As the U.S. general election looms and the U.S.-China tension escalates, the outside world is focused on whether the Trump administration will bring about the “October surprise”. However, if you turn around and carefully observe the relevant behaviors by the Beijing authorities internally and externally around the Oct. 1 National Day of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it seems as if Xi Jinping also has his own October game of “consolidation of the leadership core”.

Let’s start with what is the most familiar to everyone – the unification of Taiwan. On the eve of CCP’s Oct. 1 National Day, the whole “Ouyang Nana” debacle caused a commotion across the Strait. In reality, as the tension between two sides of the Strait increases, Beijing has been rather silent with its unification work. Once September rolls along, there was first the “seeking peace theory” plot which caused drama in the Kuomintang-Communist Strait Forum, then came Ouyang Nana’s passionate performance at the CCP National Day banquet. It seemed as if the Taiwan-related departments have a deadline to meet this year in terms of proactively catching up with the KPI (Key Performance Indication).

We all know both “beg for peace” and “Nana song” has yielded hardly any result for a united front and might have even created the opposite effect on Taiwanese' public opinion, but pigheaded, Beijing pushes on, how come? Perhaps this kind of controversy is what Beijing desires to ignite cross-strait flames and deepen internal public sentiments. Don’t you see how the explosive criticism from Chinese netizens is actually deepening the rising national wolf-warrior sentiments?

What’s even more interesting is that, on the even of the CCP’s National Day, the Beijing authorities announced loudly that they would conduct military exercises in the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. The “four seas military exercise” is rare, but “small-scale, few numbers of days, short distance” is the true nature of this “exercise”. If the CCP is neither trying to show off, nor to ignite a spark in the Sino-U.S. confrontation, why bother to go all out in publicizing the event? Naturally, this is a self-hypnotization for the wolf-warrior nationalism, to allow the Chinese people to fully experience the “power of the motherland”, and “the wisdom of Xi His Highness” right before the National Day.

Indeed, using the testimony of unification of Taiwan can effectively ignite national wolf-warrior sentiments within the Chinese people. Xi His Highness’s large-scale, interlocking “four seas military exercise” is not only an internal propaganda of “military strength”, but also to further prove that he is one with military authority under the notion of the “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” theory. Are all the commotions only for the mere internal propaganda of wolf-warrior nationalism? What Xi Jinping wants is none other than a show of his full control of power and authority before the foreboding storm of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CCP at the end of October.

Xi His Highness’s “October surprise” game doesn’t just end there! After the Beidaihe meeting, the push-and-pull between Xi’s and Li’s economic strategies did not slow down until Xi Jinping, in the name of the General Office of the Central Committee of the CCP, launched the “Opinions on strengthening the unification work of private enterprises in the new era” and ended the debate – this first document on private economic unification by the CCP was, surprisingly, not proposed by the economic or unification departments, but simply and directly issued by the “Central Office” under the sole commands of Xi. In addition to emphasizing the CCP’s control over private enterprises, Xi Jinping bellowed at this moment that enterprises have to “listen to the party and follow the party”. It is likely that the true target is to overthrown Li Keqiang on the economic front and launch the “14th Five-year plan” in the Fifth Plenary Session of the Central Committee at the end of the month.

Moreover, in order to strengthen the image of maintaining stability and consolidation of authority, Xi Jinping also has not wasted a second in convening conferences in Tibet and Xinjiang back-to-back within a month. Both meetings were attended by all seven members of the Standing Committee of the CCP, which is considered an exceptionally rare high standard, not to mention that the Tibet work conference has not happened in the last five years, and the Xinjiang one has not met for six years. Rather than saying that the conferences were held to counter the “noisy foreign forces butting their noses into Xinjiang and Tibet”, it is more appropriate to say that Xi Jinping is using these two working conferences to declare his success in harmonizing Xinjiang and Tibet, to be able to summon all seven Standing Committee members in one go, a full display of showcasing how “harmonizing around Xi His Highness” is the CCP’s survival!

In fact, since the Beidaihe Conference concluded, Xi Jinping as CCP’s number one, has been running non-stop in all meetings possible, from socio-economic forums with field experts, to science forums with scientists, then onto education, culture, health, sports, trade union forums, all the way to the Xinjiang working conference. He has even participated in “minor” works like food wastage elimination and the toilet revolutions, fully utilizing the “Xi core” influence to the max.

No surprises here. Despite the internal and external pressures of the epidemic, the economy, and the Sino-U.S. relations this year, the CCP celebrated its 71st National Day in a low-key manner in a “State Council National Day Reception”, where Li Keqiang could only holler “the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with comrade Xi Jinping as the core” to surrender his sincerity.

From the wolf-warrior passion towards Taiwan and abroad, to the high-profile announcements of social control within, it is obvious that Xi Jinping is playing not the game of simple, internal propaganda, but one that aims at the 19th Central Committee of the CCP at the end of October – a war of regime defense" at the Fifth Plenary Session. Judging from the dialectical logic of the CCP, this also fits the explanation that Xi Jinping is facing pressure and challenges in the stability of his regime. So, will Xi Jinping deliver more “October surprises”? As we the Taiwanese always say – stay tuned!

(Wang Chih-sheng, Secretary-General, Association of Chinese Elite Leadership)

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