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From exile to chairman: how did Xi Jinping claim the

throne?

A Politician before Birth

A man whom before becoming the head of one of the world's leading
powers, he fed pigs and lost his wife. Xi Jinping was born on the 15 th of
June 1953 in Beijing. He was born in a family of a prominent party official
Xi Zhongxun. The father of the future leader joined the Communist Party
in the 1930s, he was a guerrilla commander, fought against the
Kuomintang and the Japanese, and led troops in the north-western
provinces of China at the final stage of the Chinese civil War. After the
victory, Xi's father's career skyrocketed. He entered Mao's inner circle;
he was first appointed head of the propaganda department of the
Central Committee of the Party. In 1959 he became the chairman of the
State Council of the People's Republic of China — in fact, he was the
second person in the country to take this position.

Living in Exile

The problems began after Mao's 'great' plan: the "Big Leap" strategy,
which failed. The great helmsman, following the example of Stalin, tried
to carry out accelerated industrialization. However, numerous mistakes
led to a large-scale famine, "Famines are a hallmark of economic
backwardness. It bears remembering that China on the eve of the Great
Leap Forward was one of the poorest places on earth" (Gráda). The
famine claims to have claimed the lives of millions in China. Xi Zhongxun
was also blamed for the failure, among other executives. He and his
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family were exiled to the countryside, where he became the director of a

tractor factory. The Xi family's downfall didn't end there. In 1967, a
"cultural revolution" began in China under the pretext of fighting "internal
and external revisionism". Its driving force was young people-
schoolchildren and students who, with the permission of the authorities,
smashed up schools and unreliable party branches, beat up teachers
and officials. Xi's father also fell under the arrangement. “Mr. Xi was also
harassed -- paraded by Mao's Red Guards, with his mother forced to join
in one public denunciation -- before he was, at 16, ''sent down'' to toil in
the countryside in the name of the revolution.” (Myers, 2018). He was
beaten to a pulp, forced to beg for forgiveness on his knees, and then
sent to a labour camp. 13-year-old Xi Jinping, along with his mother,
sister and brother, as relatives of the "counter-revolutionary" were
sentenced to the dirtiest and most shameful work-caring for a pigsty.

A brighter future

A new dawn in the life of the Xi family came in 1976 after the death of
Mao. The reformer Deng Xiaoping came to power. At one time, he
suffered from the "cultural revolution". As head of the country, he tried to
rehabilitate most of the victims of repression. “In subsequent years, the
totalitarian party-state became an authoritarian party-state” (Terrill, 2006)
. The young Xi Jinping had an opportunity to join the party. Soon, he was
able to go to Beijing and study at the Faculty of Chemistry and
Technology of Tsinghua University. In 1978, Xi Zhongxun was
rehabilitated. First, he was reinstated as a factory director, then, under
the patronage of Deng Xiaoping, he became the governor of the rich
southern province of Guangdong. This dramatically increased the social
status of his offspring. In the capital, the younger Xi graduated with
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honours from the university, became the secretary of the Party Central
Committee member Geng Biao, and married one of the main Chinese
beauties of the time. “Ke Xiaoming, who also goes by Ke Lingling, is the
youngest daughter of former ambassador to Britain Ke
Hua”( Henochowicz, 2015). As a gift from relatives, the newlyweds
received a luxury apartment in the elite Nanshagou district in western
Beijing. However, the marriage was unhappy. Growing up in London, the
elegant, educated Ke hated Beijing, which was pale in comparison with
the British capital, and was burdened by the role of the wife of a Chinese
official, whose every step is monitored. According to the memoirs of
foreign diplomats who lived in the neighbourhood, almost every day in
the apartment of the couple there were scandals. In 1982, Ke Xiaoming
left her husband and went to England. Perhaps this could have harmed
Xi's career if he had not immediately resigned from all posts and asked
to be sent to a remote province as punishment. The young man's
behaviour was appreciated. Thanks to his father's friendship with Deng
Xiaoping, he was appointed mayor of Zhengding City.

