HOT AIR BALLOON FLIGHT

View In Browser

Nectar Gan and Steve George

 

Xi Jinping is rewriting history. But it's the future he wants to leave his mark on

 

As Chinese leader Xi Jinping looks set to seek a third term in power, he is seemingly preoccupied with the past, not the future.

 

When more than 300 members of China's political elite gather in Beijing this week their main task will be to review a draft history resolution that defines the ruling Communist Party's "major achievements and historical experiences" since its founding 100 years ago.

 

The agenda of the most crucial Central Committee meeting before the twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle next fall is carefully and deliberately chosen. It speaks of the importance Xi attaches to party history, and his own place in it.

 

In some ways, that obsession with history can be seen as rooted in a tradition dating back to ancient China. For centuries, Chinese imperial courts appointed historiographers to document the rise of an emperor, which often involved compiling — and rewriting — the history of his predecessor.

 

To the Chinese Communist Party, history — or rather, certain curated versions of it — can be extremely useful.

 

China's alleged "historical claims" to disputed territories and waters, for instance, have been used by Beijing to bolster its case for contemporary sovereignty, while the narrative attached to the so-called "century of humiliation" by foreign powers — from the First Opium War in 1839 to the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 — has become a central source of legitimacy for the party.

 

In the eyes of the party's leaders, losing control over these narratives can bring disastrous consequences. The collapse of the Soviet Union — a stern cautionary tale cited time and again by Xi — is in part attributed to "historical nihilism," or the ruling elite's rejection of Soviet heritage.

 

As a result, the Chinese Communist Party vigilantly guards its own history — by airbrushing the darker chapters of its tumultuous past and erasing particularly sensitive episodes from public memory.

 

But the upcoming "history resolution" is not only about reshaping the party's past. More importantly, it's a way for Xi to codify his authority and supremacy in the present — and project his long-lasting power and influence into the future.

 

Since its founding, the party has only issued two such resolutions, put forward by Xi's two most powerful predecessors — Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

 

Mao's resolution in 1945 established him as the unchallenged authority within the party, after a three-year "rectification" campaign that brutally purged his political and ideological opponents. Deng's resolution in 1981, meanwhile, acknowledged Mao's errors in launching the Cultural Revolution — a political campaign that plunged the country into a decade of chaos and torment (although it concluded that Mao's contributions to the Chinese revolution "far outweighed" his mistakes). But by admitting to and moving on from past mistakes, Deng was able to usher in a new era of reform and opening up.

 

By issuing his own resolution, Xi seeks to further entrench his status as a towering leader on the same level as Mao and Deng. Already, he has managed to establish his own eponymous political theory and have it written into the party's constitution, a privilege previously only reserved for Mao and Deng.

 

Xi sees himself as responsible for taking on the mantle of Mao and Deng's epoch-making legacies, brushing past his two immediate predecessors. In that version of party history, Mao led China to "stand up" against the bullying by foreign powers, Deng helped the Chinese people to "get rich," and Xi is now leading the country on a triumphant path to "become strong."

 

And to continue to do that, the rationale goes, he needs to stay in power for at least a third term, to steer the country through what he terms the "window of opportunity" for China to catch up with — if not surpass — the West in national strength.

 

For now, few details about the resolution are known — barring the expectation that it will most likely be passed by party elites this week. The document's title indicates a more celebratory and forward-looking tone than the previous two resolutions, which focused on clarifying the problems or mistakes of the immediate past.

 

But regardless of the finer details, the consensus among political observers is that the resolution will further cement Xi's authority and place him firmly at the helm of the party for the foreseeable future.

 

"The essential function of all of this verbiage, make no mistake, will center on the person and power of Xi Jinping, defining his leadership as the way forward, on the basis of an understanding of history that defines his core agenda," wrote David Bandurski, director of the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong.

 

As George Orwell's famous quote from "1984" puts it: "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

 

And for Xi, it seems like he's about to control all three, at least for now.

