Xi Jinping
State CapitalistOne of 729 ideologies · enter the State Capitalist hall →- Role
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§ Where Xi Jinping stands
3 axesXi presides over a mixed economy in which markets and private firms operate under party direction. He has favoured state-owned enterprises and industrial plans such as Made in China 2025, launched in 2015, and in 2020–21 regulators halted Ant Group's record share listing and fined Alibaba for monopoly abuses. Private firms still produce much of China's output, keeping his economics on the market side of centre.
Xi has reversed the collective leadership of the post-Mao era. Xi Jinping Thought was written into the party constitution in 2017, the 2018 constitutional amendment removed presidential term limits, and a 2013 internal directive known as Document No. 9 warned cadres against Western constitutional democracy and press freedom. Hong Kong's 2020 national security law and mass surveillance in Xinjiang show the reach of party control.
Socially Xi's China is nationalist and culturally conservative. His government has promoted traditional Chinese culture alongside Marxism, pursued the sinicisation of religion, detained five feminist activists in 2015, ordered broadcasters in 2021 to keep effeminate men off screen and passed a Patriotic Education Law in 2023. It replaced the one-child policy with a two-child limit in 2016 and a three-child limit in 2021 to lift the birth rate.
How close are you to Xi Jinping?
Three statements, one per axis. Answer them and we’ll drop you on the compass next to them.
§ The story
HistoricalXi Jinping (born 1953) has led the People's Republic of China as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party since 2012 and as state president since 2013. The son of the revolutionary veteran Xi Zhongxun, who was purged under Mao, he was sent to labour in a village in Shaanxi province during the Cultural Revolution, joined the party in 1974 and spent decades rising through provincial posts in Hebei, Fujian, Zhejiang and Shanghai before entering the Politburo Standing Committee in 2007 and becoming vice-president in 2008.
Xi is widely regarded as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. His anti-corruption campaign disciplined more than a million officials, including the former security chief Zhou Yongkang, and the abolition of presidential term limits in 2018 cleared the way for a third term as president in 2023. His rule is marked by the Belt and Road Initiative, the 2020 national security law that ended Hong Kong's protest movement, and the mass detention of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, which a 2022 UN human rights assessment said may amount to crimes against humanity; Beijing calls the camps vocational training centres.
Key works & moments
- 1969–75Sent down to the village of Liangjiahe in Shaanxi during the Cultural Revolution.
- 2012Becomes party general secretary and launches a sweeping anti-corruption campaign.
- 2013Unveils the Silk Road Economic Belt in Kazakhstan, the start of the Belt and Road Initiative.
- 2018The National People's Congress abolishes presidential term limits.
- 2020Beijing imposes a national security law on Hong Kong on 30 June.
- 2022Secures a third term as general secretary at the 20th Party Congress.
§ Minds closest to Xi Jinping
All minds →
§ Also in the State Capitalist hall
Enter the hall →§ Common questions
4 answersWhat is Xi Jinping's political ideology?
Xi calls his ideology Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. In practice it is party-led, nationalist state capitalism: on the 99ideologies three-axis compass, a State Capitalist. Economically he sits moderately on the market side (+25), since private firms and markets remain central under state direction, and on governance he is strongly authoritarian (+75). Socially his rule is nationalist and conservative, stressing patriotism, traditional culture and party discipline.
Is Xi Jinping left-wing or right-wing?
Officially left-wing, as head of a Marxist-Leninist communist party, but his record mixes left and right. He has strengthened state enterprises, reined in private technology giants and preached Common Prosperity, all of which point left. Yet China under Xi keeps a large private sector, stock markets and billionaires, and his social agenda of nationalism, patriotic education and traditional family values resembles the conservative right. His defining commitment is the supremacy of the party and its leader.
Can Xi Jinping rule for life?
Legally, nothing prevents it. In 2018 the National People's Congress removed the two-term limit on the state presidency, and the more powerful post of party general secretary has never had a formal term limit. The pattern of handing over power after a decade, which Hu Jintao followed in 2012, was only a convention, and Xi broke it when the 20th Party Congress gave him a third term in 2022. Unlike his predecessors, he did not elevate an obvious successor to the Politburo Standing Committee that year.
Which minds are closest to Xi Jinping?
On the 99ideologies three-axis compass, the minds closest to Xi Jinping are Vladimir Putin (100% alike), Kaiser Wilhelm II (90% alike) and King Maha Vajiralongkorn (90% alike). The furthest is Emma Goldman (11% alike).