Chairman of Everything
XI JINPING, 64
The year that Xi’s ideology was written into China’s constitution, an honour reserved only for Mao and Deng
If the unexpected—and chaotic—rise of Donald Trump was the story of 2016, the seemingly inevitable, but no less spectacular, emergence of China’s ‘Chairman of Everything’ marked 2017, when Xi Jinping, the “princeling” son of a Communist Party revolutionary, stamped his control over all aspects of life in China. Gone is the “collective leadership” system that enabled China’s rise. One hundred years after Lenin, China witnessed a quiet October revolution as the 19th Party Congress wrote Xi’s ideology into the constitution, an honour reserved only for Mao and Deng Xiaoping.
Xi, at the congress, signalled he is here to stay, breaking the norm by not naming a successor. He also outlined a plan to bring China “to the centre stage of the world” and build a “world class military” by 2050. “The fact that this was done shows how incredibly confident Xi is,” says Steve Tsang, professor of Chinese studies at SOAS, London.
Xi’s rise will have huge ramifications for India and the world, heralding the era of a China increasingly ready to flex its muscle as well as offer to the world an alternative to Pax Americana. China’s gap with US military and technological power remains large, but it is ever diminishing.
Daniel Russel, Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia in the Obama administration, says that the US under Trump is ceding space to China’s global leadership ambitions by withdrawing from global issues of concern such as climate change, where China is showing leadership. As Trump trumpets ‘America First’, Xi has put forward his ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative as a Chinese model for globalisation.
At the same time, Xi’s China is beset by many problems, from an economy dealing with rising debt to diminishing space for dissent. As Tsang notes, the congress not only demonstrated Xi’s power but also suggested “his advisors no longer dare to contradict him”. “This is a worrying sign for any powerful leader in any country,” he says. The year 2017 may well be Xi’s annus mirabilis—the year that propelled the rise of the next world superpower. Or, on the other hand, it could also mark China’s return to a long-banished memory of authoritarianism. To borrow a phrase from a former Chinese premier, on such matters of historical import, it’s too soon to tell.