Latest news with #XiZhongxun

LeMonde

15-07-2025

Politics
LeMonde

Xi: The father, the son and the party

In the spring of 1967, the Cultural Revolution was in full swing in China. At a reeducation center for families of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres, a denunciation session targeted "black" individuals − those labeled as "bad elements" under the Mao era. Six people were targeted that day: five adults and one teenager, the son of Xi Zhongxun (1913-2002), the former propaganda chief and vice-premier who had fallen victim to a brutal purge. The humiliating metal dunce cap he was forced to wear, since his father had been accused of disloyalty to Mao Zedong (1893-1976), was so heavy that the 13-year-old boy had to hold it up with his hands. Facing him, the assembly, fists raised, shouted "Down with Xi Jinping!" and his mother had no choice but to follow suit. The boy was soon sent to a juvenile reeducation center. He had only summer clothes with no lining and slept directly on the freezing floor when winter arrived. He was covered in lice and was sick, later confiding that he wondered if he would survive.

New Statesman

14-07-2025

Politics
New Statesman

Xi Jinping's daddy issues

Xi Jinping was born into the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) equivalent of royalty. As the son of Xi Zhongxun, one of the first generation of CCP revolutionaries, he was educated at a prestigious boarding school in Beijing where he underwent military training intended to inspire the offspring of high-ranking cadres 'to give their lives to the desire to struggle', and read books such as Be a Successor to the Revolution. But the future Chinese leader's real political education began at the age of nine, when his father was purged from the party elite by Mao Zedong in 1962, and the Xi family was plunged into the violence and chaos of the Cultural Revolution. The elder Xi's downfall was triggered by his decision to support, albeit reluctantly, the publication of a novel about the life of Liu Zhidan, his former comrade and mentor, which was held to contradict the party's version of history. This might sound like a trivial matter, but as Joseph Torigian explains in The Party's Interests Come First, the first English-language biography of Xi Zhongxun, the past was a 'battlefield' for the CCP. Xi's political rivals seized the opportunity to move against the then vice premier and Mao agreed that he was guilty of 'anti-party activities'. During the years that followed, what had started as an attack on Xi transformed into a 'full-scale assault on cadres from the north-west', writes Torigian, with an estimated 20,000 people targeted as part of the 'Xi Zhongxun anti-party clique', of whom at least 200 were 'beaten to death, driven mad, or seriously injured'. Xi later described his disorientation at being persecuted by the organisation to which he had previously devoted his life as feeling like 'a person who fell off an 18-floor building'. When the Cultural Revolution ignited four years later in 1966, as Mao exhorted his zealous young followers – the Red Guards – to tear down what he saw as the remaining institutional resistance to his great revolution, Xi was targeted as a 'class enemy'. He was kidnapped by a group of Red Guards from the mining-tool factory where he had been working – he had requested the opportunity to 'transform myself into a new ordinary labourer in the style of Mao Zedong' while the Liu Zhidan case was being investigated – and subjected to repeated 'struggle' sessions. These included being forced to stand on stage with his head bowed and his body bent over in the 'jet-plane' position, with his arms twisted behind him, as the crowd screamed abuse and sometimes kicked and punched him as a purported 'counter-revolutionary'. He was held in various forms of confinement and not permitted to see his family for the next eight years. The supposed sins of the father were also visited on his children. One of his daughters, Xi Heping, hanged herself during the campaign after apparently being 'persecuted to death'. Xi Jinping, who was 13 at the start of the Cultural Revolution, was derided as 'a bastard' and a 'reactionary' by fellow students. In the spring of 1967, he was denounced at a mass rally in Beijing, where he stood on the stage in front of the jeering crowd, a slightly built teenager alongside a group of adults. 'Because of his young age, Jinping had trouble with the humiliating heavy steel cap they were all forced to put on their heads as part of the spectacle,' Torigian writes. 'He had to hold it onto his head with his hands.' Xi Jinping's mother was in the crowd, standing just a few feet from her son during the ordeal. 