Correspondent Sjoerd Den Daas: Xi’s ‘New Era’
“Traditionally, the so-called Sixth Plenum is all about ideology and strengthening the party’s position. After Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, Xi’s vision of history, as interpreted by the Communist Party, is now also immortalized.
Party boss Xi is en route to an unusual third term as party chief. This plenum, the penultimate before the Five-Year Party Congress next fall, was primarily intended to parachute him there. There do not seem to be any candidates to possibly keep him from that. Newspapers are running out of columns to praise Xi’s achievements as party chief.
That Xi’s name is mentioned seventeen times in the communiqué, against seven times Mao and five times Deng, is in itself no surprise. This makes Xi’s predecessors, especially Hu and Jiang, only extras in party history. Xi wants to show that China can only successfully navigate this ‘New Era’, as he himself has called it, under his leadership.”
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