Jenni Marsh on Xi (Audio)

of our government conveys volumes. What are we talking about in the case of she, Well, that's right, you know, and she's deeping as someone who was famously accumulated so many titles during his presidency so far that he's been called the chairman of everything. But this one has a particular weight because it's only been used previously in relation

to Mauzadong. So I think, you know, coming at this critical time where she is sort of dismantling succession norms and going for this third term in power, speaking fears that you know, in fact, he might say in power indefinitely, taking this sort of title associated with now is really worrying some some within China. You know, China is being rolled back to the era of personality cult which the party kind of vowed never to roll back to after Mail died and sort of pledged to have this system

of collective leadership. So you know, there's a lot of sensitivity around this particular name. So to that point, I mean, is there a consensus here on bestowing him with this with this new title. We've seen two members of the Politbureros that's China sort of top twenty five member decision making body use it during the Congress so far um, and it was also used in a cc d I briefing at the previous weekend. So we're seeing high profile

party leaders now use the term. So you know, we'll be watching out to see if we see the Standing Committee, for example, UM, this kind of the Supreme Um rulemaking body in Hong Kong, China, sorry, use that term as well. We're not expecting it to appear in an official document like the party charter, So there isn't like we're going to see this kind of like baked in to the

Communist Party sort of official documents. It's much more about kind of consensus and the feeling around she so a little more subtlety, But in doing so, is there any type of risk that he is taking on when he when he chooses to embrace this, I think I think

there absolutely is. I mean, last week in Beijing there was this kind of very rare protest, whether it's loan loan protus a drape to sign over a prominent bridge in Beijing, and one of the things they said was, you know, we don't want a links to you a great leader. We want um, we want elections, you know, And that kind of just spoke to some of the underlying dissatisfaction among certain parts of society in China, but

also within the party. I mean, there was a statement last year from the from the party saying, you know, like upholding the current leadership doesn't mean, you know, a revert back to personality cults, which we firmly opposed. So she's trying to walk a fine line here between cumulating war power, staying in power, but also projecting the image that he isn't rolling China back to sort of some

of the more controversial elements of Boos era. Yeah, I was wondering next, I mean, kind of in keeping with the point that you just made there, how people the population in China would view this. Do we have a sense of that? I mean, I would imagine that it's going to vary a little bit just generally generationally. I think it would very generationally. I mean, I think it's it's so hard to know what people in China are

thinking about any of this. UM. I would say that, you know, the COVID zero policy that she has sort of um committed to earlier this year kind of generated these very unfavorable comparisons with the Cultural Revolution, particularly during the Shanghai lockdown, when you know, UM, the white suits were going into people's flats and disinfecting everything and sort of taking out the books and things like that, and there was there was some pushback on social media to

sort of that decade, which they use a euphemism used to refer to the Cultural Revolution, and people are making that comparison between she UM and that sort of particular particularly termal part of Mao's rule. So I would imagined too, that if you use a lofty title, at some point you're going to have to deliver results that kind of match that, don't you think? Yeah, I guess it raises

the expectation for she. I mean, I suppose the important thing to note is that UM, this is just like an informal way of him gathering more power within the party, But the important thing is obviously the fact that he is staying in power and sort of stuffing his top leadership with all the loyalists, and that's really what's gonna be consolidate his power and raise expectations that he's going to use that extra power to do something compressive and

whether or not it's a liability if you don't have a diversity of opinion in that inner circle. Jenny, thank you so much. Jenny Morrish's Bloomberg's Greater China editor for the Government team, joining us here on debreak Asia