Trevor Filseth L
Chinese president Xi Jinping visited a public art exhibition in Beijing on Tuesday, according to the country’s state-run television network—proving false rumors last week that he had been placed under house arrest by a faction within the People’s Liberation Army.
Between his return from Uzbekistan earlier in the month and his appearance on Tuesday, Xi had not made any public appearances, fueling suspicions that he had been overthrown. The supposed coup would have occurred only one month before the Chinese leader is set to win an unprecedented third term in office, making him China’s longest-lasting leader since the country’s modern founder, Mao Zedong. The two-term limit was instituted by Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, who put it in place due to Mao’s excesses while in power. Criticism against Xi’s departure from this norm has largely been censored in the country, making many Chinese elites’ true feelings on the change difficult to determine.
Xi’s disappearance from the public eye also came amid a number of other crises, including a general slowdown in the country’s economy, continued lockdowns amid Beijing’s “zero-COVID” coronavirus control policy, and a series of public protests over bank failures in rural China. Prior to the first rumors of the coup, Beijing also convicted a number of former high-ranking Communist Party members on corruption charges, including former justice minister Fu Zhenghua, who was convicted of accepting a large bribe and sentenced to death. (Fu’s sentence was later commuted to life in prison.)
Xi ascended to office in 2012, succeeding controversial predecessor Hu Jintao. Under his rule, China has become increasingly assertive in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world, and Xi is often described as pioneering “wolf warrior diplomacy,” a foreign policy characterized by growing confrontations with the United States and its allies in Asia.
Ahead of his appointment to a third term in October, Beijing has issued statements describing Xi’s vision of a “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” It is unclear what this vision entails, but policy documents released by the Chinese government have emphasized the necessity of annexing Taiwan—described by one white paper as the final holdover from the country’s “warlord era” during the 1920s—as a precursor to achieving the rejuvenation.
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