Ten years of Xi Jinping: How China's head of state is changing his country - and the entire world

Created: 10/08/2022 11:23 am

By: Christiane Kuehl

Xi Jinping celebrates ten years in office.

But that's not long enough for China's head of state and party (archive image) © Nicolas Asfouri/afp

China's head of state and party leader Xi Jinping has been in power for ten years - now he wants to add at least five more.

He has already left a deep mark on his country and world politics.

Beijing/Frankfurt – China's Xi era began with a mystery.

Shortly before the 18th party congress in October 2012, which was supposed to bring then-Vice President Xi Jinping to the head of the communists, he disappeared from the scene.

His staff canceled meetings with foreign politicians, including then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

There was no explanation, but there was a lot of speculation: Was Xi seriously ill?

Or had he been the victim of an assassination attempt?

Shortly before, there had been rumors of a conspiracy by Xi opponents around the then party leader of the Yangtze metropolis of Chongqing, Bo Xilai.

But after 14 days, Xi reappeared - and to this day no one knows what happened and why.

When Xi appeared in front of the cameras for the first time as general secretary with the new leadership team of the Communist Party (CCP) at the end of October 2012, it was completely unclear in which direction he would push the country.

His power base was considered fragile, and he himself was a somewhat reform-loving technocrat who had risen from posts in booming coastal provinces.

But in the ten years since 2012, Xi has emerged more as a nationalist and strict ideologue - and has steadily expanded his power.

Despite ongoing damage to the economy and alleged internal criticism, Xi continues to adamantly enforce his “zero Covid” policy.

He is considered the most powerful CCP chief since the founder of the state, Mao Zedong.

On the 20th

Xi has already made his mark on the country.

Inside, he has tightened control over many areas: the Internet, the private sector, data storage, substantive debates, even on non-political issues.

Currently, through the “zero Covid” policy, the party even controls the movement of people;

Critics doubt that this is just the beginning of a dystopian surveillance state.

After all, cameras are already installed in many places in China and the authorities are working on a social credit system that is intended to constantly evaluate companies and citizens.

However, it is uncertain whether this will actually happen and whether Xi Jinping is really striving for it.

Xi Jinping's China: less freedom, more control

But under Xi, China has become a tougher state, more authoritarian and with less individual freedom.

This applies above all to people who do not fit into the socialist worldview of the boss: "feminized men" who should disappear from TV screens, feminist women or Muslim Uyghurs who have to adapt to Chinese culture, if necessary by state violence - as has been happening in Xinjiang Province for years.

Beijing is also more self-confident and aggressive to the outside world.

According to Xi and the CCP, China should have a place in the world commensurate with its size, history and economic power.

At the same time, observers confirm that Xi Jinping works hard.

It is quite the case that the party leadership wants to further develop and build up the country.

According to experts, Xi takes environmental and climate protection seriously, as does the problem of the gap between rich and poor that remains open.

Xi's fight against local corrupt cadres was initially well received by many people.

The Xi government is also pushing ahead with poverty reduction programs begun under his predecessor Hu Jintao.

Also, no country is building as much renewable energy capacity as China under Xi.

China: Xi Jinping brings the party back to the center

Only one thing is clear: the party, led by Xi Jinping, decides on the development path.

Right from the start, Xi was concerned with strengthening the power of the communists and bringing the party back to the center of state and society.

Xi created a slew of intra-party leadership groups and commissions, many with himself at the helm -- and through them controls state organs, including the work of Premier Li Keqiang.

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The British magazine

summarizes Xi's work in the CCP in a series researched over several months: With his anti-corruption campaign, Xi carried out comprehensive purges in the party, the military and the security forces and a formerly "fragmented party that disappeared from the lives of many ordinary people transformed into a ubiquitous, ideologically charged, technology-enabled machine.

Today, private companies must allow party cells that can talk into management.

Pupils, students and managers have to take ideology classes, which increasingly include Xi's theories in addition to Marx and Mao.

CCP neighborhood committees enforce coronavirus policies in residential areas.

Xi's sentence has become well known: "East, West, South, North and Center – the party leads everything."

China's party leaders and their legacy

All CCP general secretaries have shaped the party and state in their respective eras.

Mao dominated the entire post-war period: the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 after winning the civil war, collectivization and industrialization - as well as the bloody turmoil of the Cultural Revolution that he unleashed.

After Mao's death in 1976, several party leaders followed, some of whom were considered politically liberal - but stood in the shadow of the reform patriarch Deng Xiaoping: Deng opened the country to the world in 1979, but only the economy.

He did not allow debates about political reforms;

the demonstrations for political opening on June 4, 1989 stifled a bloodbath.

This was followed by Xi's predecessor, Jiang Zemin (1989-2002), who continued to focus on development and integration into the world economy.

Xi's foreign policy: make China great again

Xi also wants to lead globally, as he explained in theories such as his “Chinese Dream”.

“Xi is not a status quo politician.

He aspires to change the status quo,” former Australian Prime Minister and current Asia Society President Kevin Rudd recently said at the launch of his book

("The Avoidable War") on the US-China conflict.

Xi's goal is to make the global system "more compatible with China's interests," said Rudd, who is himself a sinologist and fluent in Chinese.

For example, Xi is striving for a greater role for Chinese financing worldwide and for more personnel from the People's Republic in international organizations.

According to Xi Jinping, these should generally become more Sinocentric, according to Rudd – i.e. revolve around China and no longer concern themselves with the issue of human rights, which is uncomfortable for Beijing.

In addition to Russia, allies are primarily developing countries, often governed in an authoritarian manner like China itself. Many of them are members of the huge “New Silk Road” infrastructure program launched by Xi himself in Kazakhstan in 2013 and thus benefit from Chinese funds and construction projects.

Xi Jinping, on the other hand, sees the USA as a growing threat to his own security and as an opponent of the multipolar world order he is striving for.

Xi has had sandbars in the South China Sea turned into fortresses, although other states also claim the waters.

He modernizes the People's Liberation Army and intensifies military exercises around Taiwan.

The goal: to use China's economic weight to fight the West for political influence in the world.

To this end, Xi even entered into a kind of alliance with Vladimir Putin, despite his cruel war of aggression in Ukraine.

"The East is rising, the West is falling," say China's diplomats.

Xi himself is said to be firmly convinced of this.

China: For Xi Jinping, national security is the top priority

Tensions are compounded by the fact that Xi Jinping's "zero Covid" policy has all but prevented face-to-face encounters since early 2020.

Companies suffer too.

"Although Europe and China are already at opposite ends of a common continent, they seem to be moving further and further apart," writes EU Chamber President Jörg Wuttke in the recently published position paper of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.

The central message of the paper is: "Ideology trumps business."

Securing power and securing national unity are Xi's top priorities, Rudd said.

Xi also subordinates economic development to this.

"Over the past decade, Xi Jinping has made national security a key issue that permeates all aspects of governance in China," write experts Katja Drinhausen and Helena Legarda of the Merics Institute for China Studies.

"The hallmark of the Xi era is a powerful mix of party confidence and paranoia when it comes to national security," Drinhausen and Legarda said.

On the one hand, the Chinese leadership is concerned that internal and external forces could undermine their position of power.

At the same time, Xi and the CCP are convinced

that China's political system is more stable and superior to others.

And Xi wants to keep this system for a long time - with himself at the top.