https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/x...ure-by-rewriting-history-20211111-p5987i.html By Eryk Bagshaw November 12, 2021 Xi Jinping has become China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, inscribing his name in China’s history, philosophy and future in a historical resolution unanimously adopted by China’s Communist Party. The communique from the Party’s sixth Plenum announced on Thursday night will see Xi elevated to the top pantheon of Chinese leaders and cement his claim to a third term as President when the 20th Party Congress meets next year. Xi Jinping at the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing in June.Credit:AP The broad narrative had already been dictated by the high-ranking Politburo ahead of the meeting, but the endorsement by the Central Committee will allow Xi to continue his policy agenda unimpeded, and with the theoretical backing of “Xi Jinping Thought” now embedded alongside former leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping in China’s psyche. The Central Committee said in a communique on Thursday it would uphold Xi Jinping’s core position as the principal founder of Xi Jinping Thought and as the driving force of “the historic process of national rejuvenation”. “The Central Committee calls upon the entire Party, the military, and all Chinese people to rally more closely around the Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, to fully implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and to champion the great founding spirit of the Party,” the communique said. Chinese state media has been blanketed in propaganda in the lead up to the resolution, shoring up popular support for Xi, who will use his management of COVID-19, international disputes and the economy to claim a mandate as the only person capable of leading China through turbulent times. China’s People’s Daily – the highest-profile mouthpiece of the Party – said in an editorial on Wednesday that under the guidance of Xi, the Party’s leadership, as well as the “fields of economy, politics, culture, society, ecological civilisation, military affairs, and foreign affairs have undergone historical transformations”. “Marx pointed out that every era must have its own great personage,” the newspaper said. Term limits installed by the Party in 1982 were designed to prevent a cult of personality after Mao’s destructive final years, but in 2018 Xi successfully amended the constitution to allow a president to serve unlimited five-year terms. Xi is only the third Chinese leader to deliver a resolution on Chinese history after Mao and Deng Xiaoping. The timing of the historical resolution will allow Xi to shape the second century of the Chinese Communist Party after it celebrated its centenary in July. “The Party’s hundred years of revolution, construction, and reform have already come to an end,” the People’s Daily said. “The comprehensive building of a modern socialist country has commenced.” Nationalism had been building as the Plenum began this week. Credit:Sanghee Liu Over four days this week, more than 300 Party officials discussed the resolution at the highly secretive plenum in Beijing. “The Party made the Chinese people – who have suffered slavery and bullying for more than a century in modern times – stand up,” the draft resolution said. “The Party Central Committee, with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, has united and led the entire Party and people of all ethnicities across the nation.” The endorsement will now also allow Xi to formally move on from Deng’s market-era of “reform and opening up”, towards “common prosperity” where the proceeds of capital will be distributed more evenly among the Chinese population. That will require the strengthening of Chinese state control over more aspects of Chinese society and the elimination of internal and external threats to China’s economy. Globally, the extension of Xi’s term in office coupled with rising nationalism in China will embolden China on the world stage. Xi has accused the US of fostering a “Cold War mentality” as China threatens Taiwan, suppresses democracy in Hong Kong and maintains trade sanctions against Australia. The Asia-Pacific region must not return to the tensions of the Cold War era, China's leader Xi Jinping said ahead of a virtual meeting with US President Joe Biden expected as soon as next week. “Attempts to draw ideological lines or form small circles on geopolitical grounds are bound to fail,” Xi told the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum on Thursday. Alfred Wu, a Chinese politics expert from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said dealing with a Xi-led China was going to become more difficult as he continues to dominate the Chinese Communist Party and China. “It is going to be very tough,” he said. “Especially for democracies. Today’s China is very different from the Deng period. It’s going to be very difficult dealing with misinformation and economic hegemony. “Australia knows this very well. It is going to get more intensified in the future.”
