"Xi is making clear that he intends to dominate Chinese politics for years, perhaps decades to come" sounds plausible until you move in a little closer. It's a Westerner jumping to a Western explanation. A Chinese explanation might go more like this:
Xi is a second-generation politician, the son and heir to one of the most admired men in history – his dad – Xi Zhongxun, a combat army general in his teens and, in Mao's admiring words, "the best mediator in Chinese history," comparing him favorably to famous mediators in China's history, where mediation is a much-admired art.
Zhongxun next spent seven years under house arrest while his son grew to manhood in the country's poorest village.
Young Jinping's ticket out of the village was raising the QOL and incomes of the village that had sheltered him.
He went off to Tsinghua where pro-Cultural Revolution professors gave him a diploma instead of a degree because of his father's sins. Generational punishment has always been a Chinese practice and a good bet 80% of the time – like father, like son.
But not in this case. Zhongxun was then assigned to stop millions of people swimming, tunneling, wire-cutting and bribing their way into Hong Kong where the economy, goosed by London and New York, was roaring and expats were still worshipped.
Zhongxun proposed an attractive form of border control: on a mudflat behind a fishing village, build the mini-nation we call Shenzen, whose GDP is approaching $400 billion, mostly electronics, and aerospace and local government is spending billions to keep housing affordable. One Shenzen company – just one – employs 120,000 degreed, qualified engineers.
He saw promise in young Xi – but forbade the rest of the family to go into government – and took him along as he mediated land disputes as he turned the turned the pig's ear mudflat into the silk purse Shenzen has become. He died penniless, as he had lived.
That's Zhongxun's legacy, and the greatest tribute Xi can pay to his dad is outshine him, to demonstrate that he has made good use of his father's instruction, and moved the ball forward. Which he did by doubling the real incomes of every Chinese before the end of his second term, ending poverty, housing 96% of them in their own homes, and built the world's biggest, more powerful navy. Any record like that influences history. That's a good thing.
Today, 1.4 billion Chinese (98% of their classic villains and heroes are either corrupt, incompetent – or honest and effective – public servants.
Jinping's got the baddies on the run. He suggested harnessing new technologies even before the military. Corruption, he said, "has destroyed more empires than have armies”. As we know to our sorrow.
Jinping still has some rabbits to pull out of his hat, including the first city built from scratch in the 21st century that uses 21st century to make everyone's life 50% chiller and more productive. And a new canal, the Pinglu, longer than any in history save the 1,000 km. Grand Canal.
His influence will be very good for a long time. And that's a good thing.
"Xi is making clear that he intends to dominate Chinese politics for years, perhaps decades to come" sounds plausible until you move in a little closer. It's a Westerner jumping to a Western explanation. A Chinese explanation might go more like this:
Xi is a second-generation politician, the son and heir to one of the most admired men in history – his dad – Xi Zhongxun, a combat army general in his teens and, in Mao's admiring words, "the best mediator in Chinese history," comparing him favorably to famous mediators in China's history, where mediation is a much-admired art.
Zhongxun next spent seven years under house arrest while his son grew to manhood in the country's poorest village.
Young Jinping's ticket out of the village was raising the QOL and incomes of the village that had sheltered him.
He went off to Tsinghua where pro-Cultural Revolution professors gave him a diploma instead of a degree because of his father's sins. Generational punishment has always been a Chinese practice and a good bet 80% of the time – like father, like son.
But not in this case. Zhongxun was then assigned to stop millions of people swimming, tunneling, wire-cutting and bribing their way into Hong Kong where the economy, goosed by London and New York, was roaring and expats were still worshipped.
Zhongxun proposed an attractive form of border control: on a mudflat behind a fishing village, build the mini-nation we call Shenzen, whose GDP is approaching $400 billion, mostly electronics, and aerospace and local government is spending billions to keep housing affordable. One Shenzen company – just one – employs 120,000 degreed, qualified engineers.
He saw promise in young Xi – but forbade the rest of the family to go into government – and took him along as he mediated land disputes as he turned the turned the pig's ear mudflat into the silk purse Shenzen has become. He died penniless, as he had lived.
That's Zhongxun's legacy, and the greatest tribute Xi can pay to his dad is outshine him, to demonstrate that he has made good use of his father's instruction, and moved the ball forward. Which he did by doubling the real incomes of every Chinese before the end of his second term, ending poverty, housing 96% of them in their own homes, and built the world's biggest, more powerful navy. Any record like that influences history. That's a good thing.
Today, 1.4 billion Chinese (98% of their classic villains and heroes are either corrupt, incompetent – or honest and effective – public servants.
Jinping's got the baddies on the run. He suggested harnessing new technologies even before the military. Corruption, he said, "has destroyed more empires than have armies”. As we know to our sorrow.
Jinping still has some rabbits to pull out of his hat, including the first city built from scratch in the 21st century that uses 21st century to make everyone's life 50% chiller and more productive. And a new canal, the Pinglu, longer than any in history save the 1,000 km. Grand Canal.
His influence will be very good for a long time. And that's a good thing.