Xi has rewritten China’s history, but can’t predict its global future Rana Mitter

Last week, Xi Jinping gave himself full Marx. The Chinese Communist party’s sixth plenum, a gathering of top political cadres, passed a resolution on “Certain Questions in the Party’s History”, in which Xi’s system of thought was defined as “Marxism for the 21st century”. Not only that, but that it also served as “the essence of the Chinese culture and China’s spirit”.

These are not terms that sound natural in English, but their significance is immense, because only two previous resolutions of this sort have ever been passed – in 1945 and 1981. The resolutions on party