The Chinese can't let this thought go and should they suffer again under their own incompetence to govern, this excuse once again will be brought to the forward.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...ower-in-asia-for-decades-20211111-p5984c.html Biden’s security adviser tells Australia the US will be a power in Asia for decades ‘Not going anywhere’: US makes long-term power play in Asia By Anthony Galloway November 11, 2021 President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan has declared the US is a resident power in the Indo-Pacific, telling Australians he rejects claims it doesn’t have the staying power to remain in Asia in the face of a rising China. Mr Sullivan’s declaration that America is “not going anywhere” is in stark contrast to former Australian prime minister Paul Keating, who on Wednesday said while the US should remain in East Asia as a “balancing and conciliating” military power it would be significantly eclipsed by China over the coming years. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan says the US has the staying power to remain in the region.Credit:AP After delivering a wide-ranging address to the Lowy Institute on Thursday, Mr Sullivan also conceded there had been “some challenges” in the rollout of the AUKUS defence pact with Australia and Britain but he stopped short of criticising the Morrison government. It came on the same day Chinese President Xi Jinping warned the region must not “relapse” into Cold War-style confrontation, which was widely seen as a criticism of groups such as AUKUS and the Quad partnership of Australia, the US, Japan and India. Mr Sullivan also rejected comparisons to the Cold War, saying the US was instead moving forward with what President Biden calls “stiff competition”. He said the US was going to “compete vigorously across multiple dimensions” and “stand up for our values”, but it also recognised that China was “going to be a factor in the international system for the foreseeable future – it’s not going anywhere”. “And the United States is not going anywhere, and we’re not going anywhere in the Indo-Pacific either. And so we’re going to have to learn how to deal with that reality,” he said. “We are a resident power in the Indo-Pacific. You know, we’re resident as far west as Guam, in terms of actual American territory... We’re resident with substantial long-term troop presence in Japan, in Korea, in Australia. “And at any given moment, American surface and undersea assets are at work, enforcing freedom of navigation, engaging in exercises, engaging in work on humanitarian assistance and disaster response. And so we have been a resident power in the Indo-Pacific for decades. It is core to our being as a geopolitical actor. It is fundamental to our identity.” Mr Sullivan said the Biden administration’s strategy was to build “situations of strength” with other countries “to deal both with the hard challenge of the rise of China and the enduring threat that Russia poses” as well as other challenges. He said the US wants to “set the terms for an effective and healthy competition with China”, while leaving open the door to cooperating with Beijing on areas such as climate change. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been forced to deal with the continued fallout of the AUKUS agreement to build nuclear submarines with the help of the US and Britain after it sunk a $90 billion deal with France to build conventionally powered boats. French President Emmanuel Macron last week accused Mr Morrison of lying to him, while President Biden said that the handling of the decision was “clumsy” and he had been under the impression the French were informed well in advance of the announcement in September. Asked whether the US president was referring to Australia’s handling of the announcement, Mr Sullivan said “we have had to go through some challenges in dealing with the rollout and in how we’ve tried to engage intensively diplomatically with the French”. “I mean, this sincerely, I know it comes off as a sincere dodge – but a dodge nonetheless – is that I just think there’s no profit in revisiting how we got to where we are,” he said. “Going back through all the ins and outs of this will be interesting for the historians to do at some point. But as National Security Adviser, I’ve got to keep sort of my eyes firmly fixed on the present and future.” He said sharing nuclear technology with Australia was a “big bet” and Mr Biden “wanted to say not just to Australia, but to the world, that if you are a strong friend and ally and partner, and you bet with us, we will bet with you”. In an appearance at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Mr Keating said Australia had tied itself to the US’s “wishful thinking” that it could be the security guarantor in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The former Labor prime minister said China was “simply too big and too central to be ostracised” and declared Australia was “at odds with our geography and we have lost our way”. He also said Taiwan was “not a vital Australian interest” and labelled it a “civil matter” for China. A spokesperson for Taiwan’s ministry of foreign affairs hit back on Thursday, saying the Taiwan Strait was “by no means a domestic matter between Chinese, and the security of the Taiwan Strait involves the stability and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region”. Japan’s embassy in Canberra also took issue with Mr Keating’s attack on its ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which he claimed were the “the Bourbons of the Indo-Pacific” and should have reached “accommodation with China years ago”. “This is not the era of the Bourbons. This is an era in which the security situation in the Indo-Pacific is becoming more severe year after year,” Japan’s embassy said. “That is why the Embassy of Japan has no intention to comment on any outdated description of the challenges facing Australia and Japan.”.
Xi is an impressive guy, and you'd expect nothing less with 1.4 billion Chinese and their native high aptitude.
Similar to this movement in China to centralize party power around the “Xi Jinping thought” the Republican Party’s platform in 2020 was simply a declaration of support for Donald Trump. Just to give an idea of how not far away from Chinese authoritarianism we are here in the states. I’ve revisited Plato’s Republic lately and found interesting his thoughts on democracies turning to tyrannies. Needless to say, China moving more into authoritarianism does not bode well for the Chinese either.
Regarding trade sanctions against Australia: Well done, IMO! Australia had done (and still doing) some unfair shitty media propaganda against China (see for example the propaganda news of Australia's 'ABC News' on YT, for example this one ). The Aussies behave in the world arena like some uncivilized hillbillys. Aussies deserve China's sanctions fully. They have to apology to China and change their attitude first.