“He’s able to call the shots across the party system. He’s able to take decisions which his predecessors could not. He’s able to gather the party together. And he’s able to stay in power like his predecessors could not. So in some ways you know, he does rival Mao.”
No prizes for guessing who China scholar Manoj Kewalramani of the Takshashila Institution was describing: Xi Jinping, China’s current and supreme leader now in his third term and probably eyeing a fourth.
But in a conversation on The Gist, Manoj also pointed out that “his (Xi’s) personality cult is far more different than Mao, because Mao’s was a certain charisma and a direct connection with the people. Mao’s view was to try and create a society which engages in continuous revolution. Mao saw the party as an instrument, as a means to certain ends.”
And when he felt that the party was no longer needed, he decided to usurp it, change it, even trash it and still achieve broader ideological objectives. Xi Jinping on the other hand, is different in the sense that he looks at the system and he says I need to sort this this out because he’s a product of the system.
“He’s a party guy,” says Kewalramani, “he’s interested in rewriting laws. He’s interested in rewriting regulations. He’s interested in restructuring how power runs through the party and how he dominates at the top of that system. The party is at the end of the day, the primary source of power. And that must remain so. In that sense, he’s an institutionalist.”
Mao did not care about the longevity of the system, Xi Jinping clearly does but is he making the system much more resilient for the future? Highly unlikely.
Tune in for more on the Xi Jinping cult of personality and how it works in this conversation with Manoj Kewalramani of the Takshashila Institution.
