China won’t allow a Mao-style cult of personality around Xi, says top Communist Party academic
Collective leadership still in play but with a ‘larger individual role’ for the president, party school official says
China has learned from history and will not allow a Mao Zedong-style cult of personality to form around President Xi Jinping, one of the ruling Communist Party’s top official academics said on Monday.
Xi cemented his political authority at a key twice-a-decade party congress last month, enshrining an eponymous political ideology in the party’s constitution and breaking with recent precedent by unveiling a new leadership line-up without a clear successor.
The extent to which he now dominates Chinese politics has prompted comparisons with Mao and fuelled speculation he could seek to stay on in some capacity beyond the end of his customary second five years in power, in 2022.
Xie Chuntao, director of the Central Party School’s academic department, said the “respect and love” ordinary Chinese felt for Xi was “natural” and “heartfelt” and bore no similarities to a cult of personality.
“The Communist Party has had a cult of personality before,” Xie said. “This lesson has long been had, and I believe this will not reoccur.”