Image source, Reuters. As only the third leader to have issued such a report, the move establishes Xi's status as an equal to party founder Mao Zedong and his successor Deng Xiaoping. Why is the resolution significant?
Xi Jinping: From princeling to president China introduces Xi Jinping ideology in schools How China's wealth gap policy may change the world. You may also be interested in:. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Related Topics. Published 12 May. Much of the period from the s to the s is remembered as a "century of humiliation", a shameful era that showed China's weakness in the face of European and Japanese aggression.
During that era, China had to cede Hong Kong to Britain, territory in the north-eastern region of Manchuria to the Japanese, and a whole range of legal and commercial privileges to a range of western countries. This experience has created a deep suspicion toward the intentions of the outside world. Even seemingly outward-looking gestures such as China's accession to the World Trade Organization in was underpinned by a cultural memory of "unfair treaties" when China's trade was controlled by foreigners - a situation which today's Communist Party has vowed never to allow again.
In March this year, an ill-tempered public session between Chinese and American negotiators in Anchorage, Alaska, saw the Chinese push back against US criticism by accusing their hosts of "condescension and hypocrisy". Xi's China does not tolerate the idea that outsiders can look down on their country with impunity.
However, even terrible events can yield more positive messages. One such message comes from the Chinese phase of World War II, when it fought Japan essentially alone after being invaded in , before the Western Allies joined the Asian war at Pearl Harbor in During those years, China lost more than 10 million people and held back over half a million Japanese troops on the Chinese mainland, a feat commemorated widely in history books and in films and television.
Today China portrays itself as part of the "anti-fascist alliance" alongside the US, Britain and the USSR, giving itself moral ballast by reminding the world of its role as a victor against the Axis powers. China also draws on its historical role as a leader of the Third World in the Mao era for instance at the Bandung Conference of , and in projects such as the building of the TanZam railway in East Africa in the s to burnish its credentials as a leader today in the non-western world.
Modern history remains a key part of the way that the Chinese Communist Party perceives its own legitimacy. Yet elements of that history - notably the terrible famine caused by the disastrous economic policies of the Great Leap Forward of - remain almost unmentioned in China today.
And some modern wars can be used for more confrontational purposes. The last year of bumpy US-China relations has seen new films commemorating the Korean War of - a conflict which the Chinese remember under a different name - "the War of Resistance to America".
President Xi's attendance at COP26 has long been in doubt. It is thought he has not left China since early Government sources said Chinese officials had not been definitive about the President's travel plans and they accepted it was possible Xi could change his mind and come at the last minute to surprise the summit. Diplomats said China often announced President Xi's travel plans at the last minute. One said: "We never give up hope. And we are continuing to make the case for his personal attendance.
They cited China's Covid regulations as the reason. But his family's fortunes took a dramatic turn when his father was purged in prior to the Cultural Revolution and imprisoned. At the age of 15, the younger Xi was sent to the countryside for "re-education" and hard labour in the remote and poor village of Liangjiahe for seven years - an experience that would later figure large in his official story.
Far from turning against the Communist Party, Mr Xi embraced it. He tried to join it several times, but was rebuffed because of his father's standing. Once he was finally accepted in , he worked hard to rise to the top - first as a local party secretary in Hebei province, before moving on to more senior roles in other places including party chief of Shanghai, China's second city and financial hub.
His increasing profile in the party propelled him to its top decision making body, the Politburo Standing Committee, and in he was picked as president. The Tsinghua University chemical engineering graduate is married to the glamorous singer Peng Liyuan, and the two have been heavily featured in state media as China's First Couple. It's a contrast from previous presidential couples, where the first lady has traditionally kept a lower profile. They have one daughter, Xi Mingze, but not much is known about her apart from the fact that she studied at Harvard University.
Other family members and their overseas business dealings have been a subject of scrutiny in the international press. Mr Xi has vigorously pursued what he has called a "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" with his China Dream vision. Under him, China has enacted economic reform to combat slowing growth, such as cutting down bloated state-owned industries and reducing pollution, as well as its One Belt One Road trade project.
The country has become more assertive on the global stage, from its continued forcefulness in the South China Sea despite international protestations, to its exercise of soft power by pumping billions of dollars into Asian and African investments. This has been accompanied by a resurgence in patriotic nationalism whipped up by state media, with a particular focus on Mr Xi as China's strongman, leading some to accuse him of developing a personality cult like that of Mao.
At home, Mr Xi has waged war on corruption which has punished more than a million "tigers and flies" - a reference to both high- and low-ranking party officials.
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