Tributes to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the man now seen as China’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong (毛澤東), have come in myriad forms: Xi Jinping tapestries, oil paintings, pop songs, exhibitions and even university departments.
Now he has received a hardwood homage with reports that senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials have made a pilgrimage to a tree honoring their country’s increasingly supreme leader.
Following what US President Donald Trump termed Xi’s “extraordinary elevation” at the CCP’s 19th National Congress last month, officials in Henan Province decided to express their allegiance by gathering around a Paulownia tree planted by then-CCP Politburo Standing Committee member Xi in April 2009.
As the cadres, includig CCP Henan Party Secretary Xie Fuzhan (謝伏瞻), gazed up at its branches in the morning on Sunday last week, “they were immersed in thought, filled with deep emotions,” a local propaganda report described.
“The tree is big, verdant and tall,” the author of the story gushed. “[Locals] warmly call it the Xi Paulownia tree.”
An accompanying video showed a group of almost entirely male leaders being escorted toward the arboricultural accolade by a female hostess.
“Eight years have passed [since Xi’s visit] and the tree has grown enormous and leafy,” she says.
The Xi tree is the latest exhibit in what some see as a mounting body of evidence suggesting a nascent Mao-style cult of personality is being built around China’s leader.
Those suspicions grew last month after Xi’s political ponderings were officially enshrined in the CCP constitution and Chinese universities began unveiling departments that would delve into what is now known as Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era.
Speaking to reporters earlier this month, Xie Chuntao (謝春濤), an academic at the Central Party School in Beijing, admitted that Xi enjoyed “a larger individual role” in Chinese politics, but rejected the suggestion that the blind worship of one man was being revived.
“The Chinese Communist Party has had a cult of personality before,” Xie told Reuters reporters. “The lesson has long been had, and I believe this will not reoccur.”
However, Fordham University professor of law Carl Minzner, who wrote End of an Era, an upcoming book about Xi’s authoritarian tack, said he saw a clear and troubling shift back toward the elevation of a single figurehead.
“In the long term, that has really deleterious impacts for governance in China,” he said.
Beijing begs to differ and last week launched a sequel to Xi’s tome on exactly that topic, The Governance of China. The book’s second volume reportedly boasts no less than 29 photographs of Xi, as well as 99 of his texts.
The China Daily, the CCP’s English-language mouthpiece, described it as “groundbreaking” and “reader-friendly.”
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
RSS