Chinese President Xi Jinping’s address at Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress hints that his aim is indeed not to equal revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, but to surpass him.
Xi Jinping thought has been enshrined in the party’s constitution alongside Mao Zedong Thought, and there has been talk of reviving Mao’s chairman title for Xi to put the two on the same level.
But if Xi’s aim is indeed not to equal Mao, but to surpass him, the consequences for global stability could be even more severe, reported Nikkei Asia.
There were two major differences between the report read out by Xi on Sunday compared with the party congress five years ago. One was an expansion to 15 points from 13, adding sections on national security and the rule of law aimed at further centralizing power.
The other was a complete rewrite of the section on ideology, reported Nikkei Asia.
The speech five years ago discussed “Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” the concept that has been dubbed “Xi Jinping Thought.”
That disappeared from this year’s version and was replaced with a section titled “A New Frontier in Adapting Marxism to the Chinese Context and the Needs of the Times.”
This was pushed up to the second section of the speech, above even the section about the Communist Party’s missions. And given that the first item was an overview of the last five years and the next 10 years, this essentially gave the “New Frontier” section top priority among the individual topics, reported Nikkei Asia.
Understanding the significance of this choice requires examining the party’s litany of stock phrases that has gradually expanded under Xi.
References to the Chinese leader as a “Marxist politician, thinker and strategist” aim to portray him as a direct heir to Karl Marx’s ideas in the modern era.
Given the great weight that the party places on ideology, this could be used to justify overturning the collective leadership system implemented by Deng Xiaoping and establishing Xi as leader for life, reported Nikkei Asia.
It could also address the issue of Xi’s age. The Chinese leader turned 69 this year — and while presidential term limits were eliminated in 2018, the party still has an unspoken rule requiring officials who are 68 or older at the time of the party congress to step down.
Setting Xi up as a “successor” to Marx would provide a reason to break with this custom and keep him in power.
While Sunday’s speech did not explicitly say who would open up the “new frontier” of Marxism, it seems clear that Xi was referring to himself.
Five years ago, the Chinese leader said his own ideology “builds on and further enriches Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, and the Scientific Outlook on Development,” the latter two being the signature concepts of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, reported Nikkei Asia.
The ideological section of this year’s report made no mention of the debt owed to these predecessors, including Mao, seemingly skipping over them to directly connect Marx to Xi.
Both Mao and Xi talked about adapting Marxism to the Chinese context. But Xi’s mention of a “new frontier” suggests that he intends to go beyond Mao’s vision.
He also said Beijing would “never promise to renounce the use of force” to unify Taiwan with the mainland, reported Nikkei Asia.
With these statements, Xi essentially declared his intent to try to achieve two goals that Mao could not.
Mao, paraphrasing the “Communist Manifesto,” liked to say that “only by emancipating all mankind can the proletariat ultimately emancipate itself,” referring to socialist revolutions in countries around the world. (ANI)
