The Rise of Xi Jinping - Part 2: Man of Destiny
After a brutal youth under the Cultural Revolution, in a New China, Xi would begin his journey to power and his destiny.
We saw in Part 1 how Xi Jinping went from the very pinnacle of Chinese society to a life under constant harassment and banishment deep in the countryside. But eating bitterness was over, and now it was time to commence his long journey back to the top. To see where this journey began, we must look back to Yan’an and his time living in a cave house.
Redder than Red
After years of toiling the earth in Liangjiahe, those sent there saw their chance to reclaim the youth that had been stolen from them; they began to drink, date, and generally have a good time. The same however cannot be said of Xi who became ‘Redder than Red’ and developed a stronger loyalty to the party than ever before. First, he tried to join the Communist Youth League, but owing to his father’s status, he was rejected multiple times. But after befriending a local official, on his 7th attempt, he was accepted, later gaining full party membership in January 1974 as the Party Secretary in a small village. Xi’s determination to join the party ranks shocked those who had been with him in Yan’an. A friend of Xi would later tell an American Diplomat that they all felt betrayed by his desire to ‘join the system’ that had all but destroyed their lives and robbed them of their teenage years.
Xi wasn’t unique in wanting to return to the party though. It was common for the sons of disgraced high-ranking officials to seek a return to politics. They saw it as their divine right to rule, and that their family’s misfortunes during the Cultural Revolution as just temporary. But for Xi, simply returning wouldn’t be enough, he had to get to the top. The Professor - introduced in Part 1 - described Xi as an ambitious survivor - mediocre but extremely driven. He never indulged in women, drink, or drugs like many of his old friends in the cave houses - the women found him to be ‘boring’. Although not the most sociable, he was still considered a good guy, generous, and loyal. As described in Part 1, his time in Yan’an had a profound effect on him and helped shape who he is, especially when it came to the party and politics. In an interview Xi said he looked past superficial things like power and glory, flowers, and the applause - ‘I see the detention houses, the fickleness of human relationships…I understand politics on a deeper level’.
The year following Xi’s return to the party, he also enrolled at the famous Tsinghua University to study Chemical Engineering. However, unlike many other students, Xi did not secure his place on academic merit, but rather on his political standing, being admitted under the banner of Worker-Peasant-Soldier. Interestingly, 15% of the engineering courses a Tsinghua consisted of studying Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, and 5% farm work under the PLA. These areas were probably a strong suit for Xi, but his overall grades from Tsinghua appear to be a state secret - it would be curious to keep good grades a secret. Regardless, Xi’s future would remain with the party instead of academia.
The Long March to Power
Every aspiring party cadre needs a mentor to help carry them up the ranks and speak for them in the higher echelons of the CCP. In 1979, Xi became an officer in the PLA and the secretary to Geng Biao who was a senior diplomat and military official. Geng had worked for Xi Zhongxun in the past, giving Xi Jinping a unique advantage in getting his position. Every step Xi made seemed to be in pursuit of his ambition. Around this time he came to meet his first wife Ke Lingling, the daughter of the Chinese ambassador to the UK. But this was to be short-lived because soon Ke wanted to return to England. Xi saw his future in China, so the couple divorced. Ke still lives in the UK at a classified address, under the watchful eye of the MSS and British Intelligence. Who knows how things may have played out if Xi followed his first wife, and what things could she say about him. Xi shrugged off this early failure in his personal life saying he had other things to worry about.
Xi’s steady climb up the party ranks continued in 1983 when he landed a party chief job in a rural county in Hebei, telling ‘The Professor’ that going to the provinces was his only path to power. It was during his time in Hebei that his mother stepped in to ensure that her son would receive the necessary attention from the party higher-ups. She sent a note to Gao Yang, the provincial Party Chief, asking him to take an interest in her son’s advancement. This note was however revealed at a meeting of the provincial Central Committee causing great embarrassment to the family. Especially when at the time the CCP was specifically campaigning against seeking favours. This loss of face would not be forgotten by Xi who declined to attend Gao’s funeral in 2009, breaking a long-held custom because both had been presidents of Central Party School at one point in their careers.
