What do you call Xi Jinping? China’s elite echo language of Mao to sing the praises of their ‘leader and helmsman’
Revival of the grandiose rhetoric once used to eulogise the founder of Communist China signals president’s enhanced power and status
Chinese politicians gathering in Beijing for the Communist Party congress are mincing no words in their praise of President Xi Jinping, heaping unofficial titles that hark back to the Mao Zedong era on him and glorifying his achievements with gushing superlatives.
While it is not clear how the president responds to the flattery, at least three members of the decision-making Politburo, two generals and eight provincial party bosses have addressed Xi as the “lingxiu” – a reverent Chinese term for “leader” – during discussion panels at the week-long event that closes on Tuesday. However, the term has not yet appeared in official documents.
Some senior delegates also called him the “commander-in-chief”, while others extolled him for “taking the helm” of the country – with one provincial chief directly referring to him as the “helmsman”.
“With Secretary General Xi Jinping as the lingxiu and core [leader] to take the helm, our party and country will certainly brave all winds and waves and be invincible in our cause,” said Sun Chunlan, a member of the Politburo.
Not to be outdone, Bayanqolu, the party chief of Jilin province, described Xi as “the well-deserved lingxiu of the party, the helmsman of the party”.
Political experts and historians said their language evoked memories of the cult of personality revolving around Mao.