Xi Jinping Leadership Quotes

If the people merely have the right to vote, but no right of extensive participation, in other words, if they are awakened only at election time but go into hibernation afterwards, this is token democracy. Reviewing our experience with people's democracy since the founding of the PRC, we have made it clear that in such a vast and populous socialist country, extensive deliberation under the leadership of the CPC on major issues affecting the economy and the people's quality of life embodies the unity of democracy and centralism. Chinese socialist democracy takes two important forms: in one the people exercise their right to vote in elections, and in the other, people from all sectors of society undertake extensive deliberations before major decisions are made. In China, these two forms do not cancel one another out, nor are they contradictory; they are complimentary. They constitute institutional features and strengths of Chinese socialist democracy.

When Xi Jinping took command in 2012, some of us anticipated that he might turn foreign policy in a more conciliatory direction by centralizing the policy process and curbing the scrum of interest groups that had characterized Hu Jintao’s oligarchy. Xi’s personal authority was, and is, more than sufficient to restrain the various groups that had been promoting their own interests by overreaching under Hu’s collective leadership.

In January 2017, Zhou Qiang, China’s top judge and president of the Supreme People’s Court, made himself very clear to an assembly of magistrates in Beijing: We should resolutely resist erroneous Western ideas such as ‘the separation of powers’ and ‘independence of the judiciary’. We need to oppose those who talk against the leadership of the Communist Party and attack the Chinese socialist system. We need to be ready to respond, to bring out our weapons and prepare for battle. In short, while there are more references to Taoist proverbs than to Legalism in Xi Jinping’s speeches, Legalism holds more sway in his intellectual universe. There is every reason to believe that he is personally inspired by Legalism, and that it is of great assistance in his countering of Western legal thought.