Tom Miller

We love you, Uncle Xi!

Three new books describe Xi Jinping’s ruthless cult of personality – but none comes close to fathoming who he really is

Schoolchildren cheer in Shaoshan, Hunan province, during a nationwide propaganda campaign last year to mark the CCP’s centenary and shore up the legitimacy of President Xi Jinping (Getty) 
issue 22 October 2022

In 2015, I had lunch with an old chum of Xi Jinping. He described how China’s most powerful leader since Chairman Mao was born into the Communist party’s ‘red aristocracy’ but had to toughen up fast when his father was jailed in the Cultural Revolution. The young Xi briefly became a street hoodlum who swore like a trooper, smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish. He survived by turning ‘redder than red’, climbing the party ladder from a branch secretary in a lowly village all the way up to the top job in Beijing. ‘I am fond of Xi, but he is isolated from his old friends and there is a danger of emperor syndrome,’ the friend warned me. ‘I think Xi will want to rule for 20 years.’

This week, at the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist party (CCP), Xi Jinping looks set to win a third five-year term as general secretary – a.k.a. party boss. He will also remain chairman of the Central Military Commission – a.k.a. commander-in-chief of the world’s biggest army. To top it off, many Pekingologists expect Xi to receive a grand new title, elevating him alongside Mao in the party pantheon. There is nothing in the CCP’s constitution to prevent Xi from serving a third term as party chief, but it does break with norms established to ensure the smooth transfer of power. A fourth term is not out of the question, meaning that Xi could indeed rule for 20 years.

He is not quite a dictator, given institutional constraints within the CCP, but he is an extraordinarily dominant figure. Next spring he is expected to return as president, his least powerful position in the curious world of the Chinese party-state. Xi and his allies have constructed a cult of personality, chipping away at four decades of collective leadership-building.

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