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Nor does Xi Jinping intend presiding over the party’s “death by a thousand cuts” as it contends with a range of unfolding political forces unleashed by a combination of the market economy, social liberalisation and foreign influence.

No—Xi Jinping intends for the party to defy the trend-line of Western history, to see off Fukuyama’s end of history with the inevitable triumph of Western liberal-democratic capitalism and to preserve a Leninist state for the long term as the most effective means of ensuring that China prevails in its domestic and international challenges. That is why there is lengthy treatment in this conference on, to use the language of the Xinhua report, “Upholding the authority of the CPC Central Committee as the overarching principle and strengthening the centralised, unified leadership of the Party on external work.”

In case we missed the emphasis, Xi Jinping also states that “diplomacy represents the will of the state, and diplomatic power must stay with the CPC Central Committee, while external work is a systematic project.” Xi calls “for implementing reform of the institutions and mechanisms concerning foreign affairs under the decision of the Central Party leadership and enhancing party-building in institutions abroad so as to form a management mechanism catering to the requirements of the new era.”

The conference also emphasised that China’s diplomacy would now be a “diplomacy of socialism with Chinese characteristics” and as such would take Xi Jinping thought from the domestic into the foreign policy domain. In the past, this language of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” applied to the overall Chinese ideological system, usually interpreted as China’s own form of state capitalism. But now it is applied to diplomacy, and it infers something else.

It seems to mean conforming diplomacy with a wider ideological worldview which lies beyond the simple policy pragmatism we have seen for decades guiding most elements of Chinese foreign policy in the prosecution of China’s national interests. There now seems to be a new national and-or global vision that now sits above the simple maximisation of national interests. This seems more than the routine incantations of the China Dream, the party’s centenary objectives for 2021, and the national centenary mission for 2049 with which we have become familiar since Xi came to power. At this stage, this new overarching ideological mission may be inchoate, but the fact that it is as yet not fully formed does not mean that it does not exist.

Lest there be any doubt on this count, the ranking foreign policy technocrat attending the Work Conference, former Foreign Minister and State Councillor Yang Jiechi, and now Director of the Foreign Policy Office of the Party Central Committee, refers explicitly to the ideological significance of this conference. It is worth quoting Yang’s remarks at the conference at some length. He states that the most important outcome of this conference is that:

“It established the guiding position of Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy. Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy is an important part of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era...It is a major theoretical achievement in the thoughts on state governance in the area of

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