Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Mao Zedong (1893-1976), who founded the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, was famously called the “Chairman of Everything.” He appointed presidents and prime ministers, military chiefs, and others and dismissed them at will. His Mao coat and Mao cap became national brands.
Through massive movements like the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, etc, he eliminated millions of Chinese who opposed his brand of crass communism and kept the ancient civilization at the bottom of the world. Millions of poor Chinese perished in famines and droughts. But he did not forget to push through his “Mao’s Thoughts” into the school and college curricula to remind students and teachers alike who he was: The First Communist God!
Cut to the 2020s. The present Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, 69, is the CPC’s General Secretary, China’s President, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission—all rolled into one. He does not wear the Mao coat or Mao cap and is ready to outdo even Mao in every other respect. And his “thoughts” have also become part of the curricula. In his reign, China forcibly changed the traditional designs and architecture of churches and mosques, and ordered Christians to replace the portraits of Jesus Christ with that of Xi Jinping!
And, yes, he aped Mao’s grandiose national projects in his own Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a USD 4 trillion international white horse now hanging like an albatross around Beijing’s neck.
As the Second Chairman of Everything and the Second Communist God, he has amended the Constitution and secured a third five-year term as the top leader, paving the way for his becoming the President-for-Life. Not surprising that his many critics denounce him as “Xitler”.
To clear obstacles, he got rid of former President Hu Jintao, who was escorted out of the closing ceremony of the Congress on Saturday. And he also dropped Prime Minister Li Keqiang in the leadership reshuffle, indirectly blaming him for his own ‘failures’ and teaching his detractors a lesson.
Xi is the first Chinese leader after Mao Zedong to continue in power, ending three decades of rule to retire after two five-year tenures.
This is the gist of the week-long, 20th National Congress of the CPC (October 16-22), which concluded in Beijing on Saturday. Over 2,300 ‘elected’ representatives of the CPC, which has a membership of 96 million, took part in this heavily choreographed event where all the participants had to do was nod their heads, raise hands, hail Xi, and sign on wherever they were asked to.
The jamboree “elected” Xi’s rubber stamp, also known as the party’s 370-member Central Committee, which mechanically passed several key resolutions, including an amendment to its Constitution to grant even ‘more’ powers to the all-powerful President Xi Jinping.
Xi, who is set to be endorsed for an unprecedented third term on Sunday, presided over the CPC National Congress meeting himself.
The Xi-appointed Central Committee, a powerful body comprising top leaders, will meet on Sunday to elect the Xi-appointed even more powerful Political Bureau, which will elect a still more powerful Xi-appointed Standing Committee of seven members. They will, in the presence of party chief Xi Jinping and his toadies, endorse the third term for President Xi Jinping.
After the new “election” process ends, Xi, along with the new Standing Committee members, will appear before the media on Sunday.
Even the media persons had a taste of things to come.
According to the media reports, many Beijing-based journalists had already been put in a closed-Covid-loop system for the past four days to cover the ‘first’ media appearance of the new-old President, Xi Jinping.