Xi Jinping presents Mao-era “criticism and self-criticism” to leading Communist Party members

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Mr. Xi is reviving chapters of Mao’s playbook as he is set to enter an unprecedented third term next year and ultimately rule indefinitely.

The self-criticism sessions reinforce the idea that China is no longer following the collective leadership model put in place by former leader Deng Xiaoping to avoid the mistakes of the Mao era, said Steve Tsang, director of SOAS China Institute from the University of London.

“Xi didn’t self-criticize – that’s the important point,” Tsang said. “In other words, everyone would have done something wrong except Xi Jinping, who can’t do anything wrong.”

Mr. Tsang said the self-criticism sessions also marked the end of internal political debates at the highest levels of the Communist Party, removing checks and balances and paving the way for potentially serious mistakes.

“Now everything depends on Xi Jinping to get it right, and Xi Jinping is not God,” he said.

The meeting comes after the committee last month passed a resolution essentially rewriting the country’s history to underscore its glory while erasing tragedies such as widespread violence and famine brought on by Mao’s policies or bloody suppression of protesters. pro-democracy in 1989.

Only Mao and Deng before Mr. Xi had passed such historic resolutions. Experts say the resolution cemented Mr. Xi’s future as the country’s leader for decades to come.

Rana Mitter, professor of Chinese history and politics at the University of Oxford, said the self-criticism sessions are also reminiscent of another Mao era, the “rectification period” between 1942 and 1944, which marked Mao’s own consolidation of power within the Communist Party. .

During this period, people who wanted to prove themselves worthy of party membership had to study ideological texts and then criticize themselves through the prism of the text “in an extremely intense way,” Mitter said.

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