政治力量也可以把此前的冲突追溯到邓小平。江泽民本人则在相当长时间内维持了一种奇特的政治模糊性。直到对法轮功的全面镇压开始以后，他才越来越难把某些重大政治决定放到其他人的责任账户上。而此时，他距离退出最高权力中心已经没有多少年了。
从统治技术角度观察，这无疑是一种极为划算的安排。
三、责任“定于一尊”之后
相比之下，习近平时代的君相关系发生了根本变化。
李克强在担任总理期间权力不断受到压缩，这一点早已得到大量中国政治研究的注意。习近平通过中央委员会、委员会和领导小组等党内决策机构，将许多传统上由国务院主导或深度参与的政策领域重新收归党的最高层协调。由此形成了一个非常有意思的局面。
李克强的实际政策空间越来越小，他的象征意义反而越来越大。这正是高度集权政治最棘手的悖论之一：二号人物拥有真实权力的时候，最高领导人固然需要提防他；当二号人物没有多少真实权力以后，他又会逐渐成为一个几乎完美的政治投射对象。所有做得不好的事情，都可以归于真正掌握权力的人；所有偶尔看起来不错的事情，则可以被解释为“总理其实想这么做，只是受到掣肘”。
于是，曾经的“人民好总理”叙事重新出现。“人在干，天在看”“长江黄河不会倒流”这一类李克强时期被广泛传播的政治语言之所以能够获得额外的意义，也与此有关。人们可以将一个实际权力受到限制的总理重新塑造成体制内部某种失落可能性的象征。
对习近平而言，这当然是一笔极其不划算的政治账。政策由自己主导，政治风险由自己承担，经济出现问题首先追究自己的责任；然而只要政策产生一点积极效果，公众完全可以继续怀念那个已经没有多少决策权的“李总理”。这几乎相当于免费向二号人物转让政治信用。
更麻烦的是，这个问题并不会随着李克强退出政治舞台而自动消失。
逃避 · AI-Generated by Timothy Huang
李强同样可能面对这种结构。无论李强本人有多么忠诚，只要最高权力继续高度集中，只要国务院总理仍然保留“政府首脑”这个制度身份，他就天然具备成为另一种政治投射对象的条件。所谓“权力定于一尊”，在政治责任层面必然具有对应关系：责任同样越来越集中。
这正是习近平与江泽民之间最有趣的差异。
江泽民时代的最高领导层可以不断增加参与利益分配的人数。从“五龙治水”到“七龙治水”，再到后来所谓“九龙治水”，这种集体领导结构当然会制造部门分割、权力重叠和政策协调困难，却同样具有一个经常被忽视的政治功能：它可以把利益与责任一起分散。在经济高速增长时期，这套机制尤其容易运行。新的利益不断出现，就可以不断增加新的受益者；经济总量不断扩大，就有越来越多政治人物能够获得属于自己的资源和势力范围。
习近平所面对的时代缺少这种奢侈。当增长速度下降、地方财政承压、人口结构发生变化、房地产旧模式逐渐失效以后，可供政治体系分配的新蛋糕越来越有限。与此同时，习近平选择的治理方式恰好又要求党不断加强对各领域的直接控制。因此，他实际上同时放弃了两个缓冲器：利益分散和责任分散。结果便是，一方面越来越难养活更多的“龙”，另一方面又越来越难让其他“龙”替最高领导者分担政治责任。
这也解释了为什么未来总理人选的问题可能变得越来越麻烦。
李强是习近平长期共事过的干部，他与习近平之间存在明确而长期的政治关系，因此目前的总理职位仍然可以维持相对稳定的权力结构。然而，这种关系无法无限复制。任何领导者都可以长期执政，却无法要求同一批政治盟友同样长期留在实权岗位。李强、蔡奇等人与习近平存在年龄差距，政治生涯也有自身的制度和现实边界。随着时间推移，一个不可避免的问题终究会出现：下一代常委究竟从哪里来？习近平早期能够大量提拔自己在福建、浙江、上海等地工作期间建立关系的干部；再往后，这种“自己人”的供应将逐渐减少。未来的高级干部越来越可能只是习近平时代成长起来的人，却没有与习近平长期直接共事的经历。
两者之间的区别看似细微，在高度个人化的权力结构中却可能极其重要。
因此，真正值得观察的时间点并不限于下一届党代会，也包括再下一届。到了2032年前后，今天的最高领导层将进一步老化。届时无论习近平是否继续执政，常委会中的人员构成都必须发生较大变化。那个时候，新总理、新常委与最高领导人之间还能不能复制今天这种高度个人化的政治关系，将成为一个极其有意思的问题。
从这个角度重新观察2026年官方对于江泽民百年诞辰的高规格纪念，也就多少带上一点历史幽默感。
如果习近平真的愿意从江泽民的统治经验中学到些什么，那么江泽民最值得学习的地方，或许恰好并不是什么改革开放理论，也不是什么“三个代表”，而是一个非常朴素的政治技术：不要把所有事情都变成自己的事情。
