“Who is Xi?” “Shi Jinping, her husband Peng Liyuan“Ten years ago, when he got the scepter, for many Chinese it was just partner of a celebrity opera singer Who attended New Year’s television premieres. No one is a person of this unknown type. all-encompassing power within only ten years in an organization infused with the unbridled personalism that boils political careers and drives out the worries.
Both its audacity and its historical context contributed to its rise. Deng XiaopingThe architect of reforms in China understood that Maoist extremism was born of excessive power. great helmsman and shifted the focus from the leader to the party. Each subsequent president was weaker than the previous one, and the route was Standing Committee. This healthy internal democratic debate and its system of checks and balances have shown their seams over the past decade. hu jintao. The veto power of the nine members of the Standing Committee outstripped many policies and showed a weak president while nurturing the portfolio of pending duties: economic reforms, social inequalities, environmental protection and, above all, a ubiquitous corruption that punishes social legitimacy. Hu lacked strength, not intent, handcuffed by the pactist dynamic and the influence of his predecessor, Jiang Floor.
The diagnosis was clear: party and country were heading towards cliff. So was the cure: more centralized power and more agile measures. Xi seemed like the right man to spice up the party. Consensus was supported by its status red prince (his father, Xi Zhongxun, was a hero of the Long March) and not affiliated with traditional clans. The party expected waves and a tsunami came. Unlike his predecessor Hu Jintao, who had to wait three years for Jiang to release him, he took over the leadership of the party and the Government and control over the Army, and expelled his loyalists from the military leadership.
centralization of power
“He has placed his people in the highest places in the world. Army and more recently, reorganized intelligence services. One of his friends, Chen Xi, heads the party’s organizational department, which decides on important appointments at the provincial and central levels. Another associate, Huang Kunming, is head of the propaganda division, who maintains a constant stream of eulogies,” says Anthony Saich, a sinologist at the Harvard Kennedy School.
The anti-corruption campaign contributed to the ardent centralization of power, which also purged the ranks of the party that had cast its opponents into the shadows. with the arrest Zhou YongkangThe first Standing Committee member investigated for corruption made it clear that no one is safe. He added to the list of official positions the symbolic title of “hexin” or “core” of the party, which was invented to describe the uncontested leaders. And then he shaped the Constitution. In an amendment made in 2017, he stapled the doctrine of “Xi Jinping’s Idea of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” a privilege that made him equal to Mao and Deng. And deleted it a year later two-term limit presidency.
popular support
Efficiency kept his figure in line with his ability to order the match. alleviated or eliminated many of them. built-in problems embarrassing middle class such as local corruption, environmental disaster or food scandals. This lament refrain survives housing prices, illegal despite numerous laws to cool the industry, but the feeling is that the country is heading in the right direction. Xi also broke tradition hierarchical technocrats It culminates in Granite Hu, and many know him as “Xi dada” or “Uncle Xi”. He ate dumplings in a small Beijing restaurant, shares the farm on barracks visits, doesn’t take pictures with the children, and sweetens his wife’s image. As prestigious as Western institutions Harvard School or Pew Institute their place popular support over 80%. If the party decided to cast it aside, it would have a very serious problem with making it public.
“Every Chinese leader is a response to a particular historical situation, and Xi is the only one for it. Circumstances facilitated his consolidation. This is not only explained by his fight against corruption or the management of internal struggles, but also by a new narrative that refers to China. The Chinese dream. or to the rejuvenation of the nation and its certainty turbulence and more is needed harmony and unity and a strong leader who takes immediate action,” says Xulio Ríos, former director of the China Policy Observatory.
These internal dangers are now external. Relations with the United States, which put the helm on a collision course with the power that debated its priority, have never been so low. that war task Trump’s joke military conflict This is what’s on the horizon. China has already undertaken hostility structurally and concludes: Peace It can develop within forty years. The same certainty of the existential threat that raised Xi is what sustains him now.