When Soviet architect Sergei Andreyev designed the Beijing Exhibition Centre more than six decades ago, it symbolised the awkward alliance between Chairman Mao’s China and the USSR.



In the autumn of 2017 it has become a monument to just one man.

“Maybe he’s our idol,” grins Huang Xingchen, a 28-year-old policeman and one of thousands of Xi Jinping fans to stream into the 1950s expo hall since a show trumpeting the feats of China’s current leader opened there last week.

Officially, the Five Years On exhibit – timed to mark the end of Xi’s first term in power – is a celebration of the advances China as a whole has made in that time. But Xi, whose supremacy will take centre stage when a key Communist party congress kicks off in Beijing on 18 October, is the undoubted star of the show.

Scores of photographs of the 64-year-old strongman adorn the walls of the retrospective, split by Communist party curators into 10 thematic “zones” touting Xi’s purported triumphs in areas such as foreign policy, the environment and the war on corruption. Exhibition guides in burgundy flight attendant uniforms proffer anecdotes about the travails of a leader party officials now hail as their “core”.

No fewer than 24 large photographs of Xi Jinping are on display in the military section of the Five Years On exhibition. Photograph: Tom Phillips/The Guardian

“I bet Theresa May would like to have an exhibition like that in five years time,” joked Roderick MacFarquhar, a Harvard University professor and former British MP who specialises in the nebulous world of elite Chinese politics.

The Xi on show in the Beijing exhibition is a man of many friends and many talents.

In one room, visitors find an image of Xi the international statesman rubbing shoulders with the Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on Horse Guards Parade. In another, field commander Xi brandishes a Chinese assault rifle while touring a People’s Liberation Army garrison in Macau.



Visitors also encounter Xi the conservationist: he caresses a baby elephant at a Zimbabwean wildlife sanctuary; he is applauded by environmental officials on the Tibetan plateau; he appears at the 2015 Paris climate conference, quoting Victor Hugo as he commits to fighting global warming: “Les ressources suprêmes sortent des résolutions extrêmes,” China’s green supremo declares.

Xi’s conquests are also remembered in cross-stitch form. An embroidery entitled “The One Who Cares the Most” hangs from one wall, memorialising the day Xi dropped in on villagers in Hunan province to advance his crusade against poverty.



Xi the wordsmith is also honoured. A towering bookshelf is stacked with copies of his tome on governance in Russian, Portuguese and Hungarian. “We all support him,” beams Xu Fangchao, 29, an HR worker who was admiring the collection with friends.

Xi pictured with the Queen in London. One expert believes the president wants to stay in power ‘forever’. Photograph: Tom Phillips/The Guardian

Where there are no images of Xi, glass cabinets contain tributes to his reign. One features a bright yellow jersey sent to him by Pelé, Brazil’s footballing king. Another holds an American football shirt gifted by high schoolers during a US tour: the number “1” is written on its back next to Xi’s name in mustard lettering.

Visitors to the exhibit – many bureaucrats attending at the behest of their Communist party work units – voiced support for their ruler. “He’s the best [ambassador for China] in history,” declared family planning official Hu Tongyu, 37, as he studied a portrait of Xi with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Lü Chunyan, 40, gave Xi’s war on pollution the thumbs-up. “The number of blue-sky days has been going up … [he] must be playing a leading role.”

As Xi Jinping completes his first term in power, the Communist party is celebrating his achievements with an exhibition in Beijing. Photograph: Tom Phillips/The Guardian

Chinese officials bristle at the suggestion Beijing is seeking to build a Mao-style cult of personality around Xi. But the exhibition’s relentless focus on the president only reinforces that impression.

In the military section no fewer than 24 photographs of Xi are on display, as well as two large screens on which his image repeatedly appears. Xi’s words of wisdom also enjoy pride of place. “The party must ... unswervingly push forward the great project of Party building, making it stronger and more powerful – Xi Jinping,” reads one installation.

MacFarquhar, the author of a seminal work on Mao Zedong, said the Xi showcase highlighted his determination to establish himself as a similarly transformative figure.



“There can never be another Mao, but there could never be another Lenin. That doesn’t mean to say there can’t be another Stalin or a Xi. I’m not suggesting Xi will be a brutal murderer like Stalin. But that there can be a second great leader after the founding father, we have seen proof of that ... No leader in China since Mao has had the kind of treatment that Xi Jinping has.”

Such is the buzz now surrounding Xi that there is growing speculation he will seek to stay in power after his second, and supposedly last term, ends in 2022. No obvious successor has emerged while Xi is expected to use this month’s conclave to write his omnipotence into the party’s charter, adding a body of Xi-related ideology that puts him in the same political league as Mao and Deng Xiaoping.

“Maybe history … will give him much more time, for example maybe a third term; maybe a fourth ... Who knows?” Wang Wen, a pro-party scholar from People’s University mused suggestively. “I think most of the Chinese hope ... he can stay in the position [for] much more time.”



That prospect will alarm liberals who accuse Xi of waging the most severe crackdown on free speech in decades. MacFarquhar said he was convinced it was Xi’s plan.



“My view has long been that he does not intend to retire, ever – not until God does it for him. So what they are doing at the moment with this enormous propaganda campaign is to say: ‘This man has got the secrets for a modern China: standing up for itself in the South China Sea and elsewhere, dominating the world, eventually. And in order to do that he needs to stick around. Not just for a quick five years or 10 years – he needs to be there forever, guarding it.’”



Additional reporting by Wang Zhen