然而，历史最终又没有这么简单。邓小平、江泽民、胡锦涛与习近平之间，与其说存在一条从高明到愚蠢、从成熟到幼稚的线性序列，不如说每个人都遇到了不同的政治条件。有些历史背景恰好落在某些领导人的舒适区，有些则完全相反。江泽民可以利用高速增长、全球化与庞大的新增利益完成政治整合；胡锦涛可以继续利用这份遗产维持越来越复杂的集体领导体系；习近平接手的，则是这套结构开始接近边界以后的中国。因此，他们表现出来的所谓成熟与幼稚，在很大程度上也是各自时代条件的产物。
唯一长期不变的，也许反倒是普通中国人对于“好大官”的持续需求。从周恩来到朱镕基，从温家宝到李克强，人们总是希望在一个自己无法真正选择最高领导人的政治体系里，至少能够选择一个值得爱戴的大官。这也是为什么“人民总理”这个角色如此经久不衰。
未来的李强是否也会进入这条谱系，现在还没有答案。对于最高领导者而言，真正危险的地方恰恰在这里：一个毫无造反意图的二号人物，也完全可能在公众想象中逐渐成为另一个政治选择的象征。
所谓“忧谗畏讥”，从来都不只是文学作品中一句无关紧要的对仗。统治者与被统治者同样存在一种相互塑造的关系。一个高度个人化的权力体系要求人们把所有成绩归于最高领导者，它迟早也会要求最高领导者承担绝大部分失败的责任。
人民民主专政的真正幽默，大概也就在这里。
The People’s Premier and the Solitary Ruler: The ‘Ruler–Minister Relationship’ in CCP Politics
By Timothy Huang
On 12 August 2026, Zhu Rongji died. At almost exactly the same time, Jiang Zemin, a twelve-part documentary produced to commemorate the centenary of Jiang Zemin’s birth, was being broadcast. In this way, this pair of ‘happy adversaries’ from Chinese politics more than two decades ago reappeared, rather strangely, at the same historical moment. In post-1949 China, there seems to have existed, ‘since time immemorial’, a tradition whereby the premier tends to enjoy a better public reputation than the general secretary. Li Peng may count as one famous exception. Where exactly does this phenomenon come from? It first involves a very Chinese form of political psychology; meanwhile, the way in which the relationship between the general secretary and the premier is arranged also reflects the modes of rule adopted by the CCP in different periods. Under Xi Jinping, this relationship has undergone yet another rather interesting development.
I. ‘Treacherous Ministers Have Misled Me’, or ‘The Ruler’s Orders Cannot Be Defied’?
From the perspective of ordinary people, the so-called ‘ruler–minister relationship’ in traditional Chinese politics can often be reduced to a single question: when political governance and policies concerning people’s livelihoods go wrong, do people believe the emperor when he says, ‘treacherous ministers have misled me’, or the official when he says, ‘the ruler’s orders cannot be defied’?
