The top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) yesterday started a pivotal meeting expected to further firm Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) grip on power.
About 400 members of the party’s Central Committee gathered in Beijing for the four-day plenary, which is being held behind closed doors.
Xi opened the meeting with a work report and “explanations on a draft resolution on the major achievements and historical experience” of the party through its 100-year history, Xinhua news agency reported.
The resolution would set the stage for the 20th National Party Congress next year, at which Xi is widely expected to declare that he will serve a third term in office, cementing his position as China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong (毛澤東).
State media has hailed Xi’s leadership in the run-up to this week’s meeting, with Xinhua saying he is “a man of profound thoughts and feelings, a man who inherited a legacy but dares to innovate, and a man who has forward-looking vision and is committed to working tirelessly.”
Xi’s tenure has been marked by a sprawling anti-corruption crackdown and repressive policies in regions like Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
He has also created a leadership cult that has quashed criticism, stamped out rivals and introduced his own political theory — known as Xi Jinping Thought — to schools.
Chris Johnson, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic International Studies, told the Sinocism podcast that the new resolution could mark an opportunity for Xi “to tidy up ... some of the bits from history that he doesn’t like,” including the excesses of economic reforms in the 1990s.
The Central Committee resolution would mark the third of its kind in the history of the CCP. The first, passed under Mao in 1945, helped cement his authority over the CCP four years before it seized power. The second, under Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in 1981, saw the regime adopt economic reforms and recognize the “mistakes” of Mao’s ways.
The latest could see Xi “do in effect to Deng what Deng did to Mao, which is to criticize the excesses of Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening policies,” Johnson said.
The timing is significant, coming a year before Xi is expected to secure an unprecedented third term in office at a twice-a-decade congress.
“Xi Jinping has already started to rewrite the history of the party in school books, universities, and the press... greatly reducing the failures — Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution — and glorifying his action as general secretary of the party,” said Alice Ekman, senior analyst in charge of the Asia portfolio at the EU Institute for Security Studies.
The new resolution is “clearly part of Xi Jinping’s efforts to prolong his presence at the head of the party,” she added.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
STORM’S PATH: Kong-Rey could be the first typhoon to make landfall in Taiwan in November since Gilda in 1967. Taitung-Green Island ferry services have been halted Tropical Storm Kong-rey is forecast to strengthen into a typhoon early today and could make landfall in Taitung County between late Thursday and early Friday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, Kong-Rey was 1,030km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), the nation’s southernmost point, and was moving west at 7kph. The tropical storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 101kph, with gusts of up to 126 kph, CWA data showed. After landing in Taitung, the eye of the storm is forecast to move into the Taiwan Strait through central Taiwan on Friday morning, the agency said. With the storm moving
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work