His Story Is China’s History

Xi uses versions of historical analysis to serve the party as well as his personal ambitions

- Vijay Gokhale

All regimes, irrespective of the nature of their politics, feel compelled to narrate events in their self-image and for self-glorification.

History was a powerful instrument in Mao Zedong’s arsenal. To a country beset by poverty and wracked by civil war, Mao served up the idea through the selective use of historical facts, that the fledgling communist party was their best option to rejuvenate the Chinese nation.

Myth became a part of the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda effort, beginning from the so-called ‘Long March’ (1934-35), which was, really speaking, a forced retreat by the communist party from eastern China to the remote north-west. The historical narrative was so crafted as to make a hero of Mao. This narrative and the accompanying imagery are so deeply embedded within the party and people that the myth of the Long March remains an enduring symbol of the party’s greatness.

After 1949 it became state policy to rewrite history by exaggerating the party’s successes and by air-brushing its failures to create the powerful idea that the communist party is chosen by history and the people to make China great again. Mao’s successors found it convenient to continue this practice, with one noticeable difference. Deng and his two successors did not use history to build their cult status.

In his first press conference on November 15, 2012, Xi Jinping made the customary references to the 5,000 years of Chinese civilisation. In the beginning it was not clear how he would use history as a political tool.

● This was remedied in January 2013 in a secret speech to the central committee