Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012 and has reshaped Chinese politics around personal authority, ideological discipline, and great-power assertion. His signature anti-corruption campaign neutralised internal rivals while disciplining the wider party. Constitutional changes in 2018 abolished presidential term limits, opening the door to indefinite tenure — a sharp break from the Deng-era convention of orderly succession. Externally: the Belt and Road Initiative, militarisation of the South China Sea, the Hong Kong national-security crackdown, the mass internment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and an increasingly assertive posture toward Taiwan. Internally: 'Common Prosperity,' the 2021 tightening of control over technology firms (Alibaba, Didi, Tencent), and a return to ideological education centred on 'Xi Jinping Thought,' written into the party constitution alongside Mao and Deng. Treated by his admirers as the strongest Chinese leader since Mao.