In his first five years, Xi Jinping has reshaped the Chinese state so radically that he has taken the People’s Republic into the third phase in its historic march, after the ideological madness of Mao and the economic pragmatism of Deng Xiaoping and his followers. He inherited a state intent on economic advancement, and has turned it into one intent on political control.
His reign has imposed a relentless concentration of power, in the country to Beijing, in Beijing to the Party and in the Party to the leader. When he speaks, his message is invariably Party discipline. There has been a step-by-step tightening of repression against human rights lawyers and political and religious activists. Ethnic minorities suffer under cultural persecution. Censorship is harder. Political education, mass campaigns and thought-work are back with a vengeance, as is ideology in Xi’s narrative of national greatness in his “China Dream.”
His reign has imposed a relentless concentration of power, in the country to Beijing, in Beijing to the Party and in the Party to the leader. When he speaks, his message is invariably Party discipline. There has been a step-by-step tightening of repression against human rights lawyers and political and religious activists. Ethnic minorities suffer under cultural persecution. Censorship is harder. Political education, mass campaigns and thought-work are back with a vengeance, as is ideology in Xi’s narrative of national greatness in his “China Dream.”
