Given the long shadow cast by Máo Zédōng 毛泽东, the founding leader of the People’s Republic of China, it is probably inevitable that his successors should be compared with him to a greater or lesser extent, but no post-Mao leader begs the comparison more than Xí Jìnpíng 习近平.
This has become increasingly evident on the prime-time news program of state broadcaster CCTV, Xīnwén Liánbò 新闻联播, where Xi is daily revered in quasi-Maoist style adulation and is uniformly the focus of the top story.
But it doesn’t end there. The threads of his influence permeate the entire domestic news segment, in quotes and accolades, as can be seen in the May 31 and June 1 news cycles, where there are lengthy segments of Xi greeting and being greeted by children, with several shots reminiscent of Mao and happy children posters of yore.
Not surprisingly, given the acute centralization of power, Xi also sets the tone for coverage of foreign affairs, the distinctly pro-Russia, anti-West editorial point of which is driven home daily with skewed coverage of international events.
The end of hiding your light and biding your time
What ever happened to the concerted effort by Dèng Xiǎopíng 邓小平 to undo the excesses of Maoist hero worship and personality cult?
Deng knew Mao better than most, having served as a right-hand man for decades, and when he wasn’t being struggled against as a “capitalist roader,” he took care to model himself not so much as the anti-Mao, as the 70% Mao, a pragmatic resourceful strongman, loyal to Leninist-style organization while eschewing the utopian idealism and whimsical cruelty.
The personality cult, which is rooted in the premise of a wise, knowing leader all but incapable of error, is one salient feature of Maoist rule, modeled on Stalin’s example, that got ditched by Deng, who aspired, not always successfully, to team leadership. Gone was the inculcation of quotes and obligatory adulation of one man, though you criticized Deng’s program at your own risk, as Wèi Jīngshēng 魏京生 and other dissidents learned the hard way from 1979.
Despite having been a good soldier and enforcer for much — but not all — of Mao’s rule, Deng was resilient enough to offer a fatigued, campaign-whiplashed nation a no-nonsense alternative.
The media under Deng did not permit criticism to be directed upward, but it wasn’t required that he be constantly showered with attention, either. All five of Mao’s successors — Huà Guófēng 华国锋, Deng, Jiāng Zémín 江泽民, Hú Jǐntāo 胡锦涛, and Xi — were prone to posing for the camera, having been carefully trained in the art of going through the orchestrated paces of the various photo ops, but only Xi seems to revel in it in a way that forever puts him at the top of news.
One could argue that this is a political style not only reminiscent of Mao, but also openly modeled on him. Given the leaps and bounds in television technology and its global reach, Xi arguably outdoes even Mao in getting his picture out there.
Deng did his best work behind the scenes and was content with a relatively low profile, though not nearly so invisible as the shrinking violet Chén Yún 陈云, who informally shared power with Deng and the other members of the “Eight Immortals” without much limelight. Chen’s reticence paid off handsomely during the most tumultuous years of Mao’s reign, sharing with Zhōu Ēnlái 周恩来 the rare distinction of never having been purged, in contrast to other key leaders. (Deng got sent down twice, and once before 1949, but always bounced back. Liú Shàoqí 刘少奇 was sent down and didn’t survive it.)
Perhaps the ultimate low-profile leader, the influential Chen Yun worked closely with, and sometimes against, Deng, but his media presence remained minimal.
If Chen was cautious, orthodox, and ideological, Deng was at once supremely pragmatic and unafraid of reform. (Although Deng could be just as orthodox and ideological when it came to all substantive threats to Party power and to the privileges of the ruling families.) His regretful firing of two favorite can-do lieutenants, Zhào Zǐyáng 赵紫阳 and Hú Yàobāng 胡耀邦, reflected in part his need to compromise with Chen Yun, who eventually helped nudge Lǐ Péng 李鹏 and Jiang Zemin into the top slots while Deng called the shots behind the scenes (see Yang Su, Deadly Decision in Beijing, Cambridge University Press, 2023).
When Deng died, Jiang Zemin was in place to become his successor, and Hu Jintao, a rising star in the Party School faction, was already waiting in the wings. So in a sense, Xi Jinping, who acceded to power in 2012, is the first leader since 1979 who is not in any sense a disciple of Deng’s.
Unlike Deng, who hailed from the Sturm und Drang of the battlefield-hardened revolutionary generation, Jiang, Hu, and Xi are all peacetime Party operators, which is to say, consummate bureaucrats. Xi was not an obvious choice to replace Hu, which accrued to his benefit. His most robust rival among his contemporaries, Bó Xīlái 薄熙来, got too famous too fast, and his ambition was probably too unshackled from Party discipline to stay the course, even if his wife’s involvement in a murder case hadn’t brought him down.
Xi is in many ways the beneficiary of factors beyond his control. His father’s revolutionary pedigree is a big plus, as is his three-decade-long career as a Party bureaucrat, which he pursued with single-minded devotion while being supported and groomed by older leaders. He is also the beneficiary of good timing and Bo Xilai’s fall from grace, but he only makes it look effortless. He had to play his cards prudently for a very long time, including decades in the provinces, to ultimately get the nod among the clashing egos of the Politburo.
