National Post (National Edition)
China’s ‘helmsman’ ready to fight ‘bloody battle’
XI JINPING DELIVERS PATRIOTIC SPEECH — AND A WARNING
BEIJING • He is now officially China’s “national helmsman,” an accolade echoing one of the honorifics used for Mao, the “great helmsman.” On Tuesday, China ended a 16-day meeting of its legislature, the National People’s Congress, that took on the trappings of an extended coronation of the president, Xi Jinping.
Just days after some lawmakers shed tears of joy as they unanimously re-elected Xi, he used the congress’s closing day to deliver an ardently patriotic speech warning against challenges to Chinese territorial claims, especially any move to seek independence for Taiwan.
Xi’s 38-minute address was a final flourish in a political spectacle that has emphasized his supremacy and set him on a path to possibly decades of dominance. The congress left little doubt that for years to come, Chinese politics will centre on Xi and how far he can go in strengthening his rule before risking a serious setback or backlash.
“Miracles are constantly emerging across this great land of China,” Xi told nearly 3,000 lawmakers in the Great Hall of the People. They applauded most warmly when he warned against challenges to China over Taiwan, Hong Kong or other regions where Beijing’s claims to sovereignty are contested.
“All manoeuvres and tricks to split the motherland are sure to fail,” Xi said. “Not one inch of the territory of the great motherland can be carved off from China.”
He said he was ready for a “bloody battle” against opponents of his country’s march towards global supremacy.
The annual meeting of the Communist Party-run legislature has usually been a stolid ritual giving leaders a chance to show collective unity, lay out goals for the year and hear mildly worded suggestions from the lawmakers, who are picked for their loyalty.
Not this time. Xi transformed this year’s extended meeting into an adulatory celebration of him and his policies to permanently install the Communist Party at the heart of China’s resurgence.
Just over a week before the meeting, the party made a bombshell announcement about ending a constitutional term limit on the presidency, clearing an obstacle to Xi’s long-term hold on power.
“I don’t like the word Maoist, but Xi really is bringing back the party in charge, but also bringing back a personified power in charge,” Ryan Manuel, an expert on the Chinese Communist Party at the University of Hong Kong, said by telephone.
“But personifying power has risks,” he said. “Xi has, better than anyone since Mao, gone around the checks and balances that were placed on him.”
Chinese media coverage of the congress was saturated by Xi’s images and words, drowning out other members of the leadership, including the premier, Li Keqiang.
On Sunday, the day after Xi was reappointed president, the front page of the People’s Daily, the party’s main newspaper, and other papers were dominated by large photographs of Xi, underscoring his unrivalled status.
“Xi and his supporters within the Chinese Communist Party have broken the post-Mao-era taboo of promoting one individual leader above the whole party,” said Anne-Marie Brady, a professor of political science at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand who studies Chinese propaganda.
“I haven’t seen a People’s Daily cover like that — big red headlines and only one leader’s face featured in the photos — since circa 19661976.”
After Xi gave his speech, the newly appointed chairman of the congress, Li Zhanshu, paid extravagant tribute.
Li said, “He is the national helmsman for a new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the guide of the people.”
The term “helmsman of the nation” has been promoted by the People’s Daily and other party-run media in recent days.
It has clear parallels with the “great helmsman,” a phrase used in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s to venerate Mao Zedong, China’s founding revolutionary leader.
While Xi does not approach Mao in raw, untethered power, the glorification of Xi has approached levels not seen in Chinese politics since that time. During the congress, some delegates swooned and wept about Xi.