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Media with few exceptions are already cautious not to ruffle Chinese feathers, refusing to acknowledge openly that Xi-President-for-Life is tantamount to Xi the de facto monarch, a throwback to 1911 when the last Chinese emperor was overthrown. Here’s an analysis, for Different Truths.
There is a slight change in the status of President Xi Jinping’s folk singer wife – she will remain First Lady for the duration of his life, not just for two terms unless, with the vast powers vested in him as China’s President for Life, he orders a replacement.
There are other implications to the coronation of Emperor Xi. One, Kim Jong Un now has a seamless terrestrial reason to stick to setting dogs on his rivals. Xi for Life also means Chinese dogs will continue to live charmed lives, end up as dog meat on dinner tables. No American maudlin sentimentality will be allowed to come in the way.
Media with few exceptions are already cautious not to ruffle Chinese feathers, refusing to acknowledge openly that Xi-President-for-Life is tantamount to Xi the de facto monarch, a throwback to 1911 when the last Chinese emperor was overthrown. The headline most commonly found is ‘China abolishes term limits for Presidency’ which is a rather tame reference to this “most controversial political development in modern Chinese history”.
Among amendments this one rocks. Xi otherwise wouldn’t have lasted beyond 2023, when his second five-year term would have ended. No more, as of Sunday last, he will be President till he is no more. The big danger is: Xi might turn out a good Emperor but what if the next Emperor, the guy who succeeds him to ‘Presidency for Life’, turns out to be a nasty specimen, the worst kind of inhuman beings?
That said what if the power goes to Xi’s head and he turns it towards India, attempts to wring India’s chicken neck with his Belt and Road? It appears rather suspicious that this man backed off in October last because then he did not want to cross the party Congress meet. But now, with power in him concentrated, what guarantee that he doesn’t pick himself up from where he fell – Doklam! India will need to keep a wary eye on this modern-day Chinese Emperor, a military monster breathing down India’s neck.
The Chinese are a beaten people. And Xi when he said he wouldn’t touch democracy with a barge pole, that in his red vision, more than one political party stomping and stamping for power was “nasty”, he was actually telling his own browbeaten people not to harbour any illusions before he sets himself up as Emperor for Life. That also sums up what is called ‘Xi Jinping Thought’, a philosophy that will be the North Star for children born from here on in China. You have to ‘Han’ it out to Xi!
Xi has “achieved” absolute total dominance over the Chinese political system and the current second rung of leadership caved in like spineless seafood, serfs to ‘China’s Chairman of Everything’. After Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping is the second Chinese leader to get a personal stranglehold on Chinese Thought. This man with a bland face will policy-make on everything – politics, economy, national security, foreign affairs, the Internet, environment, South China – what, even the Indian Ocean.
Trump and Putin have been left beached by Xi. The Donald betrayed his own thoughts on ‘President for Life’ with his ‘someday we’ll have to look at that’ comment. And Putin, he might go for the Xi-patented nerve agent and nobody will be able to stop him. Why if you count them on the fingers, there are many part-time dictators already on the planet, some even clothed in democratic colours.
Like one of the exceptional Chinese said, ‘China has morphed from one-party rule to one-man rule, picking up from where Mao left.’ And Deng, who set China up for political reforms so that a Mao – a one-man dictatorship – doesn’t come to rule China again, is nothing but camel dung, Panda spittle, in the sands of time. No more orderly successions. Xi’s mug will be China’s jug of nectar for at least another 30 years. What is the average life-expectancy of a Chinese?
What, China’s ‘Chairman of Everything’ orders President for Life Xi Jinping to live for as long as possible, nobody will have the guts to take the order lightly. Not even Xi Jinping!
Sushil Kutty
©IPA Service
Photo from the Internet