Such an episode would have likely ended the career of most, but for Xi, his family connections once again proved their worth. To distance Xi from the damaging incident in Hubei, he was reassigned to Fujian in 1985 where the father of that provincial Party Chief was an old friend of Xi Zhongxun. The arrangement was made between the two families and Xi Jinping became the vice mayor of a small Fujianese city. Fujian would be the home of Xi for the next 17 years, and like Yan’an, his time spent there would help form yet another important part of him today. Fujian is the nearest mainland province to Taiwan and so has the strongest connections to the self-governing island. Xi would come to understand the importance of Taiwan and it in time helped shape his views on the Taiwan question - to him the reabsorption of Taiwan under Beijing is of the utmost importance.
Fujian would also have another important influence on Xi. This is where he came to marry his current wife Peng Liyuan in 1987, a glamorous celebrity soprano. Peng was a household name in China, unlike Xi. In a TV interview shortly after their marriage, the host suggested to Xi that it must be emasculating to be the husband of Peng Liyuan. This was laughed off by Peng saying that they are a good match and that she won’t marry beneath her. Similar to his first, Xi’s marriage to Peng seems more than just romance, and it too had its role to play in his drive to the top. She was not only an entertainer but had a real standing in the CCP holding a rank equivalent to a Major General. During the Tiananmen Square protests, she was dispatched to Beijing to entertain the troops, who would take part in events that infamous night on the 4th of June 1989. But unlike his first, this marriage was set to last, and a few years later the couple gave birth to their first child, Xi Mingzi.
Xi’s progress in the party seemed to develop well until 1988 when he encountered a major setback. At a Municipal People’s Congress election, he received a poor showing. Demotion loomed, but thankfully for Xi, to save face he was handed the prefecture Party Chief position. However, now he faced a wall in his career. Going from the prefectural party level to the provincial is a major step and one that is beyond the grasp of most. Again family would come to his rescue. Apparently not heeding the lessons from Hubei, Xi’s mother wrote to the new Fujian Party Chief, Jia Qinglin. But unlike Hubei, this appeared to work as Xi was soon transferred to the provincial capital where his climb in the party could continue.
Following Deng’s reforms, the party had become more internally democratic which benefited Xi as he made his way ever further up the ladder. That though didn’t stop him from often falling short and being helped again by his family connections. In 1997, he barely squeaked into the Central Committee receiving the least votes of those elected to the body. Despite this, Xi was now firmly on the radar of those who led the country, and he also appeared on the radar of those on the street too. By 2000 he had been placed in charge of whole provinces and had begun to write a regular column in state media, providing an early insight into his ideas of leadership. Xi’s period of stagnant growth in his career was over, he would soon find himself accelerating towards his ambition for the top. This became evident in 2007 when he received the highest votes out of 200 candidates to join the Politburo Standing Committee - the top decision-making body. And in the same year became the Party Secretary in Shanghai which is a highly sought-after job. This posting also placed Xi within the potent pro-market faction led by former leader Jiang Zemin gaining Xi some very influential backers when the time came to decide who’d take over from Hu Jintao in 2012.
During these golden years of Xi’s pre-leadership career, he stepped again into the sphere of academia when in 2002 he received a doctorate from Tsinghua University in Marxist Theory. But this too cast doubt on Xi’s academic calibre. Veteran journalist Michael Sheridan documented that his dissertation was riddled with suspected plagiarism, and it is common for high-ranking officials to delegate such studies to assistants. His patchy academic history is suspected to play a part in his leadership style. Being surrounded by highly educated officials, Xi has a kind of inferiority complex, suggests former Party School professor Cai Xia, and it’s speculated that he has compensated for this by curating his mythology and propaganda.
Heir to the Throne
By the start of Hu’s second term as General Secretary in 2007, Xi was well-positioned to replace him, but this was not set in stone. There was to be an ultimate test of the leader in waiting, a chance to prove to the remainder of the Politburo that he would be the man for the job. That test was in 2008 and came in the form of the Olympics.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics was to be an opportunity for China to showcase its achievements, a chance to show that the nation had come a long way since the bad old days of Mao and was now the economic miracle of the world, turning from a backwards pariah to a modern dynamic player. The games had to go perfectly, with no blemishes, and no embarrassments - China had to dazzle. This was a make-or-break moment for Xi. If it went well then he’ll be all but set for the leadership, but if not, then even his family connections would struggle to pull him back from that.
