Beijing (AFP) – Ahead of the 20th Party Congress, where President Xi Jinping is expected to secure an unprecedented third term, former Tsinghua University political science professor Wu Qiang speaks about a “transformation of the party” during the leader’s first ten years in power. “(Xi Jinping) wants to become the successor to Mao, and even wants to make China the sole rightful inheritor of the global Communist movement today,” Wu says in a small, book-strewn apartment on the outskirts of Beijing. He is one of the last Chinese academics who refuses to be silenced by the Communist Party’s crackdown on intellectuals.
