How Xi Jinping Became One of China’s Most Powerful Leaders
After less than five years as China’s leader, Xi Jinping has become one of the most powerful people in the nation’s modern history, outshining his immediate predecessors.
“He is a powerful figure, he is the most powerful leader since (paramount leader) Deng Xiaoping, but again his power has limitations,” Cheng Li, director at the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center, told CNN. “China is not in the mood for a dictator-like figure.”
A relative enigma when he came into power, in this first term Xi has revealed himself as not only an economic and political conservative but also a skilled populist.
His wide-reaching anti-corruption campaign, which has been criticized as a way to consolidate power, has been widely popular among ordinary Chinese.
Read more at CNN.
