BEIJING (AP) – In a ritual of summer, China’s leaders have been holding an unofficial retreat at a beach resort ahead of a key fall Communist Party congress at which President Xi Jinping will launch his second five-year term as party chief and move to cement his status as China’s most powerful leader in decades.
The absence of top leaders from state media reports is a general indication that the secretive Beidaihe retreat is underway. In a hint that leaders have gathered at the resort’s quiet beaches and closely guarded guest houses, the official Xinhua News Agency last week carried an account of a meeting at the resort between party propaganda boss Liu Yunshan and a group of vacationing technical experts.
The strength of Xi’s position likely means the goings-on this year on the coast east of Beijing will be even tamer than usual, analysts say.
Xi, 64, has been shoring up his authority and sidelining rivals, leaving him primed to install allies in top positions and press his agenda of tightened state control and muscular diplomacy. That appears to include a push to insert his thoughts on theoretical matters into the party constitution and further cultivate a burgeoning cult of personality that could allow him to hold on to power beyond his second term.
“The nuance this time is that there is much less ‘trading’ among various factions and more obsequious affirmation of the supreme leader’s supremacy,” said Miles Yu Maochun, an expert on Chinese politics at the U.S. Naval Academy.