Xi who must be obeyed

WHEN US vice president Joe Biden visited China last August, he spent many hours bonding with his Beijing counterpart, Xi Jinping.

At one point, Mr Xi told Mr Biden that his father, a former vice-premier, and relatives had suffered during China’s chaotic Cultural Revolution. The official Chinese interpreter apparently was so flummoxed by Mr Xi’s comment that he never translated it into English.

Such eyebrow-raising candour is rare. But “Xi communicates quite easily with foreign leaders,” said one European diplomat who met him last year. “He’s quite critical about the Cultural Revolution, saying there were mistakes made. I found that striking.”

Mr Xi, heir to China’s presidency, is the first among equals in a younger generation of Chinese leaders poised to take centre stage during the Communist Party’s transfer of power this year.

The so-called Fifth Generation, led by Mr Xi, will move up in what’s slated to be the biggest political turnover in the history of the People’s Republic of China. During this autumn’s 18th party congress, more than 60% of personnel will change within the 370-member Central Committee.

The party is composed of two increasingly competitive coalitions, referred to as “populists” and “elitists”. The populists, led by President Hu, rely on a powerful network of cadres in the Communist Youth League. Their policies aim to ameliorate the growing gap between China’s haves and have-nots. Elitists are known for their free-market economic views and favouring coastal export industries. They include many “princelings” like Mr Xi, who are offspring of former high-level cadres.

The unusual nature of this rivalry was evident in the way Mr Xi became heir apparent during the 17th party congress in 2007. Mr Hu had handpicked a different heir, Li Keqiang. But the elitist camp objected. The choice was determined by a secret poll among grassroots and senior cadres, and it turned out Mr Xi “got the highest vote”.

In some ways, Mr Xi has been on a leadership trajectory for his entire life. He was born in 1953, growing up in Zhongnanhai, the compound where senior Chinese leaders reside.

His father, Xi Zhongxun, is best known as the architect of China’s quasi-capitalist “special economic zones”, launched more than three decades ago in the era of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. But life wasn’t without its perils for the family. Xi senior was purged three times under Mao Zedong and spent 16 years in detention. According to unconfirmed accounts, Mr Xi’s half-sister died during the Cultural Revolution.

He was nine when his father was first detained. Several years later, he joined millions of other urban youth “sent down” to rural communes.

Mr Xi arrived in Liangjiahe village, in Shaanxi province in 1969. Within five years, he joined the Communist Party and embraced life on the farm. Learning that peasants in a neighbouring province were using bio-gas to fuel their stoves, he travelled there to buy up the requisite hardware. The sight of a princeling working with pig manure so impressed his rural comrades, or so the story goes, that they made Mr Xi their village party head and recommended that he be allowed to study chemical engineering at Tsinghua University. After his departure, Xi kept in touch with some of his peasant comrades, sending money to one who’d broken his leg.

Mao’s death in 1976 ushered in reforms, and Mr Xi’s family was back in favour. During a 17-year stint in Fujian, across the narrow strait from Taiwan, he coined the slogan ‘mashang jiu ban’ (do it now), boosted cross-strait trade, and bonded with Taiwanese executives.

Mr Xi struck Mr Biden and others as a leader with whom the US can work. For his part, Mr Xi remarked that “our commitment to the development of the Sino-US cooperative partnership should never waver in the face of passing developments”.

The biggest trick of Mr Xi’s presidency could be balancing a friendly relationship with Washington against China’s complex domestic politics. Already, analysts believe he’s had to counter the perception that he’s too pro- Western. They point to a 2009 visit to Mexico when Mr Xi slammed countries trying to pressure Beijing, at the very moment when the US was prodding China to revalue its currency. Complicating matters, Mr Xi will need the support of the generals “to consolidate his power,” says analyst Willy Wo-Lap Lam.

Will Mr Xi be able to bridge the rifts within his own party? His princeling roots and free-market prowess make him appealing to the elitists, while his farm years make him more acceptable to populists.

His image is aided among ordinary Chinese by his wife, singer Peng Liyuan, who is possibly more famous than her husband.

But Mr Xi is hardly invincible. China faces alarming inflation, a property bubble and massive local government debt. Mr Xi’s status as a compromise character means he lacks the institutionalised political backing of some of his rivals.

“Xi lacks his own people in senior positions in the party,” says Li. “In some ways, he’s very much on his own.”

* (c) 2012 Newsweek/Daily Beast