How the Cultural Revolution shaped China’s leaders today
54 min listen
All eyes are on the Communist leadership this year, as the months count down to autumn’s National Party Congress, where Xi Jinping may be crowned for a third term. But how much do we really know about the Party’s leadership? In particular, can we better understand them through looking at the experiences that they've had?Take Xi Jinping, who is what is known as a 'princeling' – his father was the Communist revolutionary Xi Zhongxun, one of the Party's early cadres. Growing up, the younger Xi would have been steeped in Communist lore. Yet his father's downfall, at the hands of a paranoid Mao, as well as the Cultural Revolution must have humbled the young man. He spent seven years doing manual labour in the Chinese countryside as one of the 'sent-down youths'.
