> China’s leader, Xi Jinping, was the little-known party chief of a city in the coastal province of Fujian during the unrest in 1989. But the PLA’s crushing of that unrest, and the failure of the Soviet army to do the same in Moscow in 1991, leading to the Soviet Union’s collapse, clearly left a deep impression. He has often referred to a critical lesson from it all: the PLA must remain the party’s army and it must be kept under control. It all helps explain Mr Xi’s relentless “anti-corruption” drives among the high command.
Xi was 36 years old in 1989, older than almost all of the current Politburo members. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had very minor roles at that time. Xi’s role was at least partly because he was a princeling - his father was a comrade of Mao Zedong from the old days.
I recommend reading Yashen Huang's "Rise and Fall of the E.A.S.T." [0] - it has a good overview of the cadre during Tiannamen - along with the dated but very comprehensive Tiannamen Papers [1]
[0] - https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300274912/the-rise-and-f...
[1] - https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/liang-zhang/the-tia...
Yes under Mao, but after Deng came to power the family regained significant political power.
Xi's father Xi Zhongxun was one of the Eight Elders [0] during the Deng era, and supported the Tiannamen crackdown. He was the Chairman of the Internal and Judicial Affairs Committee until 1993, and while the Chairman of the NPCSC (Wan Li) was in the US during the crackdown. He was also in charge of Guangdong after the Gang of Four were purged [1] and was the party leader who created what became the Shenzhen SEZ. And Xi Jinping's early mentor Geng Biao was the general who purged the Gang of Four [2] and worked with the US to modernize China's military capabilities [3].
The Geng Biao connection is a major reason why PLA Modernization is such a personal ambition of Xi's today - it was what gave him a major leg up in his career, and allowed him to differentiate himself from other Princelings and the Youth League cadre during his climb up the party ladder as well as during the succession showdown against Bo Xilai.
[0] - https://www.scmp.com/article/662093/eight-immortals-who-jock...
[1] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/07/16/x...
[2] - https://www3.nd.edu/~pmoody/Text%20Pages%20-%20Peter%20Moody...
[3] - https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v13...
Makes his complete commitment to the Party that much more interesting. I think Chinese leaders see the path they took - always venerating Mao (unlike the Soviets who denounced Stalin) and taking brutal action against any who would challenge the party’s power (in Tiananmen, unlike Soviet parties) as vindicating the approach of trusting the Communist Party. They firmly believe that only the Communist Party can control China and make it strong. Any reform like what the Russians did would leave them weak, like Russia is.
Obviously we can’t read his mind, but I’d guess that he justifies the Cultural Revolution as the right thing because the Party cannot be questioned. If you question that it opens up a whole can of worms that leads to the weakening and destruction of the Party.