Chinese leaders gather at the beach for secret retreat

In a ritual of summer, China’sleadershavebeenholding an unofficial retreat at a beach resort ahead of a key autumn Communist Party congress at which President Xi Jinping will launch his second five-year term as party chief and move to cement his status as China’s most powerful leader in decades.

The absence of top leaders from state media reports is a general indication that the secretive Beidaihe retreat is underway. In a hint that leaders have gathered at the resort’s quiet beaches and closely guarded guest houses, the official Xinhua News Agency last week carried an account of a meeting at the resort between party propaganda boss Liu Yunshan and a group of vacationing technical experts.

The strength of Xi’s position likely means the goingson this year on the coast east of Beijing will be even tamer than usual, analysts say.

Xi, 64, has been shoring up his authority and sidelining rivals, leaving him primed to install allies in top positions and press his agenda of tightened state control and muscular diplomacy. That appears to include a push to insert his thoughts on theoretical matters into the party constitution and further cultivate a burgeoning cult of personality that could allow him to hold on to power beyond his second term.

“The nuance this time is that there is much less ‘trading’ among various factions and more obsequious affirmation of the supreme leader’s supremacy,” said Miles Yu Maochun, an expert on Chinese politics at the US Naval Academy.

At the autumn party congress, Xi is expected to deliver a keynote address as a prelude to having his take on theory written into the party constitution during the event, analysts believe. If indeed the case, the move’s significance would be that predecessor Hu Jintao was able to insert his theory only upon leaving office.

A government spokesman, State Council Information Office Director Jiang Jianguo, seemed to talk up that likelihood with fulsome praise for Xi’s theories in recent comments to reporters.

“It is a narrative that has been mastered by the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people and become familiar to every ordinary Chinese. It has also become a force that can change the world,” Jiang said. “It is only natural for us to summarize this system of thought in a more accurate and scientific way.”

Jiang also sought to quash talk of a cult of personality around Xi, calling him a “modest and prudent man.”

“In the face of issues, he’d like to be the student first and learn from the people,” Jiang said.