Beijing : President Xi Jinping was on Thursday elevated as the “core leader” of China’s ruling Communist Party, conferring on him a status similar to that of party founder ‘Chairman’ Mao Zedong that dilutes the three-decade-old collective leadership principle to avoid personality cult.
Reinforcing the solid power base built by Jinping, since he assumed power in November, 2012, the plenary meeting of CPC which concluded its four-day in-camera meeting here today called on its over 88 million members to “closely unite around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core”.
Sixty three-year-old Jinping heads the party as general-secretary of the CPC, and the military besides the presidency since 2013, a privilege denied to his predecessor Hu Jintao who was saddled with a nine-member powerful Standing Committee were he was treated as first among equals.
