An Alternative Approach to Ideas and Personality: Chinese President Xi Jinping and His Mass-Line Sensibilities

An Alternative Approach to Ideas and Personality: Chinese President Xi Jinping and His Mass-Line Sensibilities

This paper addresses a lacuna in the literature concerning how a ruler’s ideas shape their attitudes toward the world and others through their personality. It examines the political ideas of Chinese President Xi Jinping as his references to the self-inrelation rather than his schema to assess and treat alters-in-relation. In addition to allowing political actors to assess the world and engage in policymaking, personality may inspire them to use ideas conversely to prepare themselves for the acceptance of their perceived constituencies. In terms of Xi Jinping’s evolving personality, an initial need to overcome his individual vulnerability by becoming one with the masses has grown into a quest for transcendence that is informed by the following elements: (1) Buddhism while practicing the Party self; (2) the notion of Confucian harmony for the self-cultivation of Party cadres while practicing the national self; and (3) a socialist sensitivity to the material needs of the disadvantaged while practicing the international self. This has been demonstrated through programs that include his anti-corruption campaigns, his Chinese dream of anti-poverty, and his notion of a shared future of humankind. This paper compares the Kyoto School’s use of Buddhism, Mao’s use of Confucianism, and Pol Pot’s use of Maoism. It also discusses how an autocracy can suffer from involution.