First Chinese woman walks in space

 

Chinese astronaut Wang Yaping made history Sunday becoming the country's first woman to conduct a spacewalk, according to the national space agency.

 

Wang and fellow astronaut Zhai Zhigang successfully completed the 6.5 hour spacewalk in the early hours of Monday morning, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA). The third member of the Shenzhou-13 crew, Ye Guangfu, supported the spacewalk from the core module of China's new Tiangong space station.

 

During the spacewalk, the team installed additional parts to the station's robotic arm, and tested supporting equipment including their domestically-produced space suit, according to state-run tabloid the Global Times.

 

Shortly after stepping out of the space station, Wang waved to audiences on Earth and said she felt great, in a video released by the flight control center that has since gone viral on Chinese social media.

 

Wang is only China's second woman in space. Before Wang, 15 women globally had conducted spacewalks since 1984, when Soviet astronaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first to do so.

 

Female spacewalkers are "an integral part of manned space," and Wang has left her mark on history thanks to her "bravery," Yang Yuguang, Vice Chair of Space Transportation Committee for International Astronautical Federation, told the Global Times.

 

Despite the flowing praise for Wang from official channels and state media, much of the coverage also included gendered language that perpetuated stereotypes on the differences between men and women.

 

For instance, female astronauts have the advantage of having a "gentle personality (that) is good for teamwork," according to the Global Times. The same article added that female astronauts are "more sensitive to any problems in their surroundings" and are better at communication than their male counterparts.

 

Another graphic in the article highlighted "special deliveries" provided for female astronauts, including cosmetics, dessert, chocolates, and sanitary products.

Winter's first snow

Tourists at the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City in Beijing on November 7, after the first snowfall of the season. The snow in the capital came earlier than usual this year, with a number of buses, flights and trains canceled or suspended as a result, according to the Global Times. Blizzards and plummeting temperatures are expected in other parts of the country as a cold wave arrives.

China's exports are surging and helping to boost the country's trade surplus to a record high as global demand continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. But this weekend's trade data still revealed some trouble spots for the world's second largest economy.

 

Exports jumped 27% in October from a year earlier, according to customs statistics released by Chinese authorities Sunday. That's slower than September's 28% year-on-year growth, but still ahead of a Reuters estimate of 24.5% growth.

 

Imports rose nearly 21%, compared to a 17.6% gain in September. But that was below a Reuters estimate of 25%.

 

China's trade surplus hit $84.5 billion in October, widening from September's $66.8 billion.

 

"The strong exports help to mitigate the weakening domestic economy," said Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist for Pinpoint Asset Management.

 

China's economic growth has been under threat in recent months because of a massive energy crunch, shipping disruptions and a deepening property crisis. GDP last quarter grew at its slowest pace in a year, some 4.9% from a year earlier.

 

Sluggish domestic demand, meanwhile, has vexed the country for much of the year.

 

But analysts believe the strong export data this weekend — likely bolstered by recovering global demand and the upcoming holiday shopping season — is a promising sign for the economy.

 

"The government can afford to wait till the year end to loosen monetary and fiscal policies, now that exports provide a buffer to smooth the economic slowdown," Zhang said.

 

Even so, those other issues aren't going away. China's power crunch may be getting better, but the real-estate slowdown and an ongoing Covid-19 outbreak in the country look set to slow growth, according to Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics. He warned in a recent note that import momentum could be "feeble."

Around Asia

• The search for an Australian man who went missing after a reported shark attack has been called off, police said Sunday.

• India's manufacturing capital Chennai came to a standstill Sunday, with many areas flooded after the southern Indian coast was battered by heavy rainfall overnight.

• New Delhi was enveloped by smog Friday, after people defied a citywide ban on fireworks while celebrating the festival of Diwali.

• A silent killer is spreading through Australia's koala population, threatening to wipe out the iconic marsupial in parts of the country: chlamydia.