1 meter and 78 centimeters high. Or maybe 1.80. Almost always seems a little higher in photographs. 69 years old. Divorced. Remarried to one of China’s most famous folk opera singers. A 31-year-old daughter that he doesn’t like the outside world writing or talking about so much. We know quite a bit about Xi Jinping. We can put together pieces to create a kind of profile, but there is a lot we don’t know. What is Xi laughing at? We cannot be sure that he is a person who can laugh at himself. We don’t know what he really thinks about balloons. If Xi Jinping were to be completely honest, he would have thought that Biden had been a cooler friend than Putin. Last year, The Economist magazine named Xi Jinping the world’s most powerful man. Joe Biden may be president of the world’s most powerful country, but the American president shares power with several elected officials from two parties and an independent court that may think differently from the president. Xi Jinping is party leader of a party with 95 million members, president and supreme leader of 1.4 billion inhabitants. And as China’s state-controlled media always add in every article about Xi – and there are many of them – also head of China’s military commission. If Xi is the world’s most powerful man? Then the question forces itself to the fore. Who can whisper in Xi’s ear? Who is he listening to? A small group of older men? The wife? The daughter? The young ones? The people? While we wonder, Xi is about to put the final touches on an extremely ambitious power structure. In the autumn, Xi, as the first leader after Chairman Mao, secured a third term as China’s supreme leader and went on to replace the entire Communist Party and China’s top leadership group with his loyal supporters. When you see pictures from the Great Hall of the People in Beijing this week, you see the actual final game for power. It’s the People’s Congress in Beijing. We will see China’s new prime minister. Those most interested in China will follow closely those who have been given the management jobs for the most important cities. If any of them get Xi’s ear, we can see who is competing to be his heir. But what about the people? Do they have Xi’s ear? For a few days at the turn of November – December, many Chinese asked this question? They were collectively stunned. In Beijing, a few thousand young students were tired after a long night on the town. They had protested. The young people held up blank white blank sheets above their heads to say that their voices and people’s frustration over an infection control system that no longer made sense were not heard. You get an intense feeling of being close to something vulnerable – something that can break – when you stand in the street in Beijing and see young people standing up against something as powerful as the party and state in China. It was about breaking out of isolation. About freedom from living locked down. If not to give up more of his youth. And Xi turned. Within a few days, China went from practicing a strict zero tolerance for infection to removing all restrictions. Who could be true? Xi attached a lot of personal prestige to the zero-tolerance policy. It seems unlikely that he turned completely on his own. During the autumn, the mind just played with the question. Now it dawned on me how fundamentally important it was. Who can speak to Xi and be heard? Who could say something like “The virus is already spreading explosively.” Zero tolerance stifles the economy. Neither you nor the party benefit from the protests becoming about something else.” That person or persons may become extremely important for several questions in the future that directly determine a great deal for many people, also at home in Norway. The dialogue with the world. Relations with the United States. Taiwan. The war in Ukraine. How Beijing responds to the US denying China access to Western technology? What role China’s pandemic-damaged economy can play in rebuilding the global economy. Who can speak to Xi and be heard? There is a small gallery of people who come forward. The two politicians Li Qiang and Wang Huning. Wife Peng Liyuan and daughter Xi Mingze. The supplier Li Qiang is the man who is likely to take over as prime minister. In the West, the assessment is that Li Qiang’s career has consisted of delivering what Xi wants. Not one to be listened to. In China, several people in business and politics say that because he has Xi’s trust, Li Qiang will have a lot of room for action. Li Qiang has followed Xi throughout his career. Now he will correct China’s economic results at home and abroad. Photo: NOEL CELIS / AFP Mastermind Wang Huning is the most unique in China’s top leadership group of seven. The only one who has not primarily built his career on being loyal to Xi. Wang Huning has worked for the last three presidents and is often called Beijing’s chief ideologue. Almost all slogans, not least Xi’s “Chinese-style modernization” bear his signature. The thinker. Wang Huning photographed in the seconds after he was presented as No. 3 in China and the party power apparatus last autumn. Photo: TINGSHU WANG / Reuters Can this powerful and somewhat “gray shadow player” continue to be the one who decides China’s direction, abroad and at home? Xi will walk in front of his new leadership group at the party congress in October. China’s seven most powerful men. Photo: NOEL CELIS / AFP The seasoned Home and Away and Xi’s famous wife and folk opera singer, Peng Liyuan is a person to be reckoned with. Through her star status and her network over many years in China’s political scenes, Peng Liyuan is without a doubt her husband’s trusted advisor. Peng Liyuan shot to fame when she performed at the New Year Gala on Chinese television. A few years later, she married Xi. The couple lands here before the G20 meeting in Bali. Photo: AJENG DINAR ULFIANA / AFP The favorite The couple’s only daughter, we should be careful not to say too much about. What we know best about Xi Mingze is that Xi protects his daughter. Some of those who have made public information about her life have ended up in prison for violating China’s privacy law. When I ask people here in Beijing who has power over Xi, many Chinese still mention the daughter. Most often with a slightly sly smile. Xi Mingze is educated at Harvard, and is the person in dad Xi’s closest circle who would best know more of China’s younger elite. Among these, many sympathized with the young protesters. The very smallest Xi needs the youth, needs the young in turn, needs to know what they think. China is facing a population crisis. During the next three to six decades, the UN predicts that the population in China will decrease by several hundred million. Most will be old and not young enough to take care of them. Not enough young people to man and woman the military, science and an economy that can assert China’s interests and challenge the US and the West. Nothing gives Xi more reason than this to listen to the young. In Xi’s new leadership, few are under greater pressure than those with the rather simple responsibility; to make young adults want to have children. Because of everything that is made in China, it is more children that China needs the most. New Chinese at a maternity ward in Anhui province in 2011. After they were born, the birth rate has continued to fall. Photo: JIANAN YU / Reuters
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Who can whisper in Xi Jinping’s ear? – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
