The Chinese Communist Party will hold its 19th Party Congress on Oct. 18, marking the end of President Xi Jinping's first five-year term as the organization's general secretary. During his tenure, Xi has bewildered Western observers and politicians by turning back to a Mao style of authoritarian practice, with the consequence of creating a more nationalistic China at the rest of the world's expense.
Many observers were unpleasantly surprised because, dazzled by the country's economic rise, they had forgotten that China's ruling Communist Party retains a Leninist core. Not that this Leninist core has anything to do with "communism." What remains of it is simply a vast and powerful bureaucracy that puts its own collective interests above all, including the welfare of the people it is supposed to serve....
