{"id":22484,"date":"2020-09-06T15:56:17","date_gmt":"2020-09-06T06:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/06\/chairman-xi-seeks-only-to-purge-and-subjugate-that-is-his-weakness"},"modified":"2020-09-06T15:56:17","modified_gmt":"2020-09-06T06:56:17","slug":"chairman-xi-seeks-only-to-purge-and-subjugate-that-is-his-weakness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=22484","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Chairman Xi\u2019 seeks only to purge and subjugate. That is his weakness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Tibet to Taiwan, China\u2019s leader is intent on wielding absolute power. Instead he is fanning the flames of dissent<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s often said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely \u2013 but does it also induce leaders to act in foolhardy, headstrong and ultimately self-destructive ways? History, especially Chinese history, is full of examples of omnipotent rulers whose unchecked behaviour led to disaster. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/xi-jinping\" title=\"\">Xi Jinping<\/a>, China\u2019s comrade-emperor, is a modern-day case in point. Xi seems to think he can do no wrong. As a result, not much is going right.<\/p>\n<p>Xi\u2019s authoritarian, expansionist policies, pursued with increasing vehemence since he became communist party chief and president in 2012-13, have enveloped China in a ring of fire. Its borderlands are ablaze with conflict and confrontation from Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and the Himalayas in the north and west to Hong Kong, the South China Sea and Taiwan to the east. More than at any time since Mao\u2019s 1949 revolution, China is also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/comment\/opinion\/article\/3099616\/why-china-becoming-bogeyman-its-border-lands\" title=\"\">at odds with the wider world<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/06\/chairman-xi-seeks-only-to-purge-and-subjugate-that-is-his-weakness\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Tibet to Taiwan, China\u2019s leader is intent on wielding absolute power. Instead he is fanning the flames of dissentIt\u2019s often said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely \u2013 but does it also induce leaders to act in foolhardy, hea&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,48,609,67,42,49,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-hong-kong","category-tibet","category-uighurs","category-world-news","category-xi-jinping","category-xinjiang"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22484"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22494,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22484\/revisions\/22494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}