Even today, Xi seems to revel in a sense that he is a circumspect man of personal modesty and integrity, and while this might be hard to accept when he clearly enjoys unrivaled power, it was the perception of such that helped get him to where he is today. It’s fair to say that the Party power brokers who saw him as a good compromise candidate for his diffidence, his apparent lack of ambition and mastery of Party etiquette, underestimated the man. He still has a disarming, unprepossessing manner, only now it’s more like the humble brag, the avuncular humility of a great communist leader like Stalin or Mao. He has sufficient power written into his position as head of the Party, buttressed by a hand-picked Politburo, that he no longer needs to win the support of the media, his media, but he continues to work hard at playing to the media nonetheless.
Xi put in the work
The merits and demerits of a personality cult notwithstanding, Xi works hard, tirelessly, one might say, at trying to bolster his image. And he has a vast propaganda apparatus that is devoted to the same goal.
With long stints in Shaanxi, Hebei, Zhejiang, and Fujian from 1982 to 2007, Xi was starting to look, to some, like the epitome of a provincial leader, adequate to the job but not daring or attention-grabbing. Unlike earlier leaders such as Zhao Ziyang, whose economic reforms in Guangdong and Sichuan were borderline revolutionary, and Jiang Zemin, whose deft handling of unrest as mayor of Shanghai (and fortuitous timing) conspired to put him in the driver’s seat, Xi Jinping did not appear to be going anywhere fast.
But in 2007, Xi took over the position of Party Secretary of Shanghai from Chén Liángyǔ 陈良宇, who fell in a corruption scandal that epitomized that decade’s excesses in China. But even as boss of Shanghai, a city made for big egos, Xi did not display his will to power.
It is in that sense that Xi Jinping does, or did, possess one characteristic reminiscent of Deng, a man he seems not to hold in the same stratospheric esteem he accords to Mao. Deng taught the virtue of biding one’s time and disguising ambition well enough to be a bureaucrat for all seasons.
In the 10 years since Xi’s ascension to power (now retrospectively known as the first decade of the “New Era”), Xi’s supple political maneuvering has surprised just about everybody. He has rendered rivals impotent, or better yet, elevated potential rivals, such as the sharp and able Li Qiang, and the Rasputin-like, politically resilient Wang Huning, to the exalted position of loyal factotum who needs must talk his talk and walk his walk. Meanwhile, he has amassed more power in his hands than anyone but Mao.
Xi’s thinly veiled disregard for his immediate predecessor, Hu Jintao, was exhibited for all the world to see when he had him unceremoniously carted offstage at the 20th Party congress of October 2022. Just weeks later, Xi had the opportunity to bid a permanent farewell to his other sidelined predecessor, Jiang Zemin. Being the deft politician he is, he pulled out all the stops for Jiang’s state funeral, praising for form’s sake the passing of one of the last men left with stature enough to challenge him.
Deng’s people retain a titular respect in high-flying communist circles, but Xi has shown little enthusiasm for reviving anything to do with Deng.
Mao’s influence, in contrast, has never been more alive and in the news, if only in the form of ultimate flattery: imitation. Xi is the ersatz Mao, he self-portrays as a man of the people, comfortable mingling with peasants in the muck. He seems to spew wisdom effortlessly, as Mao did, a task that gets easier when one is the titular head of everything and hoisted above all criticism. He gesticulates like Mao, adopts Mao poses, has Mao’s paunch, and at times is a passable look-alike, the best Mao impersonator in the business. Like Mao, his wife was famous as an entertainer — Mao’s fourth wife, Jiāng Qīng 江青, was a stage and film actress before she married him. Xi’s second wife, Péng Lìyuán 彭丽媛, was famous as a folk singer long before Xi’s name was well known in China.
Xi is portrayed as a prolific writer, his collected works are required reading in Party circles, and his aphorisms and folksy quotes appear on banners and on the lips of loyal Party officials across the land — although he has none of Mao’s literary flair or wit.
The Xi personality cult is on TV daily. Prime-time news starts with Xi, and sometimes the second and third stories are about him, too.
Deeper into the domestic news, he is referenced in quotes and given accolades. When state broadcaster CCTV turns its camera on ordinary Party members and civilians for its vox populi segments, they know exactly what to say. When in doubt, paraphrase or quote the latest catchphrase of the great man. It’s hard to go wrong with that.
The Chairman of nearly everything
“The Chairman says this…the Chairman says that.” The ubiquitous use of “The Chairman” (主席) is familiar and easy on the ears.
His full title is General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, State President, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (中共中央总书记、国家主席、中央军委主席). It’s a real mouthful of marbles that Xinwen Lianbo news anchors not only get precisely right every time, but somehow manage to say with smiles and bright-eyed enthusiasm.
The Chinese for “State President” is literally translated as “country chairman” (国家主席), and he has not yet been called “Party Chairman” (党主席), like Mao. In CCTV vox populi, Xi is most often referred to simply as “General Secretary” (总书记).
Nonetheless, Chinese state media and Party propaganda make it perfectly clear. Xi is the capo dei capi, the biggest boss, and the Chairman of Everything, in the memorable phrase coined by Sinologist Geremie Barmé. And anyone who gets their news from the Chinese media and internet knows that there is only one man who really matters in Beijing right now.
Xi Jinping’s portrait doesn’t hang from Tiananmen Gate yet, and there’s no saying that it will, but the way things are going, the possibility cannot be thoroughly discounted.