It was during the preparations for the Olympics that we got a glimpse of Xi’s authoritarian streak. Calls for boycotts, concerns of smog, and demonstrations along the torch relay all threatened to derail the CCPs perfect extravaganza, and so Xi answered in the only way he and the party knew how - an internet blackout of these issues in China, the arresting of dissidents, and the suppressing of journalists. Even the weather received its orders to obey, cloud seeding ensuring that it could not rain on China’s parade. Factories were shut down to prevent Beijing’s notorious smog, and beggars, vagabonds, and other undesirables were evicted from the city. Nothing and no one was going to stand in the way. But there was an unexpected hitch, something that threatened to ruin the otherwise perfectly planned and choreographed ceremony, and that came in the form of an innocent little girl.
Yang Peiyi was 7 years old and had a voice like an angel. Her performance would be a highlight of the ceremony, except that there was a problem - she had crooked teeth. In the pursuit of perfection, this would not suffice. Again a solution was found with Lin Miaoke, who had the face they wanted but could not single like Yang. So for the ceremony, Lin would lip-sync to a pre-recording of Yang, continuing the familiar pattern of smoke and mirrors when it came to the CCP and PR.
The Olympics went smoothly, including a victory for China in the medal table. Xi was riding high, his future seemingly sealed, and full of confidence. So much so that he felt emboldened enough to reveal some of his own true opinions on how he sees China’s standing in the world. In a 2009 speech in Mexico, he compared China to some of the other major players on the world stage, eluding that China was superior and that its time had come. This shocked his colleagues at the time used to more subdued diplomacy, but the reputation he gained with the Olympics and the respect the party elders had for his father meant that there were no concerns about the implications of this faux pas on his prospects.
There however remained one last major threat to Xi. Bo Xilai was the firebrand party boss of Chongqing and was making more than a few ripples in the party. Bo was a very dangerous tiger for Xi, as like him, Bo was ambitious, ruthless, and also in the Politburo. However, in February 2012, the vice-mayor and police chief of Chongqing Wang Lijun went to the American Consulate in Chengdu claiming to have evidence of Bo and his wife’s involvement in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood. This shook the Chinese political world, and Bo was stripped of his positions in the party and the following year charged with corruption, and sentenced to life in prison. There is no evidence of any involvement from Xi in Bo’s downfall over the Heywood case, but it meant that he now had a clear road to take the leadership at the 18th Party Congress later that year.
On the Brink
Around the time of the Wang Lijun incident, Xi visited Kimberley Farm in Iowa. There he was shown around, before retiring to the living room to discuss farming. He even had the chance to drive a tractor after spotting one in the yard. Xi may have gotten a great deal of enjoyment out of that visit, but it was also an important propaganda play. By showing Chinese audiences his apparent enthusiasm for visiting a humble farmer in the US, he was showing that he was ready to lead.
Xi was on the brink of being appointed to the top job. But suddenly he disappeared. Rumours soon surfaced around a possible injury, or even purge - had the party gotten cold feet about him. Then as suddenly as he disappeared, he was back, and officially declared the new General Secretary of the CCP in October. We will unlikely ever really know what happened during those days of Xi’s absence, but we may speculate that a lot of secret meetings and discussions were had about the shape of his government. The CCP has many factions, two of the biggest being headed by Jiang and Hu. Chances are that Xi needed to appease both of these blocks to ensure he had their support. But there is also the possibility that he placed conditions on the party so that he could move quickly with his agenda. Most at that time firmly believed Xi would be a continuation of the leadership under Jiang and Hu - quiet and stable with market-friendly policies, acting with a calm, almost dull, approach to international relations. Little did they know that Xi would turn China on its head, leading the country and its people into the most significant changes since Deng.
Xi had now achieved what he set out to do all those years ago. When former Australian Prime Minster Kevin Rudd met Xi for the second time - the first was in the 1980s when Rudd was a young diplomat - they talked about their families, especially Xi’s father who Rudd had known through his old embassy job. Rudd in later interviews said that he got the impression that being at the top wasn’t his end goal of Xi, and it was more about what he will do once there. He saw himself as a man of destiny, who could reshape China.
But, the tale of Xi’s leadership is for another time.
Thank you for reading Part 2 of The Rise of Xi Jinping - Man of Destiny. If you have any comments or feedback, please do get in touch!