When Xi Jinping visited France, he again made a book list. He gave a bunch of books to French President and Mrs Macron, including Chinese translations of French authors such as Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers and The Lady of the Camellias, Victor Hugo’s Ninety Three, Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, Honoré de Balzac’s Le Père Goriot etc. This is of course a way to bring the two countries closer together, and also shows Xi’s love and understanding of French culture. Mrs Peng Liyuan, the wife of Xi Jinping, also said during the trip that she and Xi Jinping “read these books when we were young.”
When he was young Xi Jinping was sent to the countryside for labour reform during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), and he was a member of the “five black categories”—Chairman Mao’s political classifications during the Cultural Revolution that ordained people in these groups class enemies: Landlords, Rich Farmers, Counter-revolutionaries, Bad Elements and Rightists. It is doubtful whether he had the time and energy to read so many masterpieces of world literature when he had to “carry 100 kilograms of wheat on his shoulders and walk 10 kilometers up the mountain,” but we do not have any evidence to say that he did not, so let us leave it open to doubt for the moment. However, it is a fact that after he came to power, he liked to draw up book lists and talk about his extensive knowledge of books. I am also a reader, and I believe that most people in the world who like to read agree with my judgment: those who really like to read do not go around making lists of books and bragging to others about how many books they have read. If this is really the case, then the books have actually been read in vain. Therefore, those who go around making out book lists to show that they are knowledgeable are usually those who are less knowledgeable or even uneducated. The conclusion is: Xi Jinping is in fact a “poorly educated” person.
I do not mean to look down on those who are less educated. My point is that being less educated is one of the reasons why Xi Jinping was chosen to be the successor of the ruling group of the Communist Party of China. I am afraid that outsiders do not quite understand this point, or they may find it inconceivable. But if you know the history of the Communist Party, you will know that this is a fact.
Chen Boda was Mao Zedong’s wordsmith, and the theoretical authority of the Communist Party of China, and his understanding of Mao Zedong was unrivaled in the Party. His son, Chen Xiaonong, published a book entitled “Chen Boda’s Last Oral Memories” in Hong Kong in 2005, in which it was mentioned that Mao Zedong had made an internal speech about his successor before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, and when it came to the criteria for selecting his successor, he explicitly said, “He should be young, less educated, and politically conservative” (page 264). Of course, it is understandable that they should be young and politically conservative: the successor cannot be someone who is old and does not stand up for the prevailing interests of the Communist Party. But the criterion of “someone who is less educated” is quite intriguing.
The reason he emphasized the need to be “less educated” illustrates his mistrust of and vigilance against “the educated.” An educated person usually has the ability to think independently. Such an “educated person” may not only break the monopoly of totalitarian ideology, but also challenge official public opinions and propaganda, and it is certainly not an insurance policy for an authoritarian regime to have such a person as the successor to Communist Party leadership. It cannot be denied that Mao Zedong, who read omnivorously on the ancient art of emperors and kings, had his own unique way of selecting his successor.
The successors that Mao Zedong began to painstakingly groom after overthrowing his first chosen successors Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao and other founding fathers, be it Wang Hongwen, who was directly promoted from factory worker to vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, or Hua Guofeng, who was a mediocre and incompetent hack, all on close examination fit the characteristics of “young age, little education and politically conservative.” The Communist Party superficially summed up the lessons of the Cultural Revolution, but at heart it still adheres to Mao Zedong’s way of doing things. Chairman Mao’s long-time secretary Li Rui once said, “the Chairman Mao problem remains unchanged.”
Deng Xiaoping’s chosen successors, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, had some education, or at least had a lot of “educated” people around them, but they were all overthrown in the end. Jiang Zemin, although he likes to show off his knowledge of foreign languages and arts and culture, is far from being “educated.” And Hu Jintao is famously uneducated, and reportedly only has story books from the former Soviet Union on his bookshelf. Obviously, although Mao Zedong is no longer with us, it is still a tradition within the Chinese Communist Party to make “little education” one of the criteria for selecting a successor. The reasoning behind this continuity is the same as that of Chairman Mao’s thinking, that an educated person is not so reliable. Let us take a look at Xi Jinping. When he was selected as successor, did he fulfill the criteria of “young age, little education, and politically conservative”? All of them! Obviously, Xi Jinping was able to rise to the top and maintain his power until today because he truly meets the criteria set by Mao Zedong for the Communist Party’s successor. The legitimacy of his rule within the Communist Party derives from this.
It is only with this understanding that we can see why Xi Jinping, with such a low level of knowledge and education, can sit firmly on the throne as the highest leader. Only by truly understanding the past history of the Chinese Communist Party can we understand the reality of the Communist Party today.
Wang Dan is the Director of Dialogue China think-tank.
Translated from Chinese by Scott Savitt.