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system was given the mandate to contest, assert, and where possible to lead in the various
councils of the world. And this was new.

Furthermore, anyone who continues to entertain the fanciful idea, which I still sometimes
seen in Western commentary, that these changes are not the product of a well-considered
Chinese grand strategy, is simply choosing to ignore the clear evidence of clearly defined
policy purpose systematically at work in the field. Our Chinese friends think things through
carefully. They observe carefully. Not just what is happening in the headlines, which is the
permanent obsession of the Western political establishment. But what is happening, in what
Xi Jinping would describe as "the underlying historical trends" in international relations. And
then, after a period of detailed internal reflection, consideration, and where necessary
consensus building within the system, a new direction is set.

That indeed is what these Central Foreign Policy Work Conferences are all about. They sum
up where the system has got to in its analysis. And then what the system intends to do about
it. It’s part of the rolling system of policy analysis, implementation and review that
characterises the entire Chinese public policy system, both foreign and domestic. It is both
one of the great strengths of the Chinese system. But also one of its great weaknesses if the
conclusions reached prove it be analytically flawed, or unsustainable in practice. It takes a lot
to turn the Chinese ship of state around once that course has been set at the top.

So what changes with the 2018 Central Conference? Is it more of the same? Or simply an
intensification of the trajectory? Or a change in content and tone. The answer is all of the
above—a blend of continuity and change.

A NEW ROLE FOR PARTY IDEOLOGY IN FOREIGN POLICY

First, the press reporting of the conference asserts the absolute centrality of the party to the
country’s foreign policy mission. This is not entirely new. But the emphasis on the role of the
party is much stronger than before. In the recent past, the country’s international policy
establishment, like its econocrats, have seen themselves, and have been seen by the Chinese
political establishment, as a technocratic elite. That is now changing in foreign policy as much
as it has already changed in economic policy.

This is part of a broader trend in Xi Jinping’s China, whose focus is to rehabilitate the party
from moral death from corruption on the one hand, and practical death from policy irrelevance
on the other.

Xi has been concerned that the party had become marginal to the country’s major policy
debates given the technocratic complexity inherent to most of the country’s contemporary
challenges. That is why, for example, we now see a revitalisation of theory over practice, a
reassertion of the power of the major institutions of the party over the major departments of
state, and once again of political ideology over mere technocratic policy.

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