Chinese people are clearly more inclined to believe the latter.
The reason is actually quite simple. Determining who is loyal and who is treacherous is a specific and complicated question; ‘the ruler’s orders cannot be defied’, however, was a piece of political common sense that persisted throughout two thousand years of imperial rule. Regardless of whether a senior official is trying to shift responsibility when he says this, the claim at least makes perfect sense according to the logic of the system, and ordinary people know this perfectly well.
Of course, this has never prevented officials from exploiting imperial authority. Borrowing the emperor’s prestige to strengthen one’s own political position while doing evil, then claiming during a purge that everything had been done on imperial orders, is hardly uncommon. Yet none of this changes the more fundamental fact that a highly centralised political system naturally raises the question of ultimate responsibility.
At the same time, there is another, even more important psychological mechanism at work.
If a society has spent more than a decade living under two bastards, while remaining politically submissive and quietly making money in economic life, then looking back afterwards can be rather embarrassing. People therefore need to reorganise their memories.
The most comforting story is naturally one in which a bad number-one figure and a somewhat better number-two figure spend years struggling against each other. Ordinary people lack the ability to participate in their political contest and can therefore do little except devote their limited energies to economic life. In this way, everyone acquires a satisfactory place within the story.
All the mistakes, of course, were Jiang Zemin’s; alternatively, perhaps Jiang Zemin was not so bad after all — at least he was better than Xi Jinping — in which case all the mistakes were caused by the CCP system. At the same time, one can still add: I am no dissident, you know. I have always supported the people’s chancellor, Zhu Rongji.
In my view, this is the important political-psychological background behind the favourable reputation Zhu Rongji has long enjoyed among a substantial number of Chinese people. It does not correspond in any simple one-to-one fashion with what Zhu Rongji actually did, which of his policies succeeded, or which of them imposed severe social costs.
Exactly the same political-psychological template can be applied to Wen Jiabao, Li Keqiang, or even Zhou Enlai.
Therefore, if we merely argue over whether Zhu Rongji deserves a score of eighty, sixty or forty, or rush to write some definitive historical verdict on him, it is very easy to miss the genuinely interesting question.
More worthwhile than arguing over whether Zhu Rongji was a ‘good man’ or a ‘bad man’ is asking why Chinese politics so consistently produces a ‘good people’s premier’.
The answer may be considerably more interesting than Zhu Rongji himself.
II. Jiang Zemin May Have Been the True ‘Chief Engineer’ of the Reform and Opening-Up Era
Let us now turn our attention to the other protagonist of this ‘centenary toad birthday’ — Jiang Zemin.Zhu Rongji happened to die during the commemorations marking the centenary of Jiang Zemin’s birth. What makes this coincidence in timing interesting is precisely that the ‘ruler–minister relationship’ in CCP politics has never been purely a matter of popular psychology. It also reflects the way in which the supreme leader distributes power, interests and political responsibility.
The official historical narrative today generally describes Deng Xiaoping as the ‘chief architect’ of China’s reform and opening up. In my view, that title naturally has its historical basis. Yet if we look more closely at the process by which reform and opening up took shape as a mode of rule, Deng Xiaoping was closer to the person who initially determined its direction and political boundaries, while it was during the Jiang Zemin era that a great deal of its institutionalisation was actually completed.
After Mao Zedong’s death, the political coalition of the Cultural Revolution rapidly disintegrated, and a mode of governance centred upon the continual production of ‘class enemies’ gradually became unsustainable. One fundamental dilemma of the Mao era was that, in a society that had already become highly homogenised following land reform, socialist transformation and public ownership, if class struggle still had to continue, then class enemies could only be continually redefined from within the existing society itself.
The political cost of this technique of rule was extremely high.
