NT WA JOI RFA R R O E F S T E U R T D I N E E S C ISSUE BRIEF VOL - XII NO-2 / MAY 2018 Brigadier (Dr.) Rajeev Bhutani PROFILE: (Retd) superannuated after 34 CHINA’S years of distinguished service in the Army as the Sub Area Cdr. PRESIDENT XI Writer, Defence Analyst and presently he is Senior Fellow JINPING CENJOWS. Jinping became president of consummate political chess XiChina in 2013, ushering in player who has cultivated an an era of increased assertiveness enigmatic strongman image. and authoritarianism. Outshining The Chinese government’s his immediate predecessors, Xi propaganda machinery can be considered as the most regularly projects him as a powerful leader (paramount firm yet adoring patriarch and leader) since Deng Xiaoping. leader, who fights poverty and corruption at home while building He has created a public persona China’s image abroad as an emerging about himself as an avuncular man of the super power. people, even though he has maneuvered behind the scenes with a ruthless After being declared the country’s ambition to dominate China’s enigmatic “core leader” in late 2016, Xi is marching elite politics. He is considered as a ahead to break two decades old 2 CENJOWS tradition and stay on after his second Ministry when the younger Xi, the third term as the President and head of of four children, was born. the ruling Communist Party. His sole Xi grew up as a princeling of the ambition appears to be to make China a new ruling elite, but in the fractious era Superpower not only during his lifetime that followed, his father fell out of favor, but that too when he is leading the country targeted for humiliation in the Cultural unless the destiny has something else Revolution and imprisoned. Xi, at that in store for him and the country. time was in high school. What is surprising is how very The 15-year-old Xi Jinping little is known about Xi’s biography as a was sent for “re-education” and hard leader? Xi’s deliberations and decisions labor in the remote and poor village of unfold in utmost secrecy. Leaks have all Liangjiahe for seven years. While in but ended in the Xi’s era, a reflection of Liangjiahe, he lived in a typical cave- fear as much as loyalty. Kerry Brown, a like dwelling, fetched water from a well, professor at King’s College London and and subsisted mainly on rice gruel. But author of a 2016 biography, “C.E.O., instead of recollecting the experience China: The Rise of Xi Jinping” and other as a punishment, he has done as Mao experts described the extreme secrecy evidently intended, describing it as a around China’s leader — even where lesson that made him more confident and Mr. Xi lives is not broadly known — as enlightened. He often describes himself symptomatic of an affliction that often as having been a farmer for those years hobbles autocratic leaders: living inside - an experience that would later figure a closed bubble of self-affirmation, largely in his official story. While much echoed by yes-men (all men, in his of rural China has seen breakneck case). urbanization, the village where he grew Early Days up is now a pilgrimage destination for the Communist Party faithful. Born in Fuping County, Shaanxi Province Xi says that the ideas and qualities, on 15 June 1953, Xi jinping is the son which define him today were formed in of revolutionary veteran Xi Zhongxun, his early cave life. “I’m forever a son of one of the Communist Party’s founding the yellow earth,” he likes to say. “I left fathers and an early comrade-in-arms of my heart in Liangjiahe. Liangjiahe made Mao Zedong. His father, Xi Zhongxun, me. “When I arrived at 15, I was anxious was a commander in the war against and confused. When I left at 22, my life Japan and then in the civil war that goals were firm and I was filled with brought the Communists to power. He confidence.” then became a senior government minister, working in the Propaganda Before, he arrived in the cave; young Xi had enjoyed a privileged CENJOWS 3 and cloistered upbringing as a “red There was no electricity, no motorized princeling” - growing up with families transport and no mechanical tools. The of first-generation Communist Party teenage Xi learned to carry manure, revolutionaries in Beijing’s exclusive build dams and repair roads. He shared residential compounds. But all of that the flea-ridden brick bed in his cave with was shattered in the maelstrom that three others. One of them was farmer an increasingly paranoid and vengeful Lü Housheng, who told in 2015 that Chairman Mao inflicted on the party elite at night Xi would retreat to his cave to in the 1960s. Classes across Beijing read by the light of