'When the slogan 'Down with Xi Jinping' was shouted, she too raised her hands and yelled along with everyone else,' apparently afraid that she, too, would be arrested and taken away from her remaining children if she was deemed insufficiently loyal. When he turned up on her doorstep one rainy night begging for food, having managed to run away from the school where he was being held, she sent him away and then personally reported him to the authorities. In January 1969, at the age of 15, he joined the millions of other 'sent-down' youths who were dispatched to the countryside to learn from the peasants during the Cultural Revolution. He boarded the train in Beijing carrying a 'bag knit by his mother bearing the words 'Mother's heart''. Yet these experiences did not prompt either father or son to turn away from the party. After Mao died in 1976 and the worst excesses of the campaign were formally pinned on the Gang of Four, a group of senior officials – which included Mao's widow – Xi Zhongxun was welcomed back into the party leadership. During the era of 'reform and opening up' that followed under Deng Xiaoping, Xi was given responsibility for overseeing China's first special economic zone in the coastal province of Guangdong, which included what is today the global manufacturing hub of Shenzhen. He served in senior roles for the next 15 years, retiring in 1993 at the age of 79. Xi Jinping appears to have been equally determined to demonstrate his unwavering commitment to the CCP. He applied repeatedly for membership in the years that followed, finally succeeding on his eighth attempt. Both men later related their suffering as a valuable process of 'forging' and strengthening their willpower and dedication to the party. As Torigian recounts, 'when people complained about party policies, Xi [Zhongxun] often bragged about his hardships to delegitimise their grumblings… [He] even boasted to a Western historian that although Deng Xiaoping had suffered at the hands of the party on three occasions, he had been persecuted five times.' Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe The younger Xi has similarly mythologised the years he spent labouring in rural China as a 'sent-down' youth, claiming to have drawn inspiration from the 19th-century Russian novel What Is to Be Done? by Nikolai Chernyshevsky, whose protagonist sleeps on a bed of nails to forge his own sense of willpower. Whereas many of Xi's generation emerged from the Cultural Revolution determined to make up for lost time by turning their attention to 'romantic relationships, drink, movies and Western literature as a release from the hardships of the time', as one US embassy cable reported. '[Xi Jinping] chose to survive by becoming redder than red.' While many observers have since questioned why the future leader would remain so loyal to an institution that had persecuted him and his family, Torigian argues that this fundamentally misses the point. 'Perhaps the better question is: how could Jinping betray the party for which his father had sacrificed so much?' [See also: The People's Republic of iPhone] Xi Zhongxun grew up in a peasant family in Shaanxi, a province of north-west China, where he was born in 1913, less than two years after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. He was drawn to communism at school, enraged by the abject poverty he saw around him, and took part in a plot to poison a local school administrator at the age of 14 (they chose the wrong bowl and succeeded in sickening several teachers instead). Xi was arrested and sent to prison, where he sharpened his knowledge of 'revolutionary principles'. His father and mother both died shortly afterwards, which he attributed in part to the anguish they suffered during his incarceration. Xi had to arrange for his mother's remains to be stored in a 'cheap coffin' for two years before he could afford to pay for a funeral. Two of his sisters then died during a famine. Reflecting on this period in his diary more than 60 years later, Xi recalled how his younger brothers and sisters had come to rely on him and he had wanted them 'to live like human beings'. As he concluded: 'The influence of this year on me was truly great, and it established the basis for a life of revolution.' He first encountered Mao in 1935, when the Red Army arrived in Shaanxi at the end of the Long March, the gruelling year-long retreat under fire from south-eastern China to what would become its new revolutionary base in the north-west. He credited Mao with saving his life, claiming that he would have been buried alive within days as part of an internal party purge – presaging the bitter intra-party struggles that would shape his later life – if the CCP leader had not appeared when he did. (Torigian is sceptical of this account, concluding that Xi's death was not imminent and that he likely overstated Mao's role, which in turn became part of the CCP's mythology.) Still, Xi proved his loyalty and his utility to Mao, fighting in the Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War in the years that followed. In recognition of his efforts, Mao presented him with a white