Fewsmith: The Cult of Xi Jinping
Joseph Fewsmith, director of undergraduate studies at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, said that Chinese president Xi Jinping was clamping down on democratic expression, while burnishing his own cult of personality.
Fewsmith made his remarks in a March 8 article for the Associated Press entitled, “China’s Xi Seen at Center of Emerging Culture of Praise.”
Said Fewsmith in the article:
“Xi is actively trying to rein in precisely those elements of Chinese socio-political life – intellectual pluralism, popular participation, institutional checks and balances – that most of us would see as necessary for generating a more open, participatory political system,” Boston University China expert Joseph Fewsmith said.
You can read the entire article here.
Fewsmith is Professor of International Relations and Political Science at Boston University. He is the author or editor of eight books, including, most recently, The Logic and Limits of Political Reform in China (January 2013). Other works include China since Tiananmen (2nd edition, 2008) and China Today, China Tomorrow (2010). Other books include Elite Politics in Contemporary China (2001), The Dilemmas of Reform in China: Political Conflict and Economic Debate (1994), and Party, State, and Local Elites in Republican China: Merchant Organizations and Politics in Shanghai, 1890-1930 (1985). He is one of the seven regular contributors to the China Leadership Monitor, a quarterly web publication analyzing current developments in China.
Fewsmith travels to China regularly and is active in the Association for Asian Studies and the American Political Science Association.