By Rupert Wingfield–HayesBBC NewsComparing Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong “inane” says Rebecca Karl, a professor at New York University of Chinese History. “If you want to compare two people it must reveal something. It’s like comparing Putin and Stalin or Liz Truss and Margaret Thatcher. The parallels are striking at first glance. The 20th Century’s most important political figure was Chairman Mao. From 1949, when the republic was founded, to 1976, he ran the Communist Party and the country. Since then, no other Chinese leader has come close. Until now. Sunday saw Xi Jinping become the first leader since Mao that was elected party chief for a third time. He has consolidated power, ruthlessly eliminated his rivals, promoted a cult-of-personality, shut down criticism and had his ideology – Xi Jinping Thoughts on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics to a New Era – enshrined into the constitution. He is only half-jokingly known as the Chairman of Everything. Prof Karl argues that it is still a mistake to draw a straightline from Mao to Xi. This ignores all that was in between – and those Chinese who dreamed of or fought for a different nation. She says, “It suggests that autocracy is in them blood, it’s their water or it’s in their culture.” Truth is, Xi’s rise to power was not an easy one. It’s defined by his ambition, as well as the party’s inability to stop what they didn’t want – a repeat Mao’s disastrous one man rule. Prof Karl says, “My first encounter with China was in 1980s, when the discussions about China’s future had been hugely significant, consequential, and consequential.” “The party was also involved in those discussions. 1989 ended all of that. 1989 saw the collapse of the Soviet Union. China’s hopes of change were crushed by tanks, automatic gunfire, and other means. “We came too late” The country was still recovering in the decade that followed Mao’s death. On his watch, tens of millions died – first from hunger due to his disastrous mission to industrialise China overnight, and then from the violent, paranoid purges that swept in of rivals and intellectuals as well as “class enemies”. Deng Xiaoping took Mao’s place. He had survived two purges and insisted that collective leadership would be changed every ten years. In 1989, this included General Secretary Zhao Ziyang who was a reformist. In 1989, hundreds of thousands of workers and students occupied central Beijing to protest rising prices and corruption. Behind the high walls of Zhongnanhai’s Communist Party leadership compound, the party’s top division split. Moderates led Zhao tried to use protests to push for further reform. Premier Li Peng and other hardliners believed that the students were trying to overthrow the party and wanted the protests stopped. Zhao visited the protesters and urged them to end their strike in what is now an historic speech: “We came way too late.” It’s okay to speak about us and criticise our actions in any way you like… We’re all getting old and it doesn’t matter to us anymore. You’re still young so you need to take care of yourself. The hardliners won at the end of May. The tanks arrived in the early hours of the morning on June 4. The massacre at Tiananmen Square ended the debate on political reform. Instead, the Communist Party focused on economic reform. Getty ImagesImage source: Getty ImagesIn 1992 Deng, who was China’s “paramount leader”, declared that the Communist Party should allow “some people get rich first”. Although it doesn’t sound dramatic, it was a decisive break with Maoism. Revolutionary austerity was out the door. I stepped onto a night ferry to Guangzhou’s dockside on a cold January morning. It was my first glimpse in China. The smell of coal-burning coal was strong in the air. Outside, there was a river of bikes, ridden by workers wearing blue caps and Mao jackets. Sometimes the bicycles would break up to make way for a bus or an official car. Over the next six-months, I rode across Yunnan’s mountains, visited Beijing’s imperial palace, and rode a train pulled by two steam engines that had been soot-blackened far west into the deserts in Xinjiang. The beauty of the landscapes was breathtaking, but the poverty was a constant. Everywhere I went, people told me how backward China was compared with the West. There were signs of improvement. The whole country had taken Deng’s appeal “to get rich is glorious” by the time I returned to China in 1998. The Communist Party ordered that China’s state-owned housing stock be sold in 1998. The old grey-brick courtyards of Beijing were being demolished to make way for glass and steel. Everyone was talking about “xia hai”, or “dive into water”. It meant leaving your job in a government company and entering a private business. I can still remember the day that one of our assistants came into BBC’s office and presented his ID. He declared, “I’m off To Shenzhen”, the prosperous city on China’s southern coast. Mao had shut down China’s economy from the rest of the world. His successors were now opening it up. 2001 saw China join the World Trade Organisation. New cities sprung up along the southeast coast. Some were experts in zippers and buttons, while others made lighters. One of the factories in Zhejiang that made socks was a small one, producing tens to billions of them. As I was about to leave China in 2008 the Soviet-era airport gave way to a shiny megastructure designed and built by Norman Foster. The first high-speed rail link opened between Beijing, Tianjin. China was becoming richer than any other country in the history of mankind. However, this unleashed new forces. China’s old saying, “Heaven is high, the emperor far away” refers to the fall of one prince and the rise of another. It means that no one is watching what you do. Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessor was a prime example of this. Corruption was rampant and his authority was being openly ignored. Party officials in China confiscated land from peasant farmers and sold it to developers as land prices rose. They also took a large cut. 2005, I was given a DVD that had been smuggled from Dingzhou in Hebei Province. It featured a pitched battle between farmers and dozens armed thugs, who were hired by a state-owned energy company to force them off their land. The farmers had dug deep pits in their fields. The thugs attacked the farmers at dawn, opening fire with shotguns and beating them with steel bars. Six people were killed. The graft ran deep. I can recall going to Beijing nightclubs where the owner was known to have access to illicit drugs and young women. His business partner was the police, the public security bureau. Richard McGregor, former Beijing bureau chief at the Financial Times, said that this was only the tip of an enormous iceberg. He adds, “Everything and everyone got a cut but it got out control.” “It was becoming more Suharto’s Indonesia, where the system was corroding its foundations.” I was in a trade war with China and the EU over textiles quotas when I was invited to interview the commerce minister. Interviews with Chinese officials are usually dull and boring. But this interview was quite the opposite. Bo Xilai was the minister. Bo Xilai was tall, handsome, and had a roguish charm. He seemed to enjoy the challenge and answered questions with wittiness and cogency. “This guy could succeed as an politician anywhere,” I thought to my self. Bo was appointed to lead Chongqing in 2007, a large city that lies between the Yangtze River and the mountains of southwest China. It was notorious for its organised crime. Getty Images. Bo launched a brutal anti-corruption campaign that netted hundreds of criminals and businessmen, politicians, and police. He also built extravagant infrastructure, including public housing. Strangely, he also revived “red cultural”, requiring everyone learn Mao-era songs that praise the Communist Party. Bo’s rule terrorized many, but he was immensely popular with the working classes. Beijing was the home of many politicians who came to study the “Chongqing” model. One of them was Xi Jinping, a rising star. Bo, who had been building his power base for years was then brought to a halt by an extraordinary tale that combined corruption, murder and international intrigue that rocked China in 2012. He is currently serving life imprisonment. However, his Chongqing model was arguably the prototype of what Xi would soon unleash across China. Xi was a princeling – the child of Xi Zhongxun (one of Mao’s lieutenants), who had been purged, but later rehabilitated. Colleagues described the younger Xi, who was humble, self-disciplined, hardworking, but otherwise unremarkable. There was little to no hint of what was to follow even as he was about to be promoted to general secretary of Communist Party. The corruption had reached the highest echelons by the time Xi was elected to lead the party in 2012. This was a terrifying event for party elders, who saw it as a serious threat. However, it also gave Xi an opportunity as a savior. They thought it would last three to six month, but it wasn’t just an anti-corruption campaign. It was a party rectification program, and it was to continue forever,” says Professor Steve Tsang, who heads the China Institute at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Hundreds of thousands of party members were investigated after Bo’s shocking fall. More than 100,000 people were indicted for corruption. This included 120 high-ranking officials. Corruption fell and Xi’s popularity soared. He now had the ammunition to defeat his most powerful political rivals. Zhou Yongkang was arrested by him in 2014. Zhou Yongkang, who had been a member the politburo standing commission and one of China’s most powerful men, was ordered his arrest in 2014. Zhou was also convicted in 2015. This was unprecedented in post-Mao times. McGregor states that McGregor believes the party elders had some buyer’s remorse. Many have compared Xi to Mao because of his ruthless and dramatic consolidations of power. Mao’s destructiveness was not rooted in his desire for a socialist utopia. What is Xi trying to build? Prof Karl says that there is nothing Mao would recognize. Prof Karl says that China today does not have any socialist characteristics. A socialist must have a sense of class democracy, justice, hierarchy, and anti-hierarchy if they are to be considered a true socialist. None of this is part of Xi Jinping thought. Source: Getty Images. The only thing that remains of Mao-era China’s past is the party. She says that Xi is truly concerned about this. He believes that China cannot remain competitive in a world of hyper-competitive capitalism, and an intense arms race with the United States. Therefore, he supports the Communist Party as the only way to keep it relevant. Channelling the Great Helmsman. Nothing gives legitimacy to the Communist Party like Mao, the iconic revolutionary whose portrait still dominates Tiananmen Square where he declared the founding of China’s People’s Republic of China. His ruinous legacy was covered with reverence. Xi now has every opportunity to channel Mao. He even takes his titles – Great Helmsman People’s Leader, Chairman, and Great Helmsman. But he has a bigger goal. Prof Tsang said that Xi looks up to the great emperors. He is huge in his ambition. According to Prof Tsang, Xi’s goal is a glorious mythical Chinese culture – tian xia, or “all under Heaven”. A united China that is home for a united people. Prof Tsang explains, “The Chinese patriot means someone who loves China, its Communist Party leader and its leader.” “And by Chinese, he means Han culture.” There is almost no room to accommodate diversity in Xi’s China. 