a kerosene lamp. Lü were suspended so that students could remembers him as “a voracious reader criticize, beat and even murder their and heavy smoker. He read the Selected teachers. Xi’s father was first purged and Works of Mao Zedong, famous quotes then jailed, and his family humiliated. from Mao, and the newspaper. There Xi’s family home was ransacked by wasn’t anything else.”Xi had no sense student militants and one of his sisters, of humor according to Lü. He didn’t play Xi Heping was killed. Later, his mother poker, hang out with other young people was forced to publicly denounce him as or look for a girlfriend. Xi was paraded before a crowd as an Building up Political Career enemy of the revolution. Without parents or friends to protect him from the Red At 18, Xi was ready to embark on Guards dispensing the summary justice his political career. He joined the of the Cultural Revolution on the streets, Communist Youth League, and at 21, the teenage Xi lived his second Beijing despite multiple rejections (10 times) life, dodging death threats and detention. due to his father’s imprisonment and his Much later, he recalled an encounter in family’s disgrace, he finally succeeded a conversation with a reporter. in joining the Party itself. Thus far from turning against the Communist Party, Many of Xi’s generation agree Mr Xi embraced it. In 1974 Xi became that when their schooling stopped and an official party member, serving as a they learned to survive on their wits, branch secretary, and the following year they developed emotional toughness he began attending Beijing’s Tsinghua and independence of thought. University, where he studied chemical Back then everyone studied engineering. After graduating in 1979, Chairman Mao’s famous little red book. he worked for three years (1979 – 1982) Now the thoughts of Chairman Xi are as personal secretary to Geng Biao(an posted on huge red hoardings and there old friend of his father), who was is a museum in his honor. It extols the then the vice premier and minister of good deeds he did for his fellow villagers. national defense in the central Chinese Village life in 1960s China was tough. government. He uses his brief service 4 CENJOWS in uniform to claim a military pedigree, positions, progressively rising through though he was more of a staff officer the ranks. He had promotion... in mind than a foot soldier. It was around this from day one.” time that he married his first wife, Ke Xi took the traumas of his early Lingling, the daughter of the Chinese life and the solitude of the cave with ambassador to Great Britain. The him. His friend said his reserve, a marriage ended in divorce within a few certain distant quality, contributed to the years. failure of his first marriage. But it clearly Supremely pragmatic, a realist, contributed to the success of his political with his “eyes on the prize” from early career. Until he reached the very top, his adulthood. This was how Xi’s friend defining achievement was to have risen described him in the 2009 diplomatic with barely a trace. cable. Unlike many youths who “made Steady Ascent up for lost time by having fun”, Xi was exceptionally ambitious and focused. From 1983 to 2007, Xi Jinping served After the Cultural Revolution, he “chose in leadership positions in four provinces, to survive by becoming redder than the beginning with red”. Local party secretary in Hebei By the time Xi was 25, his father province. During his tenure in had been politically rehabilitated Hebei, Xi Jinping traveled to and sent to run Guangdong, the vast the United States and spent province next door to Hong Kong, time in Iowa, with an American which would become the powerhouse family, learning the finer points of China’s economic rise. The elder Xi of agriculture and tourism [Iowa advanced his son’s career through his governor Terry Branstad, who met patronage network, and according to Xi on his 1985 trip, was named as his friend, Xi quickly learned to build his Trump’s pick for ambassador to own. China]. “He carefully laid out a career plan After his return, he served as vice that would maximize his opportunities mayor of Xiamen in Fujian, where to rise to the top levels of the Party he proposed several infrastructure hierarchy, first becoming a PLA [army] improvements, all of which officer in the late 1970s (being a PLA were rejected by the provincial officer and PS to Geng Biao, Minister authorities. In 1987 he married of national defense would have been folk singer Peng Liyuan, who also a dual appointment) and then serving holds the rank of army general in in a variety of provincial leadership the PLA.