• Chinese Communist Party Conference: Xi's power to rival that of Mao
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[quote]The Chinese Communist party confirmed Xi Jinping’s status as its most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong by formally writing his name into the party constitution. At Tuesday’s close of a party congress in Beijing that formally marks the beginning of Mr Xi’s second five-year term as party general secretary, more than 2,300 delegates voted unanimously to include a reference to “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” in the document. Mr Xi is only the second Chinese Communist ruler after Mao, the party’s revolutionary ruler, to secure an eponymous reference in the constitution while still in power, in a historic break with the “consensus” leadership model that characterised elite party politics for the past quarter-century.[/quote] [quote]Bill Bishop, the publisher of the Sinocism newsletter on Chinese politics, said the birth of Xi Jinping Thought confirmed the rare levels of power and prestige enjoyed by its creator. “It means Xi is effectively unassailable … If you challenge Xi, you are challenging the party – and you never want to be against the party.”[/quote] [url=https://www.ft.com/content/5b9f4b96-b86d-11e7-8c12-5661783e5589]FT[/url] [url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/24/xi-jinping-mao-thought-on-socialism-china-constitution]The Guardian[/url] [t]https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.prod.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdd7ac026-b89c-11e7-bff8-f9946607a6ba?source=next&fit=scale-down&width=700[/t] This is pretty notable as the Chinese Communist Party's had rules in place to prevent any parts of the constitution being named after a living party ruler. Not even Deng Xiaoping's financial reforms were named after him until after his death. It was pretty much a measure to help prevent another cult of personality from springing up like the one Mao had. Hopefully Xi'll continue with his anti-corruption drive, although it looks like it's not going to be a good time to be a Hong Kong bookseller for a while yet.
Xi has put himself on the world map. He's really the only Chinese leader besides Mao I can recall. I don't know much about him to praise this move though
[QUOTE=fruxodaily;52817460]Xi has put himself on the world map. He's really the only Chinese leader besides Mao I can recall. I don't know much about him to praise this move though[/QUOTE] Seems like Xi's solidifying power, I'm not overly fmailiar with a lot of the finer points of Chinese politics but it looks like on the surface he's doing what he can to modernise the country and at least on the surface is combating the hilariously excessive levels of corruption in the country's government, but at the same time he's not really proven to be a good thing for press or political freedoms. People that are critical of the party and of Xi himself tend to get grabbed and drop off the map, aside from a few obviously fabricated written confessions of sedition.
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