cloth on which he had written: 'The party's interests come first.' Torigian writes that the cloth 'became one of Xi's most treasured possessions'. After the communists' victory in the Civil War in 1949, Xi Zhongxun rose swiftly through the ranks to the 'very top echelon' of the new People's Republic of China. Despite – or perhaps because of – the privileges the family now enjoyed, he enforced frugality and strict discipline among his children. Xi Jinping, who was born in 1953, the third child of his second marriage, was required to kowtow before his father during annual Lunar New Year celebrations. If he failed to perform the ritual according to his father's exacting standards, he was spanked. He later recounted how the children had bathed in their father's used bathwater, which he had also required them to use to wash their clothes, before the bathtub could finally be drained. This abstemious approach applied to mealtimes too. Torigian describes one occasion when the ageing Xi Zhongxun abandoned his attempt to chew a tough piece of garlic rib, passing 'a piece that had already been in his mouth to Jinping [who was then in his thirties and already rising through the CCP ranks] to finish – which he promptly did'. 'Actually, eating with me is a form of suffering,' Xi Jinping remarked during an interview in 2001. 'I am the son of a peasant. I have never been picky about eating, and, moreover, I never allow people to leave any leftovers.' Most importantly, the elder Xi also instilled in his children the need to 'make revolution in the future'. As his son recalled, 'we heard so much about this that our ears got calluses.' Writing to his father on his 88th birthday in October 2001 – seven months before Xi Zhongxun died and just over a decade before he himself ascended to the leadership of the CCP – Xi Jinping reflected on the lessons he had learned from the older man's life. 'No matter whether you were libelled or you were in a difficult situation, in your heart, you continuously had a bright lantern that always lit the correct path forward,' he wrote. 'When people yelled at us for being bastards, I always stubbornly believed that my father was a great hero, that he was a father most worthy of feeling proud of.' Compared to his example, he confessed, 'I am too mediocre, and I am blushed with shame.' He vowed to 'respectfully study father' in his future life and work, signing the letter, 'Son. Jinping. Kowtow.' This book is an extraordinary work of scholarship. The list of Chinese-language sources alone runs to nearly 40 pages, many of which have been rendered into English for the first time. It is not for the faint of heart, running to more than 700 pages and tracing the precise contours of the complex intra-party debates and intrigues that spanned Xi Zhongxun's adult life. While nominally a biography of the elder Xi, the book is also an important history of the CCP's bloody struggle for power in the past century and the world that shaped Xi Jinping. Indeed, it is striking how recent many of these tumultuous events are – well within living memory for China's current leadership. Perhaps above all else, The Party's Interests Come First is a study in the nature of political power – what it means to have it, the complexities and fallibility of those who wield it, and how quickly it can slip away. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that has tended to portray Xi Zhongxun as a 'reformer' whose family suffered terribly under Mao Zedong, and whose son was therefore once expected to pursue economic reform, perhaps even a degree of political liberalisation when he took over, the truth was always more complicated. 'All the 'characters' in this book, not only Xi [Zhongxun] but also the people whom he despised, were full of contradictions,' writes Torigian. 'They were both victims and perpetrators.' In fact, he concludes, 'Xi's life is a powerful statement about the misleading nature of grand narratives.' His son, presumably, would agree. 'For people who rarely encounter power and are distant from it, they always see things as very mysterious and fresh,' Xi Jinping remarked in 2000, as he reflected on the connection between his family's experiences and his own political career. 'But… I didn't just see power, flowers, glory, and applause. I also saw the cowsheds [where people were confined during the Cultural Revolution] and the fickleness of the world. I have a deeper understanding of politics.' From an early age, he learned that when you lose power, you stand to lose everything. Maybe that is why he now seems so determined to hold on to it at all costs. The Party's Interests Come First : The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping Joseph Torigian Stanford University Press, 718pp, £42 Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from who support independent bookshops [See also: Britain faces another showdown with the bond market] Related