The Results of Perseverance

In 3 years, Xi Jinping has turned the poor city, entrusted to him, into a
new tourist centre. Here he gained a reputation as a man who
appreciates advanced technology. In 1985, Xi was transferred to Fujian
province, where he also proved to be a loyal statesman. “During his
tenure as Fujian Governor, Xi helped the province come out from the
shadow of the "Yuanhua case", China's largest smuggling and
corruption crime in history”(Gang et al, 2009). During the events in
Tiananmen Square, when student rallies in support of liberalization were
noisy in Beijing, Xi firmly suppressed attempts to organize similar unrest
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in the city entrusted to him. For this, he was appointed party chief of
Fujian Province and first secretary of the district party organization of the
Chinese Army. It seemed that in a while, Xi would return to Beijing in
triumph. However, he had to wait. It was only in 2002 when Hu Jintao
took over the country, that Xi finally got the governor post of China's
richest province of Zhengjiang. This post allowed Xi to accomplish the
highest of positions. When the time came to select Hu Jintao's
successor in 2007, four people were included in the circle of possible
replacements. The first was Xi Jinping. Another, Li Keqiang, Zhou
Yongkang and Chen Liangyu. It was Chen who was eliminated first.
Confident of his victory, Chen became careless and even allowed
himself to criticize Hu Jintao's decisions. But in 2006, he was suddenly
arrested on suspicion of embezzling $400 million from a Shanghai
Pension Fund and sentenced to 18 years in prison. The investigation
was supervised personally by Comrade Xi — by that time he was
appointed mayor of Shanghai. The leadership of the main economic
centre of China is an honour. Xi is a great planner who was able to
organise the Beijing Olympics. (Cabestan, 2012). It was she who played
a decisive role in his fate. The victory of the Chinese national team
dramatically increased the chances of the new Shanghai mayor in the
political race.

From General Secretary to Chairman

“The Communist Party of China (CPC) on 15 November 2012 declared

Xi Jinping as the new General Secretary of the Party’s seven-member
Politburo standing committee.” (Jha, 2012) Also, Xi soon became the
chairman of the republic. However, his ascent to the political Olympus
was accompanied by one mysterious story. A month before the
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congress, Xi Jinping suddenly disappeared from public politics. His

meetings with Russian ministers and US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton were cancelled. Chinese media reported on the disease.
However, as the Washington Post wrote, the real reason was a fight,
which took place at a closed-door meeting with Xi and his opponent
Zhou Yongkang. The discussion at the meeting turned into an argument
and Xi was hit with a broken chair by enraged Yongkang supporters.
Allegedly, to hide the traces of beatings, he had to stay out of public
view for a while. Whether this is true or not is unclear. Nor is it clear what
role his second rival, Li Keqiang, played in Xi Jinping's eventual victory.
Shortly after Xi's election, he took over the Chinese government. The
two successors were able to agree and unite. Six months after coming to
power, Zhou Yongkang was arrested, charged with corruption, and
sentenced to life in prison. He became the first in a series of Chinese
high-ranking officials accused of theft. In general, the corruption
campaign became the leitmotif of the first five-year plan of Comrade Xi.
From 2013 to 2018, the security services opened cases against 1.5
million Chinese officials. The campaign was held under the slogan
"hunting for flies and tigers" ("flies" — small officials, "tigers" - party
sharks). Two-thirds of the accused escaped with dismissal from their
posts and expulsion from the party, and hundreds of thousands of senior
party officials received heavy sentences or were even shot.

Becoming an emperor

The campaign allowed Xi to gain broad popular support and purge the
party of its most formidable opponents. As a result, at the next National
Congress in the fall of 2017, there was not a single person in the new
Central Committee who could become Xi's successor in 2022. And the
changes to China's Constitution, which lifted the limit on the number of
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terms of government for the first person, finally outlined Xi's plans to
remain in power for a third term, effectively turning him into a new
emperor. Along with the successes, the country also has serious
difficulties. The coming to power of Donald Trump was marked by the
deterioration of US-Chinese relations and even the beginning of a small
trade war. All this is against the backdrop of a slowdown in Chinese
GDP growth. Whether Xi can handle the looming challenges is unclear.
But in any case, it is the next 5 years of his rule that can be decisive for
China.

References

2021. Is Xi Jinping the Reformist Leader China Needs?. [online]

Available at: <http://Layout 1 (openedition.org)> [Accessed 2 May
2021].
AFFAIRS, C. and Capsule, N., 2021. Xi Jinping elected as the New
General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. [online]
Jagranjosh.com. Available at: <https://www.jagranjosh.com/current-
affairs/xi-jinping-elected-as-the-new-general-secretary-of-the-
communist-party-of-china-1352965183-1> [Accessed 2 May 2021].
Brødsgaard, K., 2018. China’s Communist Party: From Mass to Elite
Party. China Report, 54(4), pp.385-402.
Go.gale.com. 2021. In China, Xi's Life Is a Closed Book. [online]
Available at: <https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?
p=AONE&u=uniaber&id=GALE%7CA529932105&v=2.1&it=r>
[Accessed 2 May 2021].
Gráda, C., 2021. Great Leap into Famine: A Review Essay*.
Henochowicz, A., 2021. Sensitive Words: "Interview" with Xi's First Wife
- China Digital Times (CDT). [online] China Digital Times (CDT).
Available at: <https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/08/sensitive-words-
interview-with-xis-first-wife/> [Accessed 2 May 2021].
Terrill, R., 2006. China's transformation in the 30 years since the death
of Mao Zedong has been breathtaking. But it will not be complete
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until the nation comes to terms with Mao's complete legacy. Mao

now,.
Yongnian, Z. and Gang, C., 2009. Xi Jinping's rise and political
implications. East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore,.