Deng Xiaoping faced entirely different political circumstances. After the violent conflicts of the final decade of the Mao era, few of the founding elders capable of genuinely challenging his political position remained. Continuing to pursue a governing strategy that amounted to ‘killing a thousand enemies while losing eight hundred of one’s own’ therefore offered increasingly limited returns. Expanding the regime’s governing base became the more profitable option.
Intellectuals who had previously been excluded were consequently brought back into the system; young people gained new avenues for social advancement through the restoration of the university entrance examination; technocratic cadres acquired greater political space; and overseas Chinese capital began to be actively utilised. Policies such as boluan fanzheng, the restoration of the university entrance examination, the rejuvenation of the cadre ranks and the establishment of special economic zones each had their own specific historical background, but from the perspective of the logic of rule they jointly accomplished one thing: they expanded once again the range of people whom the CCP regime was capable of accommodating.
What Jiang Zemin faced was the second stage of the same problem.
After more than a decade of reform and opening up, a number of social forces that had previously scarcely existed, or at least had never seriously been regarded by the CCP as part of its political base, gradually grew stronger. These included private entrepreneurs who had genuinely risen through market activity, as well as a large urban middle class formed jointly by older urban residents and a new generation of ‘exam grinders’. At the same time, economic globalisation began to accelerate, and the structure of interests within Chinese society rapidly became more complicated.
Did these people count as insiders within the system?
Jiang Zemin’s answer broadly continued in Deng Xiaoping’s direction. Of course, one could also interpret matters through the ‘bedside Kremlinology’ so familiar to enthusiasts of Chinese politics and argue that Jiang merely wrote the same answer because Deng Xiaoping forced his head down and made him do so. This does not affect the result. The ‘Three Represents’ ultimately provided ideological space for private entrepreneurs and other ‘new social strata’ to enter the Communist Party. Politically, the significance of this step was in fact far greater than that of what today appears to be a rather boring political slogan.
Deng Xiaoping solved the question of ‘whether those previously excluded by the Communist Party could be brought back in’; Jiang Zemin went a step further and addressed ‘whether the new social forces created by reform and opening up itself could be absorbed into the system’.
They dealt with different links in the same political chain.
This also gives Jiang Zemin a rather unusual place in the history of reform and opening up.
Before 1989, many of the reforms promoted by Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang and Deng Xiaoping, who supported them, if examined individually, were not fundamentally incomparable with the economic, administrative and, to some extent, political reforms being attempted by Communist regimes in Eastern Europe at the time. The true dividing line that changed the course of history was 1989. After the political crisis in Tiananmen Square ultimately ended in armed repression, China and Eastern Europe embarked upon two entirely different paths. On one side, Communist regimes collapsed one after another or completed political transitions; on the other, China continued to embrace the market economy and globalisation while preserving one-party rule.
Jiang Zemin happened to stand precisely at this point at which the ‘course of history was impossible to predict’.
In this sense, even if one is unwilling to remove the title of ‘chief architect of China’s reform and opening up’ from Deng Xiaoping, one should at least acknowledge that Jiang Zemin was closer to the chief engineer of China’s particular model of reform and opening up, or even its deputy chief architect, than merely the official propaganda formulation of ‘a leader carrying forward the cause and forging ahead into the future’.
What he actually accomplished was the discovery of a political structure capable of allowing economic liberalisation, globalisation and one-party Communist rule to coexist over the long term.
And when it came to the distribution of power and responsibility, Jiang Zemin had an easier time of it even than Deng Xiaoping. Both Li Peng and Zhu Rongji, the two premiers who served under him, possessed highly distinctive political identities. Jiang had no need to bind himself completely to either man, nor did he need to eliminate the public impression that differences existed within the top leadership. This somewhat ambiguous relationship was itself a political asset.
