The CCP, in the hands of an Xi determined to go down in history

The Chinese President, Xi Jinping, He seeks to equate Mao Zedong with a third term at the helm of the country that allows him to go down in history at the cost of wearing down his rivals and nurturing a marked cult of his personality.

The Communist Party of China (CCP) he propped up Xi last week with a “historic resolution” that will cement his absolute leadership.

But how has the leader come to accumulate so much power?

To answer this question, the experts go back to November 2011, when Xi, the son of a senior regime leader, was chosen by the elites for his pragmatism and his ability to please the different families that made up the Party.

“The CCP ruled that China’s reform was going through a ‘deep water’ phase and that strong leadership was necessary. There could be no hesitation in this regard, or in the vertical conception of power that, according to the mantra of millenary China, should not be shared more than is necessary ”, explains the Spanish academic Xulio Ríos.

Over time, Xi was cementing his own political base, considerably eroding that of his rivals – points out the analyst – and managed to have the Constitution reformed in 2018 to eliminate the limit of two presidential terms.

This will allow him to remain in power beyond 2023, something that must be finally approved by the XX Congress of the CPC, whose celebration is scheduled for October next year.

Figures like Jiang Zemin (president between 1993 and 2003) still have significant influence, but other minor factions are not comparable. A third term for Xi means breaking a more collegiate command within the Party, ”says the expert.

Ríos adds that there have been certain “reservations” to this change, hence some of the more recent purges, such as that of former vice minister of public security Sun Lijun, who was expelled from the CCP in October and will face trial for corruption.

“It is related to some internal maneuver to condition Xi’s ambitions,” says the academic.

XI, omnipresent

Although the cult of personality has existed in other Chinese leaders such as the charismatic Jiang -with his particular carefree style-, Xi was not fussy and began to promote theoretical guides that heralded the arrival of a “new era” in which China it would reach its complete modernization by 2049, the year in which the People’s Republic will commemorate its centenary.

In addition, he managed to get his “political thinking” registered in the Party statutes and in the Constitution, which already meant equating him with Mao, the only communist leader who had achieved it.

The reformist leader Deng Xiaoping, who opted for collective leadership to avoid the excesses of Maoism, only managed to make his contribution rank as “theory”, a lower level term.

According to the official media, Mao is now seeking to go down in history as the leader who raised China, Deng as the one who made it rich and Xi as the one who made it strong.

And, above all, that Xi becomes “the most prominent figure in 21st century China,” according to Ríos, something for which he has had to “penetrate” all layers of society.

Portrayed in the new homes of displaced villagers within the poverty alleviation program -one of its star projects-, projected on gigantic screens on the streets of large cities, protagonist of all the front page news of the official Diario Del Pueblo, praised in provincial inspections in which he is honored with traditional dances … Xi’s presence is omnipresent today.

Also as a savior of the people after the outbreak of the epidemic in the central city of Wuhan, which last year inaugurated an exhibition on “the achievements of the Party to overcome the pandemic” and in which Xi’s speeches, instructions and photographs stood out to highlight “His decisive contribution.”

His bust also appears among those of Mao in the remote revolutionary enclaves that receive thousands of tourists each year, and his ideology is also already part of the textbooks that must be studied in schools and universities throughout the country.

CCP officials are to read his speeches and study his political program which, according to official propaganda, has succeeded in cleansing the Party of corruption and assembling it to achieve “the dream of China’s rejuvenation” and “the readaptation of Marxism.” to the contemporary Chinese context.

“The cult is certainly greater than in the case of other leaders. But if he aspires to not only a third term but even more (2035), it would complicate a scenario that Deng had addressed: that of his succession, ”Ríos concludes.