Firm Control: Governing the State-owned Economy Under Xi Jinping

ABSTRACT: How has the Xi Jinping administration recentralised authority over China’s politics and economy? Studies of Xi’s rule often suggest that his “core leader” status, revolutionary heritage, and informal network of loyalists underpin this consolidation of central control. In contrast, this article focuses on the state sector to highlight how the Xi administration’s recentralisation of authority is grounded in existing governance mechanisms and techniques: central leading small groups, the cadre management system, Party committees, and campaigns. Using policy documents and an original dataset on central state-owned enterprise leaders, I provide evidence that the Xi administration has leveraged each of these four methods to reclaim central authority relative to the preceding Hu Jintao administration. These findings contribute to scholarship on adaptive authoritarian governance and economic reform in China by underscoring that administrations can use existing instruments of central control in divergent ways. KEYWORDS: China, Chinese Communist Party, State-owned Enterprises, Economic Reform, Adaptive Authoritarian Governance, Xi Jinping, Hu Jintao.