Xi Jinping becomes China's leader

On November 15, 2012, the Chinese Communist Party's new Central Committee chose Xi Jinping as its general secretary, and in March 2013 he became president of the People's Republic. Born in 1953 and the son of revolutionary veteran Xi Zhongxun, he had been a provincial official in Fujian, Zhejiang and Shanghai before joining the national leadership. He took over from Hu Jintao in what had become the normal ten-year rotation of Chinese leaders.¹

Xi's rise rested on China's reform-era state. Deng Xiaoping's market reforms from 1978 had made China a manufacturing power, and membership in the World Trade Organization in 2001 had made it the world's second-largest economy by 2010. That growth brought corruption, local debt, inequality and pollution, and Xi presented himself as the leader who would restore party discipline. He launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign that punished millions of officials, took direct control of the military, security and foreign policy bodies, and announced the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 to build infrastructure links across Asia, Africa and Europe.¹

His rule broke with the collective leadership model set up after Mao. In 2017 the party wrote "Xi Jinping Thought" into its constitution, and in March 2018 the National People's Congress removed the two-term limit on the presidency by a vote of 2,958 to 2. At the 2022 party congress he secured a third term as general secretary. Supporters credit him with reducing poverty and raising China's global role, while critics point to tighter controls on the press, civil society, Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and to rising tension with the United States.¹²