Haan, Jinping joins Maoji and Dengji

A 'new era' doesn’t automatically guarantee achhe din. But it does imply it: the ‘end of an era’ usually hinting at bure din ahead. So, for Chinese premier Xi Jinping to be acknowledged as the architect of a ‘new era’ in an amendment to the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) Charter is almost putting Jinpingism at par with Maoism, Leninism and capital C-ism. At the 19th National Congress of the CPC, China’s ‘constitution’ added the charter, ‘The Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’. Yes, ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ is a Deng Xiaoping invention: a concretisation of Deng’s great Michael Jacksonism, ‘It doesn’t matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice.’ Under Xi, with the latest ‘non-announcement’ of growth targets after 2024, the ‘new era’ confirms that the mouse catcher needn’t even be a cat, as long as claws remain intact.

Xi may not have history on his side. But in China, where history is what a Great Hallful of People decide history to be, he is already in the same smoking (and mirroring) room as Mao and Deng. Xi, unlike the other two, is not a ‘veteran revolutionary’. But then, China doesn’t live in revolutionary times. Its monotheism to the State (read: party) in the time of ‘controlled free-market’ is the yin that’s been yanged by Xi. Which makes China’s CEO many of our CEO.