From ‘Uncle Xi’ to China’s visionary
At party congress, Xi to cement his image as epochal statesman
In his early years as China’s leader, Xi Jinping paid for his own steamed dumplings at a cheap diner, casually rolled up his trouser legs to avoid splashes in the rain and was serenaded with sugary pop tunes. His image-makers cast him as “Xi Dada,” the people’s firm but genial “Uncle Xi.”
How vastly different he is now. A decade on, Xi looms over the country like a stern Communist monarch, reflecting on China’s fallen ancient dynasties and determined to win its lasting ascendancy in a turbulent world.
Chinese officials praise his speeches like hallowed texts, professing loyalty with a fervor that sometimes echoes Mao Zedong’s era. His public encounters are regimented displays of acclaim.
A Communist Party congress opening Sunday is shaping up to be Xi’s imperial moment, strengthening and extending his rule, while also intensifying the long-term hazards of his singular dominance.
At the meeting in Beijing, he seems sure of winning a third term as the party’s general secretary, breaking with recent expectations that Chinese leaders would reign for only about a decade.
“The certainty will really only be in the arrangements at the topmost level, that his power is beyond challenge, but beneath that we’ll face a great many uncertainties,” Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing, said in an interview.
The evolution of Xi’s public face has paralleled his transformation of China into a proudly authoritarian state, scornful of criticism from Washington, increasingly
sure that Western democracy has lost its allure and impatient for a bigger say in shaping the 21st-century global order.
The party congress will be Xi’s stage to demonstrate that he remains undaunted, despite the recent economic malaise, COVID-19 outbreaks and increasing animosity with the United States.
He is likely to tell the 2,296 congress delegates that his government has saved many lives through its strict “zeroCOVID” policy; shifted the economy to a path of cleaner, fairer and more efficient growth; raised China’s international standing; and made strides in military modernization.
“He wants to show that he’s determined to do big things,” said Neil Thomas, an analyst of Chinese politics for the Eurasia Group.
Xi, 69, presents himself as the history-steeped guardian of China’s destiny. He cites the toppling of China’s
ancient empires, determined to ensure that it does not again fall prey to political decay, revolt or foreign aggression.
He has taken to using a grand, ancient-sounding Chinese motto: guo zhi da zhe. This roughly means “the nation’s great cause.” It sounds like it could have been passed down from a sage, but, in fact, Xi or his advisers minted it in 2020.
Xi is already looking well beyond the next five years, trying to build a lasting edifice of power and policies. He is fleshing out his own creed and promoting cohorts of younger proteges, technocrats and military commanders who may advance his influence for decades.
“Xi Jinping wants to show that he isn’t just a party leader but also almost a spiritual seer for China — a bold, visionary statesman,” said Feng Chongyi, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney who
studies recent Chinese political history.
Surrounded by deferential functionaries, Xi may become more prone to swaggering oversteps. Unanswered questions over how long he will stay in power and when he will name a successor could unsettle officials, investors and other governments. Most experts believe he will not assign an heir at this congress, wary of undercutting his authority.
If China’s growth continues to stumble, Xi may have less largess for big technological programs and marquee projects like Xiong’an, an unfinished city of neat boulevards and office blocks outside Beijing. It will also add to strains on his economic agenda, which has prioritized the state’s interests to the frustration of private investors.
“We’re still not in an era where the economy and society totally obey him,” Wu said. “The strains and tensions between politics
and economics in the next five years will be more serious than the previous decade.”
One day after Xi was appointed party leader in November 2012, dozens of professors, lawyers and retired officials gathered in a Beijing hotel, urging China’s new government to take up political liberalization as a cure for corruption and abuses. “Democracy, rule of law, human rights and constitutional government are the unstoppable global tide,” their petition read.
After decades climbing the administrative ladder in brashly commercial coastal areas, Xi took power amid widespread expectations that he would be a pragmatist willing to tolerate, if not act on, such calls. Many pointed to the probable influence of his father, an official who served under Deng Xiaoping as the country was embarking on market reforms and opening up in the 1980s.
But 10 years later, the Beijing magazine that organized the 2012 meeting has been purged. Many of the officials who signed the petition have since died; a businessman who put his name to it was imprisoned; other attendees have retreated into silence or embraced Xi’s agenda.
In Xi’s worldview, the party is the custodian of traditional Chinese hierarchy and discipline. He argues that the party’s centralized power can mobilize China to accomplish feats beyond the grasp of Western countries, like cutting rural poverty, leaping into new technologies, or — so it seemed for a while — efficiently halting the spread of COVID-19.
“The superiority of our political system and system of governance is even more blazingly clear in its response to the COVID pandemic and winning the war on poverty,” Xi said in March. “The contrast between Chinese order and Western chaos has become even sharper.”
Several months later, the public mood in China had shifted markedly.
The government’s severe measures against incessant outbreaks have fed rising frustration. China’s economy has been caught in a painful slowdown, brought on by the pandemic restrictions and by steps to rein in big tech firms and debtheavy developers. And Xi’s fellow strongman, Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been mired in the floundering Ukraine invasion, forcing Beijing into diplomatic contortions.
But even still, as the congress has neared, senior Chinese officials have garlanded Xi, the “core” leader, in vows of utter loyalty.
“Embrace the core with a sincere heart,” said one. “At all times and in all circumstances, trust the core, be loyal to the core, defend the core,” said another.