Chinese President Xi Jinping first heard the slogan “Down with Xi Jinping” when he was in elementary school.
Xi Jinping was criticized when he was a child because his father, Xi Zhongxun, who was a former deputy prime minister, has fallen from the horse.
Dr. Joseph Torigian is an expert on Chinese elite politics and is currently writing a biography of Xi Jinping’s father. He said that the experience of a plummeting status during that period shaped the future Chinese president.
Xi Jinping’s father was once a comrade-in-arms with Chairman Mao, and he was also the first-generation leader of the Chinese Communist Party. But in the early 1960s, Xi Zhongxun was overthrown as an “anti-Party member” when Xi Jinping was only 9 years old.
“Xi Zhongxun’s position as deputy prime minister was revoked and he was sent to the party school for quarantine review.”
“Those people asked him to write a book of repentance, reflect on what he did wrong, and accept reform through labor.”
Wikipedia Commons: People’s Daily
)In the end, Xi Zhongxun ended the isolation review and was transferred to a tractor factory as deputy director. Later, he was caught in Xi’an during the Cultural Revolution.
Xi Zhongxun once ranked among the most powerful people in China, but found himself at the bottom of China’s social hierarchy. During that period, Mao Zedong empowered young people to eliminate conservatives who had been suspected.
For the young Xi Jinping, this is also a huge change in his personal destiny.
Xi Jinping was criticized at a young age
Four years after Xi Zhongxun was purged, Chairman Mao launched the terrible “Cultural Revolution” movement.
In his 70s, Mao Zedong became wary of his generation of political partners who started at the same time. In order to consolidate his power, he stirred up young people’s dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Mao Zedong gave the young followers of dogmatism in China the right to rebel, which is what Mao Zedong himself called “justification for rebellion.”
He called on the young people in China to rebel against the teachers, police, landlords, and government who wanted to control them.
During the Cultural Revolution, children watched every move of their parents, and people were humiliated on the streets.
Professor Feng Chongyi of the University of Technology Sydney grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution.
At that time, he was still a child, and he and all his classmates had to participate in the so-called “criminal meeting.” At the meeting, people deemed unfaithful to Mao Zedong Thought were criticized in public.
The people who participated in the criticism meeting would verbally abuse, throw things at the criticized party, and sometimes even fist.
Cpc.people.com.cn
)“Many of those who were criticized were killed,” Professor Feng said.
“One of my aunts was beaten to death at night.”
The above is the general environment in China when Xi Jinping’s family lost power.
After his father was purged, Xi Jinping was sometimes fought and imprisoned, while his mother was humiliated at numerous criticism meetings.
Both Xi Jinping’s parents were physically devastated, and his younger brother and sister were tortured and humiliated.
During the Cultural Revolution, Xi Jinping’s sister passed away. According to reports, she was “persecuted to death.” People usually think that “persecution leads to death” is a euphemism for suicide.
Xi Jinping once participated in the criticism meeting with his mother and became the target of the angry crowd, Dr. Trijian said.
“Ms. Qi Xin participated in a critique meeting, during which her teenage son was also criticized, and some people shouted the slogan “Down with Xi Jinping”,” said Dr. Trijian.
“Some people say that Xi Jinping’s mother also joined in shouting this slogan.”
Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images
)This situation is the rift in the relationship between relatives and friends during the Cultural Revolution.
“Probably one night during that time, Xi Jinping slipped out of his detention center while the guards were not paying attention.[中共]Party school, ran home and told my mother that he was hungry. But his mother didn’t give him anything to eat, and actually reported him,” Dr. Trijian said.
“What’s interesting is that according to this Xi’s friend’s narrative, even so, Xi Jinping understood his mother’s behavior and said she[包庇自己的行为]If they are found, they will be taken away, and there will be no one to take care of the younger brother and sister. “
The young Xi Jinping was arrested the next day and sent to the juvenile management office.
The experience of the Cultural Revolution honed him to be the leader of the future
In the end, Xi Jinping and other senior cadres who lost their darling status were sent to rural Shaanxi to “go up to the mountains and go to the countryside.”
He said that he did not cry on the train to Shaanxi, when the special train was crowded with children who went together. Xi Jinping said he laughed in the car.
“The family members standing outside the car said,’Why are you still laughing?” Xi Jinping said.
“I said I have to cry if I don’t leave. I don’t know if I am here.”
Yanchuan County Lvyou
)This is the prelude to the myth of Xi Jinping. The boy who was driven to the countryside to go to the countryside to reshape himself with labor and willpower.
He lived in a cave dwelling, which was a cave dwelling dug on a high slope of loess, with doors and windows.
“I didn’t eat meat for a few months. Later, when I saw meat, my classmates and I couldn’t help but ate all the raw meat,” Xi Jinping said in an interview when looking back at that time.
Approximately 70 young people who were sent to the mountains and the countryside in Shaanxi died there.
Dr. Trijian said that Xi Jinping turned his punishment into an inspirational story, telling that he was forged as a gritty person who understands the needs of the poor in China.
“He said that he had witnessed extreme poverty there, which helped him realize what the party needs to do to solve those huge problems.”
“Of course, then he talked about how strong that experience made him.”
Reuters: Tingshu Wang
)Chairman Mao died in 1976. In 1978, Xi Zhongxun was reused again and he was in power. At that time, many old-fashioned high-ranking cadres who had been swept out by Mao Zedong resumed their work like him and assumed power.
Xi’s family was reunited, but Xi Jinping returned home more loyal to the Chinese Communist Party than ever before.
The one who is in charge of destiny
In the mid-1980s, Xi Jinping emerged among the cadres of the Chinese Communist Party and was appointed as the deputy mayor of Xiamen City. At that time, Xiamen had a population of approximately 550,000.
Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd met Xi Jinping for the first time there, when Kevin Rudd was a diplomat.
The two became acquainted by discussing the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke (Bob Hawke). Both found that Hawke’s luck was not very good and there was a problem with the translation of his speech into Chinese.
“[比如说这句话]”Well, we are not going to do stupid things to you on this issue,” Naturally, Chinese interpreters translated this sentence as “We should not be involved in games played by happy gays,” Rudd said.
When the two met again, Xi Jinping had been promoted to vice president of China and was hailed as the leader of the world‘s most populous country. Rudd was then the prime minister of Australia.
“I remember sitting in front of the fireplace in the hut with him, because it was June.”
Alan Porritt: AAP
)Rudd was ousted by his party a few days later.
“I should have paid more attention to the factions within the Australian Labor Party than the factions of the Chinese Communist Party. However, this is another matter.”
They discussed the future of Australia, China and the Asia-Pacific region. But Rudd said that he is most interested when it comes to Xi Jinping’s father, the man who fell from the horse during his childhood.
“Many conversations started with discussions about the family. I introduced him to our children and he told me about his daughter.”
“Then we started talking about his father. I think he was really involved in this conversation. Because, as a former embassy analyst, I know that when I returned to work in the embassy in the 1980s, his My father has always been a member of the Politburo. Therefore, we talked about his father for a long time.”
Kevin Rudd said that it was obvious that even at that time, becoming the president of China was not the end of Xi Jinping’s ambitions. The real goal was what he could do during his tenure.
“In the early days, my opinion of him was that he was particularly willing to see himself as a person who is in charge of fate, that is, someone who can reshape China’s future.”
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