Xi Jinping ensures his future with a resolution that rewrites China’s past
BEIJING Only two leaders of China’s ruling Communist Party leaders have been powerful enough to rewrite the nation’s history. On Thursday, President Xi Jinping became the third.
His version of Chinese history is simple: The party is great, glorious and always correct. As long as people follow the party, China will rise to inevitable greatness. It stands on the cusp of greatness now, and one leader will soon make that greatness a reality: him.
Such are the contents of a new historical resolution “on major achievements and historical experiences in the Party’s hundred years of struggle” passed in Beijing on Thursday by the Communist Party’s Central Committee.
The communique says the Communist Party has “walked through 100 years of glorious history” and “written the most magnificent epic in the Chinese nation’s thousands of years of history.” But the declaration is, crucially, also about the future: It lays the groundwork for Xi to serve an unprecedented third term as president, underlining a political supremacy not seen in China in at least a generation.
“The party’s establishment of Comrade Xi Jinping’s position as the core of the entire party and party center reflects the common wishes of the entire party, military, state and peoples of all ethnicities,” the communique says. “It has decisive meaning for the development of party and state affairs in the new era and the historical progress of the Chinese nation’s great rejuvenation.”
Only two leaders of the Communist Party, revolutionary founder Mao Zedong and economic reformer Deng Xiaoping, issued historical resolutions before, in 1945 and 1981 respectively. Both resolutions consolidated the power of a single man who then steered the country through transformational decades.
Xi’s resolution does the same, analysts say. It underscores his frequent proclamations that China has entered a “new era” of rejuvenation under his rule. Despite a slowing economy and growing tensions with the United States, it’s a statement of confidence and party unity ahead of the 20th Party Congress next year, when Xi is expected to be given a third term.
“All of this is what we might call ideological Sherpa
work, preparing the ground for a big announcement that consolidates Xi Jinping’s position as paramount leader … and solidifies the party as the driving vehicle of historical destiny for China,” said Rana Mitter, director of the University China Center at Oxford University.
The resolution posits a century’s worth of continuous success, according to the version released in state media Thursday. In contrast to previous resolutions that admitted party errors while affirming overall correct leadership, this one focuses solely on party triumphs.
In the section on the Mao era, when tens of millions died of starvation and violence, the communique praises the party for leading the people in “the broadest and deepest social transformation in Chinese history” and taking a “great leap” toward socialism.
“Chinese people are not
only good at destroying an old world, but also good at building a new world. Only socialism can save China, only socialism can develop China,” it says, with no mention of the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward collectivization campaign or the brutalities of the Cultural Revolution.
Such florid rhetoric is no surprise to anyone who has heard Xi’s previous remarks on history, read the new versions of party history issued this spring or seen the banners, slogans and museum exhibits about “studying party history and following the party forever” on display in every city across China this year.
Still, it is a striking divergence from Deng’s 1981 resolution, which walked a careful line between affirming the ultimate correctness of Communist Party leadership and rejecting the Mao-era “mistakes” that ravaged the country.