The following is an article by Mr. Shi Ping that appeared in yesterday's Sankei Shimbun under the title "The Danger of the Reign of Emperor Xi Jinping."
China's People's Daily ran a remarkable article on its front page on the 1st.
It said that the members of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the secretary of the General Secretariat, and the heads of the party organizations of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the State Council, the Political Consultative Conference, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate had all made written reports on their duties to President Xi Jinping.
Since four years ago, it has been an "annual event" since four years ago that all members of the Politburo submit their job reports to General Secretary Xi. Still, now it has been expanded to the point that all Party organizations at the National People's Congress, the State Council, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate must submit their individual job reports to Xi himself. The Political Bureau was established four years ago.
This is the first time in the history of the CCP that all Politburo members have been required to submit individual job reports, and even Mao Zedong never requested or received such reports from the party and state leaders. According to the People's Daily, the job reports submitted by the top officials of the party and state to General Secretary Xi were uniformly "solemn and sincere," summarizing their work for the year, analyzing "shortcomings," and suggesting "directions to strive for" in the future.
In response, General Secretary Xi "seriously reviewed and examined" the reporters and made "important requests" to them.
As can be seen from this exchange between the two sides, the relationship between Mr. Xi and other leaders is no longer that of equal colleagues in the same leadership group.
Xi has become the leader, and all the other top leaders are guided and supervised by him.
On the other hand, Xi himself does not have to report to anyone, nor is he "supervised" by anyone.
He now reigns over the Party and the nation with the attitude of "self-righteousness above and below the heavens," as if he were the emperor of a dynasty.
What is going on now is not the "dictator-ification" of Xi as the "emperor-ification" of Xi.
Currently, what is going on is not so much Xi's "dictator-ification" as Xi's "emperor-ification."
He has become, in effect, an "emperor" like Mao Zedong.
However, "Emperor Xi" has one major weakness.
Mao Zedong had the enormous "achievement" of leading the Communist Party to victory in the civil war and founding China as we know it. He had overwhelming charisma as a leader, but Xi does not have that.
With only eight years at the top, he is really a "lightweight" compared to Mao Zedong.
That is why he has to play up his prominence by forcing other leaders to "report for duty.
But as he himself knows, staging alone does not guarantee that his position as "emperor" will be secure forever.
To be on par with his predecessor, Mao Zedong, Xi will have to create "achievements" that will rival those of Mao's founding.
To this end, as soon as he ascended to power, Mr. Xi came up with the grand slogan of "the great revival of the nation," so to speak, and has made it his banner.
Recently, he has been eyeing the Senkaku Islands' seizure, a territory of Japan, and the armed annexation of Taiwan as an important strategy for the "Great Revival of the Nation.
There is no one more dangerous to Asia and the world today than "Emperor Xi Jinping.
We must always be on guard against his rampage to achieve his ambitions.
