Xi Jinping: The power and fragility of China's leader
With a simple sketch, he brings China's paramount leader to life...
As a panda.
"His characteristics suit the panda really well," says longtime political cartoonist and SCMP contributor Harry Harrison. "This big, chunky, robust, and cuddly dictator...
"He's like an unstoppable force."
Harrison is well known and admired in Hong Kong for his cutting cartoons, many of which include his furry go-to symbol for China.
And in a cartoon specially commissioned for CNN's "On China" program, Harrison depicts Chinese President Xi Jinping as the man inside the black-and-white fur suit.
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'Core' leader
There has been a recent push to anoint Xi as the "core" of China's Communist Party. Only a very few Chinese leaders have held this title, which officially designates him as a leader of extraordinary stature and unquestioned authority.
"Xi Jinping has been extremely successful in the past few years in building up his power base," says noted China watcher and Chinese University of Hong Kong professor Willy Lam.
"He is arguably more powerful than Deng Xiaoping."
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Affectionately called Xi Dada, or "Uncle Xi," he has been admired for advancing the "Chinese Dream" -- a vision of a stronger nation.
Xi Dada has also wielded his power to crack down on corruption, while alsotargeting human rights defenders and allegedly reining in dissent even beyond China's borders.
The Internet and traditional media have also been subjected to much tighter controls since Xi assumed power.
"He's aggregated a tremendous amount of power. He controls all these leading groups, the economy and foreign affairs so the buck stops with him," says Mike Chinoy, a senior fellow at the University of Southern California's U.S.-China Institute (and former CNN Beijing Bureau Chief).
"And there are a lot of people he has antagonized, waiting for him to do something wrong."
'House of Cards?'
During his first three years in power, Xi has launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign. And while the Chinese president himself maintains that his graft crackdown is no "House of Cards," observers continue to question his motives.
"The anti-corruption campaign has made him extremely popular with the masses in the last three years," says Wang Feng, editor-in-chief of FT Chinese, the Chinese-language version of the Financial Times.
"But I feel we are seeing a turning point very soon.
"Not only has it scared thousands of potentially corrupt officials within the party ranks, it's also stopped actual policymakers from doing their real jobs."
No one in the Party dares to step up and question China's man in charge, and world leaders seem equally reluctant to raise the issue of human rights and in fact welcome the Chinese leader -- and the world's second-largest economy -- with open arms.
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Since he came to power, Xi has visited more countries than Barack Obama. And with his glamorous first lady Peng Liyuan at his side, he has projected a confident image of a modern China on the world stage.
But as Xi projects China as a rising superpower eager to cut trade deals, he has also flexed China's muscles in the South China Sea -- generating tensions with his neighbors.
"Internationally, you have a kind of paradox here," says Chinoy.
"One one hand, Xi Jinping travels the world and gets wined and dined in Buckingham Palace, and goes to the developing world to unveil huge infrastructure projects."
"On the other hand, you have a very muscular assertion of China's own interests that has antagonized a lot of countries in the region."
News Courtesy: www.cnn.com