Chinese President Xi Jinping's Tough Childhood Revealed in New Book: Excerpt

Newsweek

25-06-2025

Politics
Newsweek

Chinese President Xi Jinping's Tough Childhood Revealed in New Book: Excerpt

Chinese President Xi Jinping's father, Xi Zhongxun, was a Communist Party official for more than seven decades—from the Communist Revolution through the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square protests and beyond. In the first English biography of Xi Zhongxun, The Party's Interests Come First, Professor Joseph Torigian uncovers the story of his life and of the modern Communist Party—and sheds light on the formative influences on Xi Jinping. This excerpt from Torigian's deeply researched book talks about the family's home life. Xi Zhongxun with his sons Jinping (left) and Yuanping (center), 1958. Xi Zhongxun with his sons Jinping (left) and Yuanping (center), 1958. Xi Zhongxun huace At work, Xi Zhongxun faced a dizzying array of policy challenges and the vicissitudes of his own shifting fortunes. But in party culture, home life was no escape from the political. Everything from schooling and leisure to clothes and food in the Xi household were shaped by broader preoccupations within the elite. Aaron Solts, the Soviet Union's most famous theorist of Bolshevik ethics, had asserted that "the family of a Communist must be a prototype of a small Communist cell" and "must, in all their work and life, represent a unit of assistance to the Party." Domesticity presented an existential challenge to the Communist war on bourgeois weakness and materialism. Having fought decades of war to establish a transformational regime, party leaders in China were proud of what they had achieved yet concerned about their families losing the revolutionary élan that had proven so instrumental. The leadership, including Xi, worried that the next generation would grow up spoiled and separated from the so-called masses. Before he arrived in Beijing in 1953—well before the one-child policy—Xi was already a father to three surviving children with his first wife (a son, Zhengning, and two daughters, Heping and Qianping), as well as two daughters with Qi Xin (Qiaoqiao and An'an). Two more sons, Jinping and Yuanping, were born in the capital in 1953 and 1955, respectively. All the children lived at school during the week. Qiaoqiao, An'an, Jinping and Yuanping all went to middle school at the August 1 School, where the students were primarily the children of high-ranking military, not political, figures. One graduate described the school as a place where "softness and delicateness were especially despised." Although it was tough, the August 1 School was also an exciting place. The students "were full of resolution to give their lives to the desire to struggle, the will to serve, the collective spirit and sincere beliefs and traditional pursuits, and at the same time, they were full to the brim with the special confidence and pride of victors," according to one former student. The education system emphasized class struggle, teaching that enemies could be lurking behind any problem, that anyone could be an enemy, and that such enemies were to be treated viciously. During political-education class, they read books such as Be a Successor to the Revolution, which in Jinping's own words "influenced the idealistic beliefs and life choices of our generation." Graduates of the school credit the education there with giving them the spiritual power not to lose hope during the dark times that were to come during the Cultural Revolution. In 2003, an interviewer bluntly asked whether Xi Jinping had enjoyed a privileged lifestyle as a child. Xi responded: "It can be put this way: there were no worries about clothes or food, but my father's demands upon us made us live very frugally." As an example, Xi said that he was forced to wear the clothes of his older sisters as hand-me-downs. He tried to depict his own family as especially thrifty, but in doing so, he also revealed the "privileges" he enjoyed when participating in activities with the party elite: "At the Lunar New Year, we participated in several evening parties; when we went to the Great Hall of the People or to Tiananmen Square, the staffers would ask whose children were wearing such run-down clothing? Those who understood would reply that we were the children of the Xi family." Xi did spend time with his children on weekends. By several accounts, Xi was a ferocious disciplinarian. Even Qi Xin wrote: "Sometimes, I really believed that your demands on the children were too strict." Xi's children often spoke of their father's thriftiness. Qianping wrote: "When we were little, none of us were willing to eat at the same table as father. We were terrified of his strict rules on frugality.... For example, when eating, he never allowed us to drop a single piece of rice or bits of food; if we were not careful and dropped any food, he would immediately pick it up and eat it." In 2001, Jinping told two interviewers at the end of a conversation that he would not ask them to stay and eat. "Actually, eating with me is a form of suffering," he said. "I am the son of a peasant. I have never been picky about eating, and, moreover, I never allow people to leave any leftovers." Xi's harshness also included physical punishment. In his diaries, Li Rui described a conversation with Ren Zhongyi—who would later succeed Xi as party boss of Guangdong—in March 1998: "[We] discussed how Xi raised his three sons; he was extremely brutal based on feudal rules of etiquette that included beatings." Journalist John Garnaut, who has conducted extensive interviews with elite political families in China, writes: "Xi Zhongxun, despite his noble exterior, drank too much and would occasionally explode with anger. His children were sometimes on the receiving end of his anger, according to a close family friend who witnessed such occasions." According to another journalist with deep ties in Beijing, on one occasion, Xi was so angry that he lined up his children, as well as the child of another high-ranking leader, and struck them one by one. Xi was tougher than most, but his behavior was still reflective of the context of the times. Many "cadre offspring" deeply worried their parents because they played too much and did not study hard. The Xi household was not the only "Red aristocratic" family in which children would kowtow; many elite families had such strict protocols. When a friend asked Xi why he was so cruel, he responded: "I do not do this to make them fear me. It is to make them feel a sense of awe and veneration for heaven and earth so that, from a young age, they have understood that one cannot act in an anarchic fashion." Children who did not respect their parents were a disaster when they entered society. But Xi had a softer side too. On one occasion, he carried Jinping on his head. When Jinping started urinating on him, Zhongxun waited patiently until Jinping had finished. Xi believed that when children were urinating, they should not be frightened, otherwise they will "have an illness for the rest of their life." Xi and Qi Xin would help their children jump rope, and they played "horse" on their father's back. Although the children feared their father, they cherished the time with him. In Qiaoqiao's words: "I was happiest at those times, but the time we had together with father and mother was truly too little." The Party's Interests Come First - The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping The Party's Interests Come First - The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping Courtesy of Stanford University Press Excerpted from The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping, published by Stanford University Press, ©2025 by Joseph Torigian. All Rights Reserved.

