The rise of Xi Jinping: From life in exile to post-modern chairman | China Watch pt II

[Music] it's a story of persistence survival and ruthless politics china's president xi jinping is one of the most powerful men in the world and revered within the communist party he now leads but it hasn't always been this way she has stared down revolutionary fervor and muscled out rivals in an atmosphere of brutal party politics to now become china's most powerful leader since mao in this episode we map xi jinping's astonishing tale from life among beijing's elite to living in a cave in remote countryside and now paramount leader of china i'm sean mantesso and this is chinawatch [Laughter] [Music] [Music] it was here in a cave among the dusty barren hills of shanxi province in northwest china that president xi jinping spent more than six years in exile as a young man it's a long way from the sheltered comfort of his life in the walled compounds that housed beijing's political elite born in 1953 xi jinping was the son of a famous revolutionary xi jiongshun but she and his family's life was turned upside down by the political turmoil that engulfed china in the 1960s in 1962 xi's father was purged and jailed by chairman mao's regime for allegedly supporting a contentious novel xi jinping is from what we call it like a princeligan group so his father was actually a high-level leader uh in the maoist period uh the cultural revolution started in 1966 and so xi jinping had to go down to the countryside as they called it then and for that reason was excluded from school and from other kinds of activities [Music] [Applause] the cultural revolution was a violent and destructive period for china intellectuals and other so-called enemies of the regime were publicly humiliated tortured and hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives including xi jinping's oldest sister it's the formative time for the whole generation so not just him but anyone of his age they said in chinese you know you eat bitterness they ate witness then and so they're not people who give up easily it's made a pretty tough generation [Music] the chaotic years of the cultural revolution appear to have had a profound impact on xi unlike many others who were ostracized she didn't turn against the communist party instead sources say he became redder than red to survive and xi jinping is a true leninist he therefore wants to put the party in charge of all policy areas and in all geographical areas in china as a whole and still tarnished by his father's arrest it took she 10 attempts to join the communist party so it was difficult for him to join the communist party because of that family background but in the end he prevailed and actually in the final attempt i think 1973 he managed to get in just as the cultural revolution was really sort of relaxing and sort of dissipating it was here in the ashes of one of china's most destructive periods and with the country on the verge of opening itself to the world that xi jinping began a long patient and impressive rise through china's political apparatus while china was transforming so too was she he left shanxi in 1975 to study chemical engineering at the prestigious qinghua university advancing his political career through various county municipal and provincial leadership positions over the next two decades one of the more prominent positions she held was as party chief of jujeng province from 2002 until 2007 where he cultivated his economic credentials and a clean image [Music] in all he'd serve across four provinces and the municipality of shanghai in varying levels of governance but even by the early 2000s she wasn't on the radar for national leadership until a more senior position became vacant in 2006 then communist party secretary of shanghai chen liang yu was sacked in one of china's highest level corruption investigations xi jinping was chosen to replace him in what was a major step up in his political career in just a decade she had risen from relative obscurity to potential leader and his ascension to party chief of shanghai came just in time for the national party congress where the party would decide who would lead the country when the current generation of leaders retire in 2012. at the seventeenth party congress when the government under wu jintao was to decide on the choice of the next generation of successors virgin house first choice was in fact like ciao but there were some pushbacks from within the party including from zhang ji means people and the remnants of the shanghai gang and xi jinping was able to persuade the party establishment across the board that he would be a better candidate for it [Music] just how she managed to gain the support of the party is unclear the communist party is notoriously opaque in its inner workings but at the 17th national party congress she pulled off an unlikely route of his political adversaries he was elected onto what we call the um standing committee of the politburos that's the ultimate group of at that time nine people running the country well i want to welcome vice president xi to the oval office and welcome him to the united states this is she now seemed destined to lead the party that once sent him to live in a cave he spent the next four years traveling the world and preparing himself for the presidency but the wider world still didn't know what kind of leader she would become but one candid moment captured in mexico in 2009 gave us some indication foreign [Music] one party faithful have made the pilgrimage to china's national people's congress behind the giant facade a very big transition was about to take place with a new guard taking hold of the controls here then after a long wait they emerged by the start of his tenure in 2013 he was given three crucial roles head of the communist party military and state already distinguishing him from his predecessor hujin tao it was a sign of things to come [Music] she immediately seized on his new powers and launched an anti-corruption crackdown on so-called tigers and flies high-ranking officials and local servants it reportedly snared more than 1.5 million government officials now in reality at that time not fully recognized by other party leaders the anti-corruption campaign was also a party ratification campaign president xi went after his political rivals one after another after another well no one could be a um lead of the communist party of china without being pretty ruthless as i say it's a world without sentiment it's a fairly sort of it's a winner takes all game so there is no room for mercy in this system [Applause] she spent his first five years in office strengthening his grip on power but no matter how much power he accumulated there was a 10-year constitutional limit on his leadership then when it came time to nominate a successor in early 2018 she made an extraordinary move lawmakers in china have passed an historic constitutional amendment that will allow the president to rule indefinitely [Music] the national people's congress has just approved a constitutional amendment to abolish presidential term limits president xi already one of the most powerful chinese leaders in decades will now be able to rule indefinitely perhaps perhaps for life with presidential term limits abolished she has also been steadily creating a personality cult through media pop culture and propaganda [Music] this along with his expanding powers have drawn many comparisons to the founder of the people's republic chairman mao who now stands alongside chairman mao and the pantheon of the country's iconic leaders it's promised a new era for china but critics of president xi jinping have compared him to chairman mao [Music] it's moving towards a position which if he succeeds will be comparable in influence tomorrow xi jinping has also ushered in a new era of chinese assertiveness on the world stage he's silencing his critics with one of the world's most rigorous censorship regimes but with the accumulation of great power comes great risks they say on the streets in china it's risky to retire meaning that you'll be unprotected then against the people you've made enemies when you talk and so the only way to prevent that is to stay there now power is a very strong drug to wean yourself off if china would have faced a crisis and with a few brewing on the horizon there may be only one man to blame xi's firm grip on power leaves little wiggle room in case of failure his political fortunes are now tied to those of his country it's a lot of power and a lot of responsibility and risk for one man to take on [Music] you

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 1,306,656

Keywords: Australia, china, xi jinping, Chinese Communist Party, communism, Beijing, NPC, VPN, block, cultural revolution, shaanxi province, politiburo, politics, mao zedong, national party congress, china documentary, hu Jintao, le Keqiang, bo xilai, Kerry brown, steve tsang, ross terril, chen liangyu, Chinese dream, xi zhongxun, history, term limits, leader, power, superpower, trump, news, international, abc, abc news, china president

Id: YPxmBxON1l8

Length: 14min 30sec (870 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 05 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/pencil_the_anus]

That was nice and a fresh breath of air from all the trailers being posted on this sub nowadays.

[u/luv_tummy]

Good and informative, never knew much About Xi Jinping

[u/RacecaR_Foward]

Fat ass poohbear

[u/chapterpt]

He really does look like Winnie the Pooh.