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Ten years ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping was appointed general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission at the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, becoming the country’s top leader. The following March, he became president.
At the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress scheduled for Oct. 16, Xi Jinping is widely expected to secure a third term in leadership, cementing his status as China’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China.
Xi Jinping has accumulated power through specific one-time actions and over time. In doing so, he transformed China from a tradition of collective leadership (where the general secretary is seen as the first among equals on the Politburo Standing Committee) to what is now widely seen as supreme leadership.
Analysts and experts say the following are key ways Xi Jinping is tightening his grip:
– He circumvented the economic policy-making responsibilities typically undertaken by prime ministers by chairing various “small leadership groups”, including a new group set up in 2012 after he came to power “reform and opening,” and an existing finance group.
– He launched a sweeping campaign to sweep down officials deemed disloyal, corrupt or ineffective, and built his power base by filling those vacancies with allies. To date, 4.7 million officials have been investigated.
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– Xi has put trusted allies in charge of human resource management within the party that controls key personnel appointments. His first head of the Organization Department was Zhao Leji, whose father worked under Xi’s father; in 2017, Chen Xi, a former Xi student at Tsinghua University, followed.
– He tightened his grip on the military with sweeping reforms and layoffs starting in 2015.
– He has taken control of the domestic security apparatus through an ongoing “purge” campaign that has overthrown many police chiefs and judges.
– From 2015, he ordered Parliament and other bodies including the Cabinet and Supreme Court to present to him their annual work reports
– Xi Jinping told state media in 2016 to follow the party line, that their “surname is the party”. Since then, media freedom has gradually diminished, while Xi Jinping-related propaganda has steadily increased.
– In 2016, he formally established himself as the party’s “core” – the party’s top leader of the generation.
– Xi Jinping revised the party constitution in 2017 to incorporate Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Possessing the ideology of the same name puts him only on par with Mao and Deng Xiaoping.
– He declared in 2017: “Party, government, army, people, education; East, South, West, North, China: The Party leads everything.”
– He amended the country’s constitution in 2018 to abolish presidential term limits and remove obstacles to his lifelong rule.
– The party pledged in a historic resolution to be passed in 2021 to uphold the “two establishments”, the party’s loyalty to him.
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