Pedro González
Journalist
Total liquidation of all dissidence or deviationism from the line set by the reconfirmed general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), at once president of the country and of the Central Military Commission, and in short the absolute leader of a China ready under his command to storm the skies of hegemonic power in the world.
The conclusions, appointments and personal exclusions, some with a public display of humiliating condemnation, are summed up in a final corollary: Xi Jinping has been enthroned as the most powerful Chinese leader in history, comparable to Mao Zedong, although with many more material means at his disposal and an indisputable planetary projection and influence.
The great leader has eliminated all those who might have overshadowed him or even expressed any misgivings or objections to the thinking of the supreme leader. The new composition of the 205 members of the CCP Central Committee, the 24 Politburo notables and, above all, the “Magnificent Seven” of the Standing Committee, all of them men, make up the final cadre of the chain of command in China, in reality executors of the orders given exclusively by the only one who cannot be questioned or discussed, Xi Jinping.
In addition to his own predecessor, former President Hu Jintao, publicly purged through the image in which two servants force him to leave his seat, until then to Xi’s left, Premier Li Keqiang and the Chairman of the Political Council, Wang Yang, both considered advocates of greater openness and integration into Western capitalism, have been removed under the pretext of statutory retirement. Such thinking no longer holds sway in China, which will henceforth have to reinforce its Marxist-Leninist convictions, but with the appropriate nuances, i.e. Xi’ism.
All male and unconditional
Xi Jinping will sit at his exclusive decision-making table with his unconditional supporters. Names that will have to be retained because they will be the ones with the delegated power of the maximum leader: Li Qiang, head of the party in Shanghai, future prime minister and already considered Xi’s right-hand man. The number three will be Cai Qi, party chief in Beijing, who will be in charge of the agenda in major CCP affairs, and therefore of the government. Li Xi, who comes from the Guangdong regional headquarters, will take charge of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the body that has investigated almost five thousand party leaders in the decade that Xi Jinping has been in power, and has handed down sentences ranging from two years in prison to the death penalty. So far, Zhao Leji, who has been rewarded with the presidency of the National People’s Congress, has fulfilled this mission satisfactorily.
The leadership is completed by the incombustible Wang Huning, director of the Central Bureau of Political Research, who to the European mentality would be a hybrid between Fouché and Suslov, capable of becoming indispensable under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, and now also confirmed by Xi Jinping. The last of the “Magnificent Seven” is Ding Xuexiang, who at 60 is the youngest member of the Politburo.
They are all under the age of 68, the age that Deng Xiaoping set as the limit for forced retirement. This rule is now being broken by the leader himself, who has already turned 69, just as he has also broken the rule of a maximum of two terms in office.
Apart from the natural tendency to cling to power, tempered only by the legal counterweights, in Xi Jinping’s case it seems clear that his establishment as the ultimate and absolute leader is due to his own project of preparing China for war – in his own words -, which he considers inevitable in his quest for world hegemony and the destruction of the current international order and its replacement by another in which the Chinese model of society prevails.
This is therefore not theoretical speculation. From the analysis of both the opening speech of the now concluded congress and his gradual, constant and very measured declarations (never in interviews, which he has rejected over the last ten years), it is clear that he is unequivocally determined to deepen the totalitarian one-party model, which he justifies by its supposed efficiency in lifting the 800 million Chinese who still live in poverty out of it, and to promote industrial and technological development guaranteed by a military force whose modernisation budgets will be multiplied and no effort will be spared.
Countdown to a special military operation in Taiwan
Xi Jinping is convinced of his messianic destiny to lead China to world domination, and every step he takes only confirms that he will perish rather than give up. Countries near and far must therefore prepare themselves for increasingly assertive Chinese action, starting with the “rebel island” Taiwan, which will soon become a new version of a Ukrainian-style “special military operation” to be conquered.
It is quite common in the West to admit that their mentality and culture are diametrically different from China’s, but in practical behaviour this evidence tends to be forgotten. Better to start trying to think like Xi Jinping would. It would save us a lot of surprises.
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