In the two years since he was named general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping has moved swiftly to consolidate his personal grip on political power. Xi has established “leading small groups,” which he chairs, to handle the most pressing domestic and foreign policy problems. Similarly, he has used speeches and skillfully orchestrated appearances to make himself the public face of the regime and its unquestioned leader. At his direction,the Party-State apparatus has launched a series of well-publicized corruption investigations targeting high-ranking civilian and military officials.
By most accounts, Xi now exerts greater control over the Chinese system than any leader since Deng Xiaoping. A recent analysis in the New York Times quotes an unnamed Chinese academic as describing Xi as the “emperor,” while calling his colleagues on the Politburo Standing Committee merely “six assistants.” The notion that China is governed by a true “collective leadership” is now little more than a polite fiction.