Picture Credit : News.cn
China is currently the second largest economy in the world (in terms of GDP) just behind the US. China is one of the world’s leading superpowers, and they are on track to overtake the US to become the world’s most dominant economy. The influence that the leader of such a powerful nation has is immense, as they have the leverage to shape international politics and steer the direction of the world economy. Right now, the man that will likely wield that power for the foreseeable future is Xi Jinping.
Xi Jinping is set to announce his own historical resolution which will most likely consolidate his power as the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This is the first historical resolution to be unravelled in almost 40 years. The declaration is to be made at the Sixth Plenum which is an extremely important meeting attended by all of China’s top leadership such as ministers and senior generals. There are seven “plenum” meetings during a Central Committee’s term (the Central Committee consists of the leaders of the Communist party and new members are appointed every year). The sixth meeting is especially important as the focus is built around ideology and party building and this paves a way for leadership of the party to reshuffle.
Picture Credit: Global Times website
The past two historical resolutions were made to consolidate power and send a clear message to the party as to who was in charge. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping’s historical resolutions enabled them to dominate party politics until they passed. A historical resolution is an official summary of the party’s history and addresses leading political figures, key achievements, lessons learned and also gives directions for future policies.
Many see this move by Xi Jinping as a way to consolidate his power as the leader of the CCP. Wu Guoguang, a professor at the University of Victoria, comments “Xi definitely dominates the process of the shaping of this third historical resolution…He is imposing his viewpoints to become the framework within which party elites make their consensus”.
It is still uncertain what exactly this resolution will bring to the table, as its contents are highly guarded and unavailable to the public until a communique is published. Nevertheless, state media has been dropping hints by featuring Xi Jinping and his leadership in an abundance of articles. So, the historical resolution then is going to be more about the future than the past.
November 11th 2021 | 4:00 PM