Buchcover des Jahrbuchs der Deutschen Vereinigung für Chinastudien Band 17 (2024)

How to Cite

Schäfer, Carsten: ’Follow Jinping and it can’t go wrong’: Die Xi Jinping-Hagiografie in China, in Behr, Wolfgang et al. (Eds.): Krise und Risiko.: China und der Umgang mit Unwägbarkeit, Heidelberg: Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing, 2025 (Jahrbuch der Deutschen Vereinigung für Chinastudien, Volume 17), p. 39–55. https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.1735.c25519

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.1735
ISBN 978-3-98887-043-8 (PDF)

Published

12/23/2025

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Authors

Carsten Schäfer

'Follow Jinping and it can't go wrong': Die Xi Jinping-Hagiografie in China

In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has started to build a cult of personality around its current leader, Xi Jinping. This is a major departure from Xi’s immediate predecessors. This article focuses on the Xi image in current propaganda; it analyzes the books Xi Jinping's Seven Years as an Educated Youth and Liangjiahe, two works that retell Xi’s youth in the poverty-stricken village Liangjiahe (Shaanxi Province) from 1969 to 1975. They offer us the most direct insights into the carefully crafted public image of China’s leader. By analyzing the ways in which Xi is portrayed and idealized in these books, the article shows how the new leadership tackles current crises of legitimacy in China and reveals new attempts at rewriting history and the changes in practices of power in current China.