Xi Jinping 
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SOURCE: NPR
10/16/2022
Rana Mitter on Xi Jinping's Place in Chinese History and Politics Today
"All of the last 10 years has been about making sure, as you might put it, that it's Xi Jinping's China. It's Xi Jinping's party, everyone else is just living in it."
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5/8/2022
How Will History Remember Xi?
by Robert Brent Toplin
Despite China's growth as an economic and military force, Xi Jinping's authoritarian government may ultimately be seen as a drag on the nation's prosperity and the flourishing of the Chinese population.
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SOURCE: Dissent
5/1/2022
The Xi Era Demands New Ways of Understanding China
by Jeffrey Wasserstrom
This is the introductory essay to a special issue on contemporary China.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
11/15/2021
Michael Schuman: Xi's New China is Terrifying
by Michael Schuman
A leading China scholar argues that the government's increased restrictions on individuals and companies, from the petty to the consequential, signal a retrenchment of central authority after a period of liberalization.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
11/11/2021
China Passes Historical Resolution Enabling Xi's Ongoing Rule
“By tracing the continuity of the party over 100 years, it is used to show that it was inevitable for Xi to emerge at this time to be the ‘core’ of the party,” said Tony Saich of Harvard's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.
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SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
11/8/2021
Xi Understands the Crises Facing China Better than His Propagandists Do
by Walter Russell Mead
Creating a heroic role for Xi in the sweep of Chinese history is an important propaganda aim, but it shows that China faces urgent problems in the here-and-now that the leader may not be able to manage.
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SOURCE: New York Times
11/7/2021
To Hold Control in China's Present, Xi Seeks to Rewrite its Past
The Chinese Communist Party's newest official history elevates Xi as a figure of historical significance alongside Mao and Deng Xiaoping, making the country's history an instrument of political power.
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SOURCE: Foreign Policy
1/29/19
Xi’s China Is Steamrolling Its Own History
by Pamela Kyle Crossley
“Historical nihilism” is nothing more than a denial that the past is fundamentally a resource to be plundered by the present.
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SOURCE: WSJ
8-20-18
China’s Museums Rewrite History to Boost Xi
Renovations in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen add displays that extol Xi, while diluting Deng’s prominence in party lore.
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SOURCE: DW
5-4-18
Karl Marx a tool to 'win the future' for China, Xi Jinping says
The Chinese president has praised Karl Marx as the "greatest thinker of modern times" ahead of the bicentennial of the German philosopher. Xi's German counterpart, meanwhile, was far more critical.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
4-2-18
Statesman, strongman, philosopher, autocrat: China’s Xi is a man who contains multitudes
by Jeffrey Wasserstrom
He's used his power to crush civil society, but it is not completely fitting to compare him to Putin or Mao.
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3-5-18
Xi’s Family History May Be a Key to His Power Grab
by Tom Clifford
As a teenager during the Cultural Revolution he learned that high status couldn’t protect even his father, a hero of the revolution.
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3/2/18
What Xi Jinping's Power Grab Is Really About
by Andrew Meyer
The removal of term limits on the presidency adds empirical weight to the general argument that the PRC system is weakening and losing cohesion.
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SOURCE: New Statesman
12-4-17
The chairman of everything: why Chinese president Xi Jinping will change history
by Graham Allison
One of the world’s leading foreign policy experts explores the rise of an all-powerful leader.
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SOURCE: NYT
11-9-17
Why Xi Jinping’s (Airbrushed) Face Is Plastered All Over China
Not since the days of Mao Zedong has one figure so dominated Chinese life.
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SOURCE: The Nation
7-25-17
2 Sinologists say Liu Xiaobo’s Death speaks to a dark vision for China
by Gina Anne Tam and Jeffrey Wasserstrom
While China’s president has crafted an increasingly progressive image for himself abroad, he's stifling dissent at home.
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SOURCE: AHA Today
4-5-17
Here’s what historians told Congress are the difficult issues Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have to work out
by Dane Kennedy
Sponsored by the National History Center, the purpose of the briefing was to give historical context to current tensions between the United States and China, with a particular focus on Chinese aims and anxieties.
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SOURCE: Huffington Post
9-8-16
Xi Jinping’s Authoritarianism Does a Disservice to China’s Nuanced Political Tradition
by Jeffrey Wasserstrom and Kate Merkel-Hess
Depicting China’s people as inheritors of a single set of values, rather than individuals shaped by and able to draw on many strands of indigenous culture, is wrong.
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SOURCE: Huffington Post
7-26-16
Five Things About Trump’s Rise That Would Make Xi Jinping Smile
by Jeffrey Wasserstrom
Trump’s dystopian oration, was music to the ears of someone hoping, like Xi, to see global admiration for the United States lessen.
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SOURCE: NYT
11-8-15
Long-time China watcher Geremie R. Barmé says Xi Jinping is "reminiscent of the leader complex of ... older socialist states"
In an interview he says that Xi would like to be thought of as an emperor, but doesn’t show the self-restraint of emperors.