China’s leader assumes the role of a dictator

Xi Jinping, the toughest and most powerful head of China since Mao Zedong, has been spending the summer marshalling his supporters while preparing to enhance his already vast authority at the 19th National Congress this fall. Nobody calls him a dictator, but that’s the role he’s assumed.

Xi is expected to deliver the keynote address at the Congress as a way of having his ideas on government written into the Party constitution, giving him a way to install his legacy in the future of the country.

He has a strong sense of history and a weakness for phrases like “the Chinese dream.” He’s the sixth leader of the People’s Republic and the first who was born after the revolution. He’s expected to win his second five-year term as General Secretary at the Congress, but there’s every chance he will go on later to win a third term, one more than tradition allows.

Those who have followed his career expect his performance at the Congress will include some elements that no one can expect. He enjoys surprises.

When he was elected to the job of General Secretary in 2012 he was considered “safe” by the then-powerful figures in the party. They saw him as a routine bureaucrat who would coast through five years without changing anything.

Instead, he changed everything. He staffed the upper rungs of the party with his friends and rid himself of those who showed signs of doubting him. Before him, China was relatively relaxed on human rights— there were hopes that modest levels of freedom would soon be allowed. Xi reversed course and made trouble for everyone who wanted even the beginning of freedom.

He reorganized the military, making it capable of offence as well as defence. He persecuted lawyers who tried to defend their persecuted clients. His regime defined freedom of religion (which China theoretically provides) as the government’s freedom to determine everyone’s religion. There is now very little in the national government that Xi doesn’t supervise, directly or through the allies he appoints. An article in the South China Morning Post last week pointed out that, “Since the start of last year, eight ministries and four organizations directly under the State Council, China’s cabinet, have been given new chiefs.” He carefully nourishes his ego and his belief that he (and he alone) knows the way ahead for China.

Vanity is an obvious part of his make-up. As Evan Osnos wrote in a New Yorker profile of him in 2015, when Xi he received a guest in his office, “he stood still, long arms slack, hair pomaded, a portrait of take-it-or-leave-it composure that induced his visitor to cross the room in pursuit of a handshake.”

He’s especially proud of his reputation for being well read. He likes to display his culture by quoting Chinese classics, but he goes far beyond that. Interviewed by Russian journalists, he mentioned that he’s read Tolstoy, Chekhov, Pushkin and eight others he cited. Visiting France, he said he had read Voltaire, Rousseau, Sartre, and 15 others.

He’s had three biographies of himself written and state publishers have issued a series of books, The Remarks of Xi Jinping, with the material respectfully arranged. There’s no doubt that readers are expected to recall Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. For children there are cartoon books about Xi, one of them called How to Make a Leader.

When Xi became General Secretary in 2012 he was at the head of the all-powerful seven-member national committee. He had only one reliable ally among the seven. He soon put his man, Wang Qishan, in charge of an anti-corruption campaign. That helped Xi eliminate some challengers and warned off potential opponents. Since then, those who oppose Xi tend to find themselves accused of corruption. Some are simply placed “under investigation,” which paralyzes their political value until the investigation ends, if it ever does.

Already head of the armed forces, Xi keeps adding to his portfolio. He’s made himself chairman of several crucial committees, including national security, foreign policy and the economy.

He calls on China to pursue the Chinese Dream: the “great rejuvenation of the nation,” a mixture of prosperity, unity and strength. He’s proposed at least sixty social and economic changes, some of them with merit. They range from relaxing Chinese President Xi Jinping in July. the one-child policy to eliminating camps for “re-education through labour.” The newest highspeed-rail trains are called “Rejuvenation,” to remind everyone of Xi and his accomplishments.

Standing at the core of Chinese power, Xi believes he knows the structure his country needs. He has no time for western politicians and journalists who believe that economic freedom and political freedom naturally go hand in hand.

He’s opened up the economy, fostering more competition, allowing market-driven flexibility, giving private corporations the right to compete with state enterprises. But in politics he goes in the opposite direction. The success of democratic capitalism holds no allure for him. He doesn’t even want to hear about it. In August 2013, an internal memo was leaked from party headquarters, citing “seven unmentionables,” phrases not to be used in official documents. They included “human rights,” “independent judiciaries” and “Western constitutional democracy.”

Liu Xiaobo was jailed for merely advocating opposition parties—that was “inciting subversion of state power.” When he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, official media in China were forbidden to mention it. Last month, when Lui died of cancer while in prison, his widow was kept from talking to supporters and reporters and was jailed herself. The Xi regime not only imprisons those who promote human rights but also punishes lawyers who try to defend them. On one day, July 10, 2015, in a spectacular roundup, police arrested 60 lawyers and ransacked their offices. They were guilty of defending people who had defied the actions of the state.

All this Xi can explain: China needs stability for economic success and demands for individual rights lead to instability.

Even so, Xi continues to have admirers. After Xi and Donald Trump met in April, Trump proclaimed, “He is a good man. A very good man.”