BEIJING (AP) – China’s Communist Party on Thursday elevated President Xi Jinping to the position of “core” of the leadership, underscoring the clout he has amassed on the back of a sweeping anti-corruption campaign and crackdown on dissent.
A key party meeting this week called on all members to unite around the party leadership with “Comrade Xi Jinping as the core,” according to a communique released by the official Xinhua News Agency.
“This actually is very significant in the sense that it is truly making him the undisputed leader of today,” said Dali Yang, a Chinese politics expert at the University of Chicago.
While mainly symbolic, the move to bestow Xi with “core” status reflects his assertion of himself as one of the country’s most powerful leaders in decades.
It was an accolade bestowed on past leaders including famed reformist Deng Xiaoping and ex-President Jiang Zemin, but which Xi’s immediate predecessor never attained.