CGTN: Xi Jinping's Leadership Rooted In His Father's Legacy

Barnama

16-06-2025

Politics
Barnama

CGTN: Xi Jinping's Leadership Rooted In His Father's Legacy

KUALA LUMPUR, June 16 (Bernama) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's leadership approach has been shaped in part by the influence and example of his late father, Xi Zhongxun, according to a feature published by China Global Television Network (CGTN) in conjunction with Father's Day. According to CGTN in a statement, the article reflects on how values imparted by Xi Zhongxun—particularly a commitment to serving the people and relying on grassroots research—have left a lasting impact on his son's governance philosophy. During a 2021 visit to Suide in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, where Xi Zhongxun had once worked, President Xi recited a line attributed to his father: 'Sit upright at the side of the people.' The phrase is now displayed at a local exhibition hall and is described by CGTN as reflecting a people-first approach that has influenced Xi's leadership. Xi Zhongxun was known for his close ties to local communities and hands-on approach to problem-solving. Villagers reportedly turned to him for guidance, a testament to the trust he built, and that this legacy of community engagement is evident in President Xi's own work style. Over the years, President Xi has made frequent visits to rural areas across China, often meeting residents in their homes, listening to their concerns, and discussing development initiatives. He has consistently underscored the importance of improving people's livelihoods. The CGTN report also highlights the importance both father and son placed on investigation and research. In the late 1970s, Xi Zhongxun conducted extensive field studies in Guangdong Province and played a key role in supporting early economic reforms. Since assuming national leadership in 2012, President Xi has carried out more than 100 grassroots inspections. He has used these visits to better understand local conditions, explain policy, and incorporate public feedback into planning and decision-making. The article quotes a powerful message from Xi Zhongxun to his son: 'No matter what your job title is, serve the people diligently, consider the interests of the people with all your heart, maintain close ties with the people, and always stay approachable to the people.' These words, the article suggests, continue to resonate in President Xi's approach to leadership, and the values of public service and practical research—passed from father to son—remain central to his policy direction and his broader vision for national development.

CGTN: From Father To Son: The Enduring Values Guiding Xi Jinping