'Red aristocracy' backs leader's vision for future
Date February 25, 2013
John Garnaut
China correspondent for Fairfax Media
New Chinese leader Xi Jinping is backed by the children of China's old guard. Photo: Reuters
BEIJING: Nostalgic and disillusioned members of the Chinese Communist Party's ''red aristocracy'' have rallied strongly behind the country's new leader, Xi Jinping, in gatherings during the Spring Festival break.
At the largest reunion, held on Saturday at the People's Liberation Army's August 1 film studio in West Beijing, children of revolutionary leaders lauded the Xi administration for ''correcting'' the party's course at its ''critical moment of life and death'', when it was in danger of abandoning socialism altogether.
''There is hope in the snake year now the party leadership has shown us the content and direction of socialism with Chinese characteristics,'' Hu Muying, the daughter of former Politburo member Hu Qiaomu, told the gathering of about 1000 descendants of veterans of the revolution.
Mr Hu was Mao Zedong's long-time speech writer and the chief ideological authority under Mao and his successor as paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping.
''We shall prove by our own actions that we, the children of veterans, are indeed worthy of the name 'Second Generation Red','' Ms Hu said. ''Let's strive together towards the China Dream,'' she said, endorsing Mr Xi's political motto.
Ms Hu's affirmation, given as president of the Fellowship of Children of Yan'an, presented a striking contrast to previous Spring Festival gatherings, where she had diagnosed social crises and ideological confusion but given no credit to the capacity of senior party leaders to solve the problems.
Mr Xi enjoys natural prestige among the ''Second Generation Red'' because he is one. His father, Xi Zhongxun, helped establish the revolutionary bastion of Yan'an in the 1930s.
Mr Xi's first 100 days in power, which he reached on Thursday, have been marked by high-profile campaigns against corruption, pomp and conspicuous consumption among the party and military elite.
He has adopted a more nationalistic and militaristic tone in pursuing territorial claims against Japan and has made repeated high-profile visits to military commands.
Less visibly, in internal speeches and oblique public references, Mr Xi has elevated the prestige and legacy of Mao and held himself out as a leader who has the courage to fight to save the regime - in contrast to Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union.
He has simultaneously recommitted to the cause of economic reform by laying a wreath at a statue of Mao's successor Deng.
''Deng's success was, after all, the result of his close relations with so many groups in the leadership and the party rather than any inflexible ideological or intellectual position,'' said David Goodman, the academic director at the University of Sydney's China studies centre.
''Like Deng, Xi Jinping has been acceptable because so many groups, including party conservatives like Hu Muying, think that they have his ear,'' said Professor Goodman, who has written a book about Deng.
Mr Xi's leaning towards the Mao-era legacy has dismayed many liberal intellectuals, particularly with some comments in December in which he emphasised continuity between the revolutionary decades under Mao and the reform era under Deng.
''This is almost like overturning Deng Xiaoping's rejection of the Cultural Revolution,'' said He Weifang, a prominent lawyer. ''It seems Xi is trying to fawn over the left while not offending the right.''
But previously outspoken liberal-leaning members of the red aristocracy have bitten their tongues.
''I don't challenge him openly, because I have to support him,'' the son of one of the People's Liberation Army's 10 great marshals told Fairfax Media.
''Other people who don't belong to Hongerdai [Second Generation Red] will say, 'That's wrong', that Xi has leftist colour, but we don't,'' he said.
