Will Xi Jinping become the Mao Zedong of the 21st century? At a time when the face-off between the People’s Liberation Army of China and the Indian Army troops in the Doklam plateau at the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction is continuing unabated, experts say the Ladakh stand off comes as an indication of changing times. There will be no let off and pull back, instead, assertion is the buzzword.
Security experts say that Chinese ambitions today are directly linked to Jinping's personal ambitions to emerge the strongest leader. From his anti-corruption drive, which was seen as assertion in the internal political space in Beijing, to his "China dream", it's Jinping all the way.
The message Xi Jinping is trying to give to the Chinese people back home and New Delhi is that not only will he not suffer humiliation by the latter’s strong opposition to his ambitious OBOR project and the likes but will also respond to any “provocation’’ from the Indian side.
It maybe recalled that Mao had felt humiliated when India gave a red carpet welcome to Dalai Lama when he fled there in March 1959 and sought refuge in India. Rising tension between the two nations and Mao’s belief that the Lhasa rebellion in Tibet was the handiwork of Indians became one of the reasons for the Sino-Indian war in 1962.
"We expect skirmishes like Ladakh to continue to take place. China will be more assertive under Jinping who is selling the Chinese dream to his people," said a security official .
Jinping first spoke of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in 2012 but the term became very popular after he took over as the Chinese premier and alluded to it several times in his speeches.
"To realise the Chinese road, we must spread the Chinese spirit, which combines the spirit of the nation with patriotism as the core and the spirit of the time with reform and innovation as the core," Jinping had said in one of his addresses after taking over as president in 2013.
It may be recalled that Mao was the first president who talked about a vision for China. At that point in time, it was the realisation of communism and socialism.
