Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hey, I'm Su Lin Wong. I'm The Economist China correspondent. I've travelled all over the country for stories, but for this one, the biggest by far, I wound up watching old videos from the 1990s. This is one of my favourites. A young Xi Jinping is still years away from becoming a world leader. He's just a provincial Communist Party official smiling for state TV.
He's at home with his baby daughter, Mingzi, on his knee. Oh, she's wet herself and it's gone all over him. China's future president seems happy. But people who knew him back then weren't sure he'd amount to much. People never imagined that he would become national leader. He really looked humble. Xi wasn't even the most famous person in his house.
His wife is Peng Liyuan, a singer and a big celebrity in China. This is her on a 90s chat show. The host says, "It must be hard for the man you married. I bet most people only know him as Peng Liyuan's husband." "Oh, I'm not worried about that."
I wouldn't marry someone who I really felt was beneath me. Watching the clip makes me wonder, what did she see in him? From The Economist, this is The Prince, a podcast about Xi Jinping. He's led China for 10 years and he's planning to stay on, perhaps for life. He's the most powerful person in the world, but he's still a mystery.
The story of his life is hidden behind a brutal censorship and propaganda machine. That's why those videos are so intriguing. How did such a mild-mannered guy become China's most feared and revered leader since Chairman Mao? I'll tell the real story of Xi Jinping...
His traumatic childhood. Xi Jinping had the experience that without power, you were nobody. His rise through a vicious regime. Who's your daddy in China? It's the Communist Party. Don't piss him off. And how he uses the lessons he learned along the way to control a country of over a billion people. They put black holes on my face and then they handcuffed me and chained my feet.
Xi Jinping's changed China. He's also changed my life. And now he wants to reshape the world. And to understand what's next, you need to know where he came from. It's really almost like Greek tragedy in some ways. It's almost kind of amazing. Look for The Prince on your podcast app.