President Xi Jinping is facing a popular backlash at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) looks to strengthen the personality cult around the leader. Australian Liberal Senator Jim Molan has argued that President Xi currently faces a “record amount of dissatisfaction.” It comes as President Xi is elevated to the status as one of CCP’s three most respected leaders in China of all time.
Mr Molan told Sky News Australia: “There is a record amount of dissatisfaction within the Chinese people, expressed in a Chinese way, of course, which is very restricted.
“And this brings all the power into one person – why?
“Possibly because they need to control the country, the most controlled country.”
He added Mao Zedong would have “lusted” after such a level of control of a population. “
“Maybe because they need to control the population but maybe because they see, sometime in the next period of time, possibly three to five years … they need to go to the extreme and use military force – that’s what worries me,” Mr Molan said.
China’s ruling Communist Party approved a rare resolution on Thursday elevating President Jinping’s status in its history, in a move seen as consolidating his authority and likelihood of securing an unprecedented third leadership term next year.
The resolution on the party’s “achievements and historical experiences” since its founding 100 years ago was passed at the end of a four-day, closed-door meeting of more than 300 top leaders on its Central Committee, state media reported.
It puts President Xi on the same standing as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, two previous leaders who cemented their position as pre-eminent leader with the only other two such resolutions passed, in 1945 and 1981 respectively.
Commenting on the move Jude Blanchette, an expert on Chinese politics at Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the messaging around Xi from the party was assuming “cult-like features”.
Party delegates, seated in rows facing Xi, voted the resolution by a show of hand, news footage of the meeting on state television CCTV showed.
“Given the party’s emphasis on discipline and loyalty, the consequences of not supporting the resolution for any party member would be disastrous,” Yang Chaohui, a lecturer of political science at Peking University, told Reuters.
Xi is widely seen as China’s most powerful leader since Mao.