China's Xi has cemented his power at the sixth plenum. Now he's ready to meet Biden virtually

Senior officers on Thursday accepted a decision on the celebration's "major achievements and historic experiences" since its founding 100 years in the past, inserting Xi on the similar pedestal as the nation's founding father Mao Zedong and reformist chief Deng Xiaoping, who unleashed an financial increase that turned China into the world's second-largest economic system.

And with this elevated stature and undisputed rule inside the authoritarian, one-party state now established, Xi is making ready to sit down with United States President Joe Biden in a digital assembly Monday -- the first between the two leaders since Biden entered the White House in January.

On Thursday, Xi warned Asia-Pacific nations towards a return to Cold War-era tensions, in a veiled reference to the Biden administration's efforts to rally allies and companions in the area to confront Beijing's rising affect."The Asia-Pacific region cannot and should not relapse into the confrontation and division of the Cold War era," Xi instructed the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation discussion board in a recorded video. "Attempts to draw ideological lines or form small circles on geopolitical grounds are bound to fail," he mentioned.Xi has tried to construct home legitimacy round a imaginative and prescient of "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," which vows to restore China to its historical glories and rightful place on the world stage. And the historic decision adopted at the celebration's plenum this week has anointed him as the solely chief supposedly able to steering China to obtain that ambition.Under Xi, the assembly's communique says, China has "made historic achievements and undergone historic transformations," fixing robust issues and allegedly carrying out grand issues that it says had been lengthy on the agenda of his predecessors however might by no means get completed. The communique didn't handle any of the complicated challenges confronted by Xi's administration, from a looming demographic disaster and slowing economic system to Beijing's plummeting worldwide picture over its harsh crackdowns on Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, navy posturing towards the self-governing island of Taiwan, and an more and more assertive international coverage. Instead, it heaped glowing reward on the perceived progress made underneath Xi's management, from what it characterised as the elimination of poverty and containment of Covid-19, to reshaping ideology, modernizing the navy and lifting China's world affect.

In the communique, Xi is portrayed as an epoch-making chief alongside Mao and Deng, the solely different two Chinese leaders who had put ahead such resolutions. Under Mao, Deng and now Xi, the Chinese nation has "ushered in a great leap from standing up and getting rich to becoming strong," it mentioned."He wants to really highlight his own contribution to the development of the party, that also will seal his legitimate rule over China in the foreseeable future," mentioned Victor Shih, an knowledgeable on elite Chinese politics at the University of California, San Diego. "Then of course, no one would challenge his power within the party." The communique, nevertheless, additionally disregarded any point out of the celebration's previous errors, together with a lethal famine and a decade of political and social turmoil unleashed by Mao -- disasters partly brought on by the fervent cult of character surrounding him.After a long time of collective management following Mao's dying, Xi has returned, at least partly, to the one-man rule of the Mao period."Now we are back to the strongman politics," mentioned Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University."The danger, of course, (is to rely) on one person to make decisions, but also rely on his health, on his own character to decide about the future of a nation of 1.4 billion people," he mentioned.And when there's just one individual in power, there's only one individual to blame when issues go flawed.