Hits hold Xi Jinping up as an ideal leader, and husband, but observers see attempts to build a Mao-like personality cult

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

It was the dream of pop stardom that convinced Zhou Dandan, a belly dancing instructor from Hubei province, to pen her paean to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

For Tang Jianyu it was a desire to canonise her country’s commander-in-chief. “He is the ideal husband for any girl,” gushed Tang, a 39-year-old amateur musician from Wuxi in Zhejiang province.

As Xi moves into his fourth year as president of the world’s most populous nation, the two musicians are part of a growing chorus of Chinese minstrels singing the praises of the man they call “Xi Dada” which translates as Uncle or Big Daddy Xi.

A rapidly expanding list of pop hits celebrating the president includes tracks such as Our Xi Dada, The Idol Xi Dada, If You Want to Marry, Marry Somebody Like Xi Dada, China has its Xi Dada, Be a Man Like Xi Dada and, best known of all, Xi Dada Loves Peng Mama (a reference to China’s first lady, Peng Liyuan).

“I want to sing Big Daddy Xi’s praises,” explained Zhou, 29, who is from the city of Xiangyang and uses the stage name “A Yi Mi La”. “There are millions of reports telling Xi’s story so it struck me I should write a song about him.”

She added: “I think he is a very ambitious [leader]. He is very bold but at the same time cautious.”

Part of the fast-growing Xi repertoire seems to be genuinely spontaneous tributes to a leader whose high-profile anti-corruption campaign has won him many fans.

Other works – such as a big budget television song and dance extravaganza that was reportedly bankrolled by the government of Hunan province – appear part of a coordinated propaganda push to bolster Xi’s standing.

“We are in your hearts! You are in our hearts! You love us, the people! We the people deeply love you!” the performers of that state-backed song chant.

Some detect a troubling attempt to build a Mao-esque personality cult around Xi.

Carl Minzner, an expert in Chinese governance at New York’s Fordham University, said Xi’s time in office had seen an increasingly intense and fawning focus on the Communist party chief in the media and some sections of the arts.

“You put all those things together … and it’s a budding cult of personality. And the fear about that is that this has echoes that go back to the Maoist era and you just wonder how that might get used,” he said.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, the revered China scholar David Shambaugh said: “I thought the Chinese system had moved beyond one-man-rule and personality cults.”

He added: “Xi has obviously reversed this carefully crafted norm, and I do not think it is good for China. This is not the 1960s.”

Daniel Leese, author of Mao Cult: Rhetoric and Ritual in China’s Cultural Revolution, said Xi had a long way to go before emulating Mao’s cult following. However, he too saw hints of a personality cult developing around Xi.

Unlike the portrayal of Mao Zedong, Xi was not depicted as a god-like figure. “He is not superhuman,” Leese said.

Rather, propaganda chiefs sought to craft the image of an approachable public servant who boasted both supreme leadership skills and the ability to act as a detached and influential political referee.

Budding poets are also attempting to get in on the act, including Pu Liye, the author of one recent ode to Xi. “General secretary, my eyes follow in your wake. And in these eyes my verse takes shape,” reads one of the poem’s opening lines.

Pu, a journalist at the state-run Xinhua news agency, declined to discuss his homage to Xi, which was received with widespread derision on the internet, but he confirmed that he wrote the politically-charged stanzas.

“I don’t want to say much,” he said. “Is that OK?”

Additional reporting by Christy Yao