Miscellanea (@Miscellanea)

#China #OpEd - "LEADER FOR LIFE: WHAT XI JINPING’S ELEVATION MEANS FOR CHINA AND THE WORLD" https://www.rt.com/op-ed/540106-leader-for-life-xi-jinping/ Now anointed with the same status afforded to Mao and Deng, Xi has the opportunity to usher in a new era that will complete his vision for the rejuvenation of China while dealing with the threat posed by America. The country’s ruling Communist Party (CPC) passed a significant resolution on Thursday, affirming the 68-year-old leader as a key figure in the party’s history, elevating him to the same historical status as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. The document, a summary of the party’s history, addresses its key achievements and future directions. It’s only the third of its kind since the party was founded 100 years ago – the first was passed by Mao in 1945 and the second by Deng in 1981. This consolidates Xi’s legacy, ideology and policies as a historic epoch for the party and country’s direction. Inevitably, the Western mainstream media interpreted it critically, claiming Xi was centralizing power, building a personality cult, and taking China in the wrong direction at a time of growing geopolitical friction. [...] Xi Jinping is a living example of such constant re-evaluation, or the “scientific method” that the party utilizes, not just through what he does but how he links together this whole history. He is, after all, the first leader of the country who has spent all his life under nothing but the People’s Republic of China, seeing it all from the beginning to the present day. His childhood was the Mao era, when his dad was a senior party official who was later purged and imprisoned, and witnessed first-hand the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, At 15, Xi was sent to the countryside for “re-education” and hard labor for seven years – an experience that has figured large in his official story. Far from rebelling against the party, Xi embraced it. He tried to join it several times, and when he was finally accepted in 1974, he worked hard to rise up the ranks, a journey that resulted in him being picked as president in 2012. Now facing off against the US, Xi is leading China into an era of his own, pinning together the fluidity of the party’s existence. It is this shifting situation today, as well as his own interest in socialist theory, that are defining his tenure. Before him, it was widely assumed the party was on an inevitable trajectory of reform and liberalization which would eventually change China to mirror the West, the so-called “end of history” thesis which placed faith in liberalism’s inevitable and logical victory. It is no surprise that in Western eyes, Xi Jinping is erroneously depicted as the man who is taking the country backwards. [...] #XiJinping #CommunistPartyOfChina #Politics