Chinese Village Where Xi Jinping Fled Is Now a Monument to His Power<br />"The experience of being steeled by being sent to rural Liangjiahe was the wellspring of Xi Jinping’s thinking, mind-set<br />and feelings," Lei Pingsheng, another student from Beijing who was sent to work in the village, says in a new Chinese-language book, "Xi Jinping’s Seven Years as a Sent-Down Youth." The book has been heavily promoted by the party-run media before the congress.<br />"What Xi’s story says clearly is: He is a Communist born and bred,<br />but he also understands the common people." This story line resonates with many of the nearly 18 million Chinese who were also sent to the countryside by Mao in a mass effort to re-educate urban youth in the rustic virtues of China’s peasant majority, while defusing the fanaticism of the Red Guards.<br />Xia Baoqing said that Beijingers who weren’t sent to the countryside can’t handle nearly as much hardship as those of us who did,<br />Mr. Xi’s time in Liangjiahe was also more turbulent than portrayed in these sanitized versions of<br />history, according to less-guarded accounts that Mr. Xi gave before he became national leader.<br />In the run up, party newspapers and a new book have promoted the official line<br />that Mr. Xi is a strong leader with close ties to the common people because of his time in Liangjiahe.<br />" Mr. Xi said as he prepared to leave the village for university, according to the new book, "and I’ll<br />never forget it as long as I live." Adam Wu contributed research. that Liangjiahe gave me everything,<br />8, 2017<br />LIANGJIAHE, China — Almost 50 years after Xi Jinping first trudged into this village as a cold,<br />bewildered teenager, hundreds of political pilgrims retrace his footsteps every day.
