‘Uncle Xi’ to Exalted Ruler: China’s Leader Embodies His Authoritarian Era

Chris Buckley

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In his first years as China’s leader, Xi Jinping paid for his own steamed dumplings in a cheap diner, casually rolled up his trouser legs to avoid splashes in the rain, and was serenaded with sugary pop tunes. His image-makers cast him as “Xi Dada,” the people’s firm but genial “Uncle Xi.”

How vastly different now. A decade on, Mr. Xi looms over the country like a stern Communist monarch, reflecting on China’s fallen ancient dynasties and determined to win its lasting ascendancy in a turbulent world.

Chinese officials praise his speeches like hallowed texts, professing loyalty with a fervor that sometimes echoes Mao Zedong’s era. Privately mocking Mr. Xi can lead to prison. His public encounters are regimented displays of acclaim.

A Communist Party congress opening Sunday is shaping up to be Mr. Xi’s imperial moment, strengthening and extending his rule, while also intensifying the long-term hazards from his singular dominance. At the meeting in Beijing, he seems sure of winning a third term as the party’s general secretary, breaking with recent expectations that Chinese leaders would reign for around a decade.

“The certainty will really only be in the arrangements at the topmost level, that his power is beyond challenge, but beneath that we’ll face a great many uncertainties,” Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing, said in an interview.

The evolution of Mr. Xi’s public face has paralleled his transformation of China into a proudly authoritarian state, scornful of criticism from Washington, increasingly sure that Western democracy has lost its allure, and impatient for a bigger say in shaping the 21st-century global order.

The party congress will be Mr. Xi’s stage to demonstrate that he remains undaunted, despite the recent economic malaise, Covid outbreaks and increasing animosity with the United States, which has labeled China a national security threat. He is likely to tell the 2,296 congress delegates that his government has saved many lives through its strict “zero Covid” policy; shifted the economy onto a path of cleaner, fairer and more efficient growth; raised China’s international standing; and made big strides in military modernization.

“He wants to show that he’s determined to do big things,” said Neil Thomas, an analyst of Chinese politics for the Eurasia Group. “He sees his historical role as breaking the historical cycle of dynastic rise and fall so the Communist Party remains in power pretty much forever.”