Beijing: Days after winning a record 3rd five-year term, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday visited the revolutionary base of the ruling Communist Party’s founder Mao Zedong at Yan’an as a symbolic gesture to highlight his pledge to make China a modern socialist country.
Xi, 69, was elected as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on October 23 at the once-in-a-five-year Congress of the party, becoming the only leader after Mao to get re-elected for an unprecedented 3rd five-year tenure after completing 10 years in power.
All his predecessors retired after two five-year terms, abiding by a well-observed rule to ensure collective leadership in the party and to avert the one-party state from becoming a one-leader country.
Xi led the newly-elected seven-member Politburo Standing Committee to visit Yan’an, an old revolutionary base in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province. They visited the site where the 7th CPC National Congress was held, Mao’s residence and an exhibition at the Yan’an Revolutionary Memorial Hall, which features the history of the 13 years during which the CPC Central Committee was based in Yan’an, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The other members of the Standing Committee Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi accompanied Xi on his visit.
As he consolidated his hold over the party packing influential posts with his followers, Xi like Mao is widely expected to continue in power for life.
The 7th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held in 1945 in Yan’an for safety in view of the second Sino-Japanese war.
In his opening speech at the party Congress on October 16, Xi pledged to make China the first modern Socialist country.
From this day forward, the central task of the Communist Party of China will be to lead the Chinese people of all ethnic groups in a concerted effort to realize the Second Centenary Goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization. Only by taking root in the rich historical and cultural soil of the country and the nation, the truth of Marxism flourish here,” he said.
Xi was elected to the Central Committee on Saturday, to the Political Bureau and the Standing Committee, and then as General Secretary on Sunday with relative ease as the Congress passed the key amendment to the Party’s Constitution reinforcing his core status with the directive that all party members have the obligation to follow his directives and doctrines.
Moderates like Premier Li Keqiang, who was ranked number two, were eased out in the election to the over 300-member Central Committee on Saturday by the CPC Party Congress.
