Xi Jinping

Even when the Chinese Communist Party leadership chose Xi as leader in 2012, they believed he could be easily controlled, said Andrew J. Nathan, a political ...

He’s invoked a “ [wolf warrior” diplomacy](https://asiasociety.org/southern-california/events/making-chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomacy) and built up [a military machine designed to back](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59600475) his ambition of [Chinese superpower status](https://www.wsj.com/articles/mr-xis-superpower-plans-1532013258). embassy in Beijing](https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09BEIJING3128_a.html) to the U.S. “There’s this siege mentality on the part of Xi Jinping that says, ‘I need to be strong [and] make the country strong because China has been abused,’” said Nathan, the Columbia University professor. “According to a well-connected Embassy contact, Politburo Standing Committee Member and Vice President Xi Jinping is ‘exceptionally ambitious,’ confident and focused, and has had his ‘eye on the prize’ from early adulthood,” the cable said. [intense humiliation](https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/celv/eng/xwdt/t1889004.htm)” of past foreign domination and achieved “complete victory” over extreme poverty. “He has a great sense of timing, and when to move and when to not move.” Between [1979 and 2007 he served in positions ranging from office secretary of the General Office of the State Council](http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-10/25/c_136705528.htm), acting governor of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces and secretary of the CCP’s Shanghai Municipal Committee. That approach caught the eye of former President Jiang Zemin and former vice president Zeng Qinghong. [Belt and Road Initiative](http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-08/18/c_1310134667.htm) — through which China has poured billions into highways, power plants and high speed rail across the developing world — has delivered Beijing diplomatic wins. That skill set reflects Xi’s childhood spent in the heart of Chinese Communist Party elite politics as the son of former vice premier Xi Zhongxun. “They saw him as a sort of malleable, loyal guy who would treat them as elders in the right way and not rock the boat,” Nathan said. “Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.”