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‘Emperor’ Xi Jinping, as Donald Trump refers to him, is rarely seen laughing in public.
Xi, arguably China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, has been at the helm in China for over a decade. Throughout his tenure, which has seen a crackdown on corruption and purges of top officials, Xi has tried to project an image of a solemn leader.
However, now the United States has released some photos of Xi that people in China will be unfamiliar with – the Chinese leader grinning and laughing.
But what happened? Why are such pictures of Xi so rare?
Let’s take a closer look.
What happened?
The White House has put up dozens of photos of Trump and Xi during the US-China summit in South Korea. The over three dozen photos were put up on the White House website under the title ‘US President Donald Trump Participates in a Bilateral Meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping’. Thirty-eight photos were in colour while four were in black and white.
The talks between the two sides were held at Naraemaru, a reception hall on the Gimhae Air Force Base at Gimhae International Airport in Busan. They showed President Xi and President Trump sitting face to face with their aides on both sides. The leaders appeared to be in a relaxed mood, with Xi at first appearing amused before bursting out laughing when Trump showed him a piece of paper. It remains unknown what was written or printed on the paper that left Xi in splits.
That wasn’t the only time Xi was seen in a different light.Xi last month was witnessed cracking a joke when exchanging gifts with South Korea’s President Lee Jae-myung. Lee, who gave Xi a wooden Go board, was in turn presented with two Xiaomi phones made in China.
“How is the communication security?” Lee asked, which left Xi and the others laughing.
“You can check if there’s a backdoor,” Xi responded. China has long been accused of building backdoors – which allow hackers to access devices without the owners knowing – into devices and programmes.
Xi’s image control
Xi has gone to great lengths to try to keep control of his image within China. He usually maintains a serious façade when giving speeches and presiding over ceremonies. Xi recently did so while attending a military parade wearing a suit in the style of Chairman Mao. Xi, prior to the Trump meet, remained stoic while addressing the plenum of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC).
Experts say Xi’s control over party politics has become so tight that some are left grasping for straws, such as analysing his speeches or even his hair colour.
Meanwhile, images of Xi laughing and smiling are nowhere to be found on Chinese platforms such as Weibo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu. China has banned platforms such as Facebook and X.
This is all part of Xi continuing to tighten his grip on China. The Chinese president in 2017 even introduced his ideology, known as ‘Xi Jinping Thought’, into school and college curricula – putting him on a par with Chairman Mao, the founder of Communist China, and Deng Xiaoping.
No other leader since Mao has had an eponymous ideology included in the document while in office. Deng’s name was added after his death in 1997. The Chinese state previously also banned Winnie the Pooh after people began mocking Xi for his purported resemblance to the children’s character created by English author A.A. Milne, over memes that compare the bumbling bear to President Xi Jinping.
The comparisons began in 2013 when Xi visited the United States and met his then counterpart Barack Obama. It quickly went viral and was used by many to mock Xi in a satirical manner. Some have even used the character as a symbol of resistance. The movie Christopher Robin was banned in China in 2018, as was Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, a British slasher film, in Hong Kong in 2023.
With inputs from agencies
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