Xi Jinping has surrounded himself with loyalists
What will he do with them?
Three times in the past decade, Xi Jinping has led the same ceremony in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. With six men in single file behind him, he has walked through golden doors into a cavernous room, waving at seated journalists. In a carefully choreographed manoeuvre, he has stopped mid-podium, letting three of his colleagues take up positions on either side of him—equidistant and equally wooden, their arms kept still by their sides except to clap. The latest such unveiling of the country’s most powerful men, held on October 23rd, was no different. But it was unusually striking.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “The people’s leader’s people”
From the October 29th 2022 edition
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