Deng Xiaoping’s support for Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang had been too important. Once problems emerged with the political courses associated with the two men, Deng ultimately had to bear political responsibility for dealing with them. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Jiang Zemin’s advantage lay precisely in the fact that, much of the time, the crown on his head was considerably lighter. Thus, in public memory, laid-off state-owned enterprise workers could curse Zhu Rongji, democracy activists could curse Li Peng, while other political forces within the Party could trace earlier conflicts back to Deng Xiaoping. Jiang himself was able to maintain a peculiar political ambiguity for a considerable period. It was only after the comprehensive suppression of Falun Gong began that it became increasingly difficult for him to place certain major political decisions in other people’s accounts of responsibility. By then, there were only a few years left before his departure from the highest centre of power.
Viewed as a technique of rule, this was undoubtedly an extraordinarily economical arrangement.
III. After Responsibility Becomes ‘Concentrated in One’
By comparison, the ruler–minister relationship underwent a fundamental transformation in the Xi Jinping era.
The continual contraction of Li Keqiang’s power during his premiership has long attracted considerable attention among scholars of Chinese politics. Through central commissions, committees and leading small groups within the Party’s decision-making structure, Xi Jinping brought many policy areas traditionally led by, or heavily involving, the State Council back under coordination by the Party’s highest leadership. This produced a very interesting situation.
The smaller Li Keqiang’s actual room for policymaking became, the greater his symbolic significance grew.
This is precisely one of the most troublesome paradoxes of highly centralised politics: when the number-two figure possesses real power, the supreme leader naturally has reason to guard against him; once the number-two figure possesses little real power, however, he gradually becomes an almost perfect object of political projection. Everything that goes badly can be attributed to the person who actually holds power; whenever something appears to go well, meanwhile, it can be explained by saying, ‘the premier actually wanted to do this, but he was constrained’.
And so the old narrative of the ‘good people’s premier’ returned.
The reason phrases widely circulated during the Li Keqiang era, such as ‘people are doing things, and Heaven is watching’ and ‘the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers will not flow backwards’, acquired an additional political meaning is also connected with this phenomenon. A premier whose actual power had been constrained could be reshaped in the public imagination into the symbol of some lost possibility within the system.
For Xi Jinping, this is clearly an extremely poor political bargain. He directs policy, he bears the political risks, and when the economy runs into trouble responsibility is first traced back to him; yet whenever policy produces even a small positive result, the public can continue nostalgically remembering ‘Premier Li’, who by then possessed little decision-making power at all. This comes close to transferring political credit to the number-two figure for free.
More troublesome still, this problem did not automatically disappear when Li Keqiang left the political stage.
Li Qiang may face the same structural dynamic. However loyal Li Qiang himself may be, so long as supreme power remains highly centralised, and so long as the premier of the State Council retains the institutional identity of ‘head of government’, he naturally possesses the conditions required to become another object of political projection.
When ‘power is concentrated in one’, there is inevitably a corresponding effect at the level of political responsibility: responsibility becomes increasingly concentrated as well.
This is precisely the most interesting difference between Xi Jinping and Jiang Zemin.
During the Jiang era, the number of people participating in the distribution of interests at the top of the political system could continually be increased. From the ‘five dragons managing the waters’ to the ‘seven dragons managing the waters’, and later to the so-called ‘nine dragons managing the waters’, this model of collective leadership certainly produced bureaucratic fragmentation, overlapping authority and difficulties in policy coordination. Yet it also possessed an often overlooked political function: it dispersed interests and responsibility together. During a period of rapid economic growth, this mechanism was particularly easy to maintain. As new interests continually appeared, new beneficiaries could continually be added; as the overall economy expanded, more and more political figures could obtain resources and spheres of influence of their own.
