How Xi Jinping became China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong

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Xi Jinping, president of China and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party since 2012, is one of the most powerful political figures in the world. By initiating an unprecedented third term as China’s leader in October, 2022, Xi has signaled that he may plan to remain in power for life – making him the first Chinese leader since Mao Zedong to hold unchecked power over the People’s Republic of China. 

But Xi’s connection to Mao goes deeper than a shared outlook that emphasizes unifying the party around a single leader. When Xi was just a young boy, his family – who had held elite party status thanks to his father’s pivotal role in Mao's “Long March” in 1935 – was denounced during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, a chaotic decade of purges and persecution that saw even Mao’s closest allies removed from power. During this time, a teenaged Xi was forced to work hard labor in the countryside outside of Beijing, and his father was imprisoned. 

Xi’s subsequent rise after Mao died in 1976 was a methodical process in using his restored elite status as leverage to gain prominent party positions in rural provinces around China, culminating in his promotion to the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in 2007.

From there, Xi pulled from Mao’s playbook: purging his political rivals and promoting those with whom he shared close personal ties. This process undid the work of Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, to prevent the consolidation of power around a single leader in China. 

By the time his third term began in October 2022, Xi had reshaped the party and Chinese military leadership to be fully packed with Xi loyalists. And even in the face of social upheaval surrounding his failed Zero Covid policy, Xi has shown no sign of giving up any of the power he has consolidated since taking over as leader of the country. 


Further reading: 

These books and podcasts below helped us understand Xi Jinping’s rise, Xi’s similarities to Mao, how politics changed in the PRC since its founding, and the structure and culture of the CCP:

Coalitions of the Weak by Victor Shih (Associate Professor in China and Pacific Relations at the University of California, San Diego)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/coalitions-of-the-weak/6E99B6DB73F934166175D872B51DACD0 

Chinese Politics in the Xi Jinping Era by Cheng Li (scholar and expert in Chinese elite politics) 
https://www.brookings.edu/books/chinese-politics-in-the-xi-jinping-era/ 

Party of One by Chun Han Wong (Reporter at the Wall Street Journal) 
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Party-of-One/Chun-Han-Wong/9781982185732

Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-first Century by Orville Schell and John Delury 
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/161758/wealth-and-power-by-orville-schell-and-john-delury/

The Prince by Sue-Lin Wong (Correspondent at The Economist) 
https://www.economist.com/audio/podcasts/the-prince

These databases and papers were also helpful in gaining a better understanding of Xi Jinping’s alliances and the CCP structure under his terms: 

Decoding Chinese Politics interactive by Asia Society Policy Institute 
https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/decoding-chinese-politics

CCP Elite Database by UCSD/Victor Shih
https://chinadatalab.ucsd.edu/elites/

China’s Political System in Charts: A Snapshot Before the 20th Party Congress by Susan V. Lawrence and Mari Y. Lee
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46977# 

Xi Jinping’s Inner Circle by Cheng Li 
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Xi-Jinping-Inner-Circle.pdf

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The rise of Xi Jinping, explained

The conflict is really only 100 years old.

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One of the biggest myths about the Israel-Palestine conflict is that it's been going on for centuries, that this is all about ancient religious hatreds.

In fact, while religion is involved, the conflict is mostly about two groups of people who claim the same land. And it really only goes back about a century, to the early 1900s. At its heart, it is a conflict between two self-determination movements — the Jewish Zionist project and the Palestinian nationalist project — that lay claim to the same territory.

Read more about the Israel-Palestine conflict on Vox: http://bit.ly/2S7gFlT

Your basic questions about Israel and Palestine answered:

– What are Israel and Palestine? Why are they fighting? http://bit.ly/2NKJPcd
– What is Zionism? http://bit.ly/2G549P6
– How did Israel become a country in the first place? http://bit.ly/2xFdAjN
– What are settlements, and why are they such a big deal? http://bit.ly/30pSRfZ
– What were the intifadas? http://bit.ly/2NInMm9
– How does the world feel about Israel/Palestine? http://bit.ly/2JprIEh
– What is the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? http://bit.ly/2XIRzQB

Further reading on the Israel-Palestine conflict: http://bit.ly/2XBrIFf

You can also watch our three-part documentary series on Israeli settlements from 2016. Start with part 1 here: https://youtu.be/E0uLbeQlwjw

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The rise of Xi Jinping, explained

The Israel-Palestine conflict: a brief, simple history