Xi Jinping's brother points to father's work during Mao era amid fears president moving towards ultraconservatism
Xi Yuanping says their father never committed leftist political mistakes and believed Communist Party's interests should be consistent with the people
The father of President Xi Jinping remained cool-headed during the fanaticism of the Great Leap Forward era and did not commit leftist political mistakes, the younger brother of Xi said in a seminar last week.
Political observers said the remarks by Xi Yuanping, which were published yesterday by the Study Times, a newspaper of the Central Party School, were aimed at alleviating concerns President Xi might be an ultra conservative and moving towards leftism.
In the remarks made in a seminar on Wednesday, Xi Yuanping recalled inspection trips by their father Xi Zhongxun to Shaanxi and Gansu provinces and the Ningxia region decades ago, and found cadres were severely influenced by "leftist" ideas.
"The problem is very bad in some of the region … where landowners and grass-roots officials are tied up, hanged up and beaten, causing extreme panic among the public," Xi said
He added that his father had dared to raise the problem with the central government at the time.
Xi Yuanping said his father believed the interests of the Communist Party should be consistent with those of the people, and he had always kept that in mind.
"My father never committed a leftist mistake in his life as he adhered to the mass line with a pragmatic approach," he said.