The era confronting Xi Jinping lacks this luxury. As the rate of growth declines, local government finances come under pressure, demographic structures change and the old property model gradually ceases to function, the amount of new cake available for distribution within the political system becomes increasingly limited. At the same time, Xi Jinping’s chosen mode of governance requires the Party continually to strengthen its direct control over every sphere. As a result, he has in effect abandoned two buffers simultaneously: the dispersion of interests and the dispersion of responsibility. The result is that, on the one hand, it becomes increasingly difficult to feed more ‘dragons’; on the other, it also becomes increasingly difficult to have those other ‘dragons’ share political responsibility on behalf of the supreme leader.
This also explains why the question of future premiers may become increasingly troublesome.
Li Qiang is a cadre who worked with Xi Jinping for many years, and there is a clear and longstanding political relationship between them. The office of premier can therefore currently maintain a relatively stable power structure. Yet this relationship cannot be reproduced indefinitely. Any leader may remain in office for a long time, but he cannot require the same group of political allies to remain in positions of real power for equally long periods. Li Qiang, Cai Qi and others differ in age from Xi Jinping, and their political careers have their own institutional and practical limits. As time passes, an unavoidable question will eventually arise: where will the next generation of Politburo Standing Committee members come from? Early in his rule, Xi Jinping was able to promote large numbers of cadres with whom he had established relationships while working in Fujian, Zhejiang and Shanghai. Further down the line, the supply of such ‘his own people’ will gradually diminish. Future senior cadres are increasingly likely to be people who rose during the Xi Jinping era without having years of direct working experience with Xi himself.
The distinction may appear subtle, but within a highly personalised power structure it may prove extremely important.
The point truly worth watching, therefore, is not limited to the next Party Congress, but extends to the one after that. By around 2032, the present senior leadership will have aged considerably further. Regardless of whether Xi Jinping remains in office at that point, the composition of the Politburo Standing Committee will necessarily have undergone substantial changes. Whether a new premier and new Standing Committee members will still be capable of reproducing the highly personalised political relationship that exists today will then become an extremely interesting question.
Seen from this perspective, the high-profile official commemoration in 2026 of the centenary of Jiang Zemin’s birth also acquires a certain historical irony.
If Xi Jinping genuinely wishes to learn something from Jiang Zemin’s experience of rule, then perhaps the most valuable lesson Jiang has to offer has little to do with theories of reform and opening up, or with the ‘Three Represents’. It is a very simple political technique: do not turn everything into your own affair.
Yet history is ultimately not so simple. Between Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping, there is no straightforward linear progression from cleverness to stupidity, or from maturity to immaturity. Each encountered different political circumstances. Some historical settings happened to fall within the comfort zones of particular leaders; others did precisely the opposite. Jiang Zemin could use rapid growth, globalisation and vast quantities of newly created interests to complete political integration; Hu Jintao could continue using this inheritance to maintain an increasingly complicated system of collective leadership; Xi Jinping, meanwhile, inherited a China in which this structure had begun to approach its limits. Their apparent maturity or immaturity was therefore, to a considerable extent, also a product of the conditions of their respective eras.
The one thing that may have remained unchanged throughout is the ordinary Chinese public’s persistent need for a ‘good high official’.
From Zhou Enlai to Zhu Rongji, and from Wen Jiabao to Li Keqiang, people have always hoped that within a political system in which they cannot genuinely choose the supreme leader, they might at least be able to choose a senior official worthy of their affection.
That is also why the role of the ‘people’s premier’ has proved so enduring.
Whether Li Qiang will eventually join this lineage remains unanswered. For the supreme leader, the truly dangerous part lies precisely here: even a number-two figure with absolutely no intention of rebelling can gradually become, in the public imagination, the symbol of an alternative political possibility.
The phrase ‘fearful of slander and apprehensive of criticism’ has never been merely an inconsequential piece of literary parallelism.
Rulers and ruled exist in a relationship in which each also shapes the other. A highly personalised power system demands that people attribute every achievement to the supreme leader; sooner or later, it will also demand that the supreme leader bear responsibility for the overwhelming majority of failures.
That, perhaps, is the real irony of the people’s democratic dictatorship.
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