'Xi Thought' Is Creeping Into Everything From Chinese Sci-Fi to Company Filings
What sort of science fiction does Xi Jinping like? How can China’s weathermen use the president’s political philosophy to improve their forecasts? In what ways can “Xi Thought” help prepare the country for the next big earthquake?To get more
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These are the sorts of questions Communist Party cadres are now pondering as they prepare for the next big milestone in the president’s effort to cement control: Elevating Xi Thought alongside Maoism. The esoteric concept is expected to be written into the five-year development blueprint that will be unveiled after party meetings later this month. Everyone from diplomats to executives to sci-fi writers are under pressure to incorporate the broad, often fuzzy tenets of Xi Thought into their policies.
The project is central to Xi’s effort to quiet opposition and to stay on past 2022, when he’s expected to seek a third five-year term as party chief. Once Xi has his own “-ism,” the theory goes, he’ll be elevated to a political standing on par with Mao Zedong, whose portrait hangs over Tiananmen Square and is printed on the currency. It will also make it all-the-more difficult to question his edicts.
“Its importance lies in prominently raising Xi’s personal profile,” said Carl Minzner, a professor at Fordham Law School who specializes in Chinese law and governance. “Every time the command to study it is uttered on TV, and every time is written in a party document, it is a highly visible signal to both party officials and citizens at large as to who is on top, and whose orders actually matter.”
While some key tenets of Mao’s philosophy are included in the iconic “Little Red Book,” Xi Thought is still being shaped and yet to be compiled in one place, although the three-volume “Xi Jinping: The Governance of China” -- a collection of his speeches, writings, sayings and ideas -- contains clues. More than 20 applications of Xi Thought on everything from economic management and military reform to controlling the media and the arts that have appeared in state media since 2018, according to Qian Gang, director of University of Hong Kong’s China Media Project.
The more tangible examples of Xi Thought include his views on the environment, encapsulated in the slogan: “Green hills and clear rivers are gold and silver mountains.” Chinese foreign policy-related statements are typically sprinkled with another phrase that amplifies the goal of building a global “community with a shared future for mankind” -- referring to more countries, including China, having their say in world affairs. His ambition for the military: “Building a strong army.”
The effort to make Xi Thought a guiding principle for nearly every aspect of Chinese life will loom over a conclave of some 300 top party leaders slated to begin Oct. 26 in Beijing. For the first time they’ll also draft a longer-term blueprint that runs until 2035, in the latest indication of how long Xi, 67, could lead.
He Lifeng, the chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, wrote in the party-run People’s Daily newspaper last month that Xi’s thinking on the economy was a “powerful weapon to withstand major risks and challenges, and solve major problems.” The leader’s ideas should be studied and adopted as guidance when drafting five-year plans, He said.
