Both the and plenums were enshrined in historical documents that served a political purpose. It resolved that Mao had made serious mistakes, but recognised his achievements. So historical documentation has long been a weapon of choice for Chinese Communist Party leaders seeking to impose their will on a party and a country.
In , not even the most committed Sinophiles were predicting that within a generation China would upset a global status quo and transform itself from a development backwater to one that challenged the West on many different fronts.
Sixth plenums of central committees are aimed at building consensus and clearing the decks of outstanding differences before party congresses. Much comment has attached to the fact Xi has not travelled outside China since In the decade leading up to his death, he unleashed the Cultural Revolution, an era of violence that scarred the national psyche.
Under Deng, the party saw a bid to evade a repeat of Mao's personality cult -- if only to ensure continuity of its rule.
According to dissident political scholar Wu Qiang, who lost his job as a lecturer at Tsinghua University in Beijing over his research, the resolution's approval would mean "that Xi Jinping's authority is uncontested". Wu also believes the plenum will firm China's path back towards a more "controlled, planned" economy -- as seen in Xi's ongoing drive to regulate the country's mammoth enterprises in sectors from tech to real estate. The question of the democratic island of Taiwan -- which sees itself as sovereign but which Beijing claims as its own territory -- could also be on the meeting agenda.
Regardless of next week's meeting, Xi's uncontested authority is not in question, according to Carl Minzner, a senior fellow for China studies at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations.
Daily newsletter Receive essential international news every morning. Deng Xiaoping, who succeeded Mao as China's leader in , initiated the second resolution in The "Resolution on Certain Historical Issues of the Party" denounced the Cultural Revolution, blamed Mao as the one "chiefly responsible" for its chaos and set China on the road to economic reform.
Both Mao and Deng ruled until their deaths, as the Nikkei Asia pointed out in an analysis that found Xi's trajectory more similar to Mao's. In part, this is because Xi's anti-corruption campaign has allowed him to drive out "one foe after another. The Nikkei analysis added "To put it simply, the new document indicates the possibility of Xi becoming the third great figure in the party's history.
Like Mao and Deng, Xi has been labeled "the core" of the CCP , a designation made in after a similar four-day plenum. According to Song Yongyi, a historian who specializes in the study of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, both the and the documents were used to consolidate power and establish new strategic goals for the country.
The resolution set the goal to unite the country, and the resolution has led China from a closed economy to opening up and reform. So you can see these are important documents," he told VOA Mandarin. Song, who works in the California State University, Los Angeles library, added that through passing his own resolution, Xi's goal is to elevate himself to the level of Mao and Deng. In , the National People's Congress passed a constitutional amendment removing the presidency's two-term limit.
Absent from the communique were mentions of darker moments in the party's history, which include the Great Leap Forward, an ambitious campaign Mao started in to increase grain yields which went wrong and led to millions of people starving to death. But a party official mentioned the Great Leap Forward at Friday's press conference to explain why the country must not overreach when trying to solve today's problems of reducing carbon emissions and income gap.
Xi has called for China to achieve "common prosperity", seeking to narrow a yawning wealth gap that threatens the country's economic ascent and the legitimacy of Communist Party rule.
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