12 million Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang are being forcibly assimilated. Similar programs are underway in Tibet and Inner Mongolia. McGregor states that Xi’s policies – the reeducation camps – are designed to make them more Chinese than Uyghur. “It’s cultural genocide.” This is a stark contrast to Mao’s idea for a multi-ethnic nation where different groups could have more autonomy. Xi’s father was also known for his ability to reconcile and respect China’s ethnic minorities. His son, however, is driving an ethno-nationalism that seeks out to unify the Chinese at home and drive away foreign power who, according to Beijing, are trying to encircle China and weaken it. In November 2015, I flew from Palawan, Philippines in a small single-engine Cessna. Our destination was the Philippine-controlled atoll of Pagasa, 400 miles away in the middle of the South China Sea. Our goal was to pass near a Chinese military base built on an artificial island high above “mischief reef”. As we approached, the runway outline and the 9km-long artificial island became apparent. The radio rang out in Chinese and English, with a warning in Chinese: “Foreign military plane in northwest Mischief Reef, this the Chinese Navy!” You are about to enter Chinese airspace. To avoid further action, turn around and immediately leave! We were a civilian plane flying in international airspace. It didn’t matter. These South China Sea islands were only the most visible and daring of Xi’s moves to control the near abroad. Taiwan could be next. McGregor states that China is doing all kinds of things it has always wanted but was not able to do. “Taiwan was always present. The South China Sea was always there. Although they had a goal to take on America and drive it out of Asia, they didn’t speak it loudly. China now says it loudly and its “wolf fighter” diplomats, named for a patriotic action movie franchise, are on the verbal offensive. This is hugely popular in China. Susan Shirk, a China expert who worked under former US President Bill Clinton, says that Xi’s policies only create the hostile world he claims he’s defending. “Picking up fights with your neighbors. Plans to build large artificial islands, and fortify them by military installations. Increasing pressure on Japan, Taiwan. She says it’s a form of self-encirclement that Chinese Foreign Policy has produced.” China’s brazenness is due to its extraordinary power as the world’s largest marketplace and factory. It seems unstoppable and poised to challenge the US as the world’s largest economy. Covid then threw a wrench in the works. A Chinese friend spent 83 nights alone in a Shanghai hotel room earlier this year. He said, “It drives me crazy.” It’s a mix of anger and depression. After a while, you feel like your body cannot breathe. Your body begins to shut down. It’s the same every day. It’s almost as if time has stopped. He was caught in China’s longest and most severe Covid lockdown. It was supposed that it would last for four days, then four more, and then another four. Soon, the hotel staff stopped telling him. Professor Dali Yang from Chicago University, who has been studying the zero Covid policy Xi personally endorsed, says “It’s amazing China continues these lockdowns for such a long time – they are incredibly wrenching.” Prof Yang said that the lockdowns were justified in the first year of Covid. They were short and allowed China to continue its normal life. The pride in China’s handling of the pandemic was something that was celebrated. He says, “That’s not the case anymore.” The 2% drop in economic growth is the lowest in over three decades. China’s property market has fallen in free fall. Youth unemployment is at 20%. Trade wars with the US are not helping. Anger has been building. My Shanghai friend recalls that “every night after midnight people would start to share video clips on social media.” “They vented their anger at the Communist Party, including at the top leaders. They spoke out about how cruel and heartless this system is. Getty Images, Image source. The video clips were quickly removed. Although the internet is immediately free from criticism or dissent, the fury over zero-Covid was palpable. Even rare signs of protest were visible for a few moments before they were silenced. It is hard to deny that millions upon millions of Chinese hold Xi responsible for China’s cruel lockdowns. Fear and loyalty have led to “over-compliance with and over-implementation” of what Xi originally wanted, Ms Shirk states. It seems to have paid off. Li Qiang, Shanghai’s party chief, was elevated to premier and Xi’s second-in command. Xi is now surrounded by loyalists and has no heir in sight. He is now in command of a wealthier country with a far more powerful military. The world is now uncertain about what to expect from China for the first time. Xi has swept aside both the critical and cautious old guard. “In the past we could always count upon China’s leaders being pragmatic about their economic policy and prudent in their international policy. “We don’t see it now,” Ms Shirk states. Deng Xiaoping famously stated that China should “hide it’s capacity and wait its turn”. It is now. Xi declared, at the beginning his second term in 2017, that China had “stand up, grown rich, become stronger, and is moving towards center stage.” In 1949, Xi echoed Mao’s words at Tiananmen Square’s Gate of Heavenly Peace: “The Chinese People are standing up.” But Xi is not Mao’s China – and Xi has a far greater ambition for himself and his country than anything Mao could ever imagine. All accounts say that Mao was a destroyer who tore up the rule books not once, but several times. Xi is not anarchist – he’s not even a rebel. He doesn’t want to see his family destroyed by the chaos of Mao’s years to return. He wants to be the most powerful leader China’s ever had, and the Communist Party just gave him that victory.