‘To destroy a country, you must first eradicate its history,” China’s President Xi Jinping has observed, quoting a Confucian scholar from the 19th century. To control a country, it could be added, you must shape its history in your own image.
And China's Communist Party Central Committee is doing just that in this week passing its first "historical" resolution in 40 years, enshrining the pre-eminence and indispensability of 68-year-old Xi in the ranks of its past "great" leaders, the "great helmsman" Mao Zedong – the regime's founder, first leader, and ideologue – and Deng Xiaoping, chief architect of China's economic takeoff. "Xi Jinping is undoubtedly the core figure mastering the tide of history," a commentary from official news agency Xinhua proclaims. Xi's leadership was "the key to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation", the resolution declares. It also reaffirms the legacy of Mao, the importance of socialism, and the centrality of the Communist Party to all aspects of Chinese life.
There was an inevitability to the party resolution – it lays the basis for next year’s congress to reconfirm Xi as party general secretary for a third five-year term. In 2018 he also abolished term limits for the presidency – his third term begins in 2023. The two roles in one person express the papacy-like unity of party and government. Mao and Deng both also cemented their roles with similar historical resolutions in 1942 and 1981.
Xi has huge challenges. China navigated the Covid-19 pandemic relatively well, but faces huge economic risks from debt-laden companies and local governments, and growing social strains from wealth inequality and an ageing population. Internationally there are tensions with the world's other powers as China extends its economic clout and flexes its military muscles in the region. In no small measure these reflect Xi's willingness increasingly to sound a nationalist drum that helps consolidate his position at home. The helmsman has a firm control of the tiller and is not about to give up his watch, no matter how stormy the seas ahead.