It struck me when reading a speech tonight by the Australian Ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, that the kind of character that he describes in the person of Chinese President Xi Jinping, would most likely meet criteria for anti-social personality disorder if he was put under the rigours of diagnostic testing.
In the speech, Ambassador Rudd was describing his relationship with the Chinese people over 50 years. A relationship that had its high points and is currently in a low. Mr Rudd blames this cold chill on the leadership of President Xi, who has been the instigator of a more militarily ambitious foreign policy (i.e. Criterion A1: failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviours; and Criterion A5: reckless disregard for safety of self or others) as well as a more conflictual foreign policy in non-military matters (such as in the recent trade war between Australia and China, Criterion A3: impulsivity or failure to plan ahead; Criterion A4: Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated fights or assaults; and Criterion A7: Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated or stolen from another). While only 3 of the 7 criteria from the group under the heading of Criterion A are needed to qualify for a diagnosis, the 5 of the 7 relevant criteria listed here are enough to warrant concern.
We learnt over 80 years ago the danger that is present when a world leader pushes the boundaries of the acceptable and seeks to promote and initiate violence. No doubt the Chinese Communist Party saw in Mr Xi the ambition and ruthlessness that they admire or at least have enough fear of to justify giving in to – for who ever really believed that Communists had enough of a backbone to stand up to such a figure? Communism is a system that seeks to subjugate reality to its theory of ‘class warfare’ – perhaps the change with Mr Xi’s presidency is simply removing the ‘class’ bit but keeping the ‘warfare’ bit?
If war does eventuate there will certainly be much analysis of Mr Xi’s personality and psychological style simply to make sense of his brazen rejection of reason in preference for the madness of war – which it seems to me is the choice every person makes when they promote violence over prosperity and goodness.
From a distance, it also seems that this change brought about with Mr Xi’s presidency is more indicative of a fascist fundamentalism than the Soviet Communism that reigned in Eastern Europe for much of the later half of the 1900s. For in seeking to maintain power by allowing capitalism to reign in a state-controlled manner, as was the plan since Deng Xiaoping, it seems sowed the seeds for a new kind of ‘national’ socialism, if you like, a socialism in which the communist party seeks to maintain power by showing what it does for the nation. Add in tow the Han-racial propaganda and cultural purity campaigns that the communists have put in place since Xi’s rise to power, the comparison with Fascist Germany in the 1930s does not seem too extravagant.
It seems to me that one defining feature of Mr Xi is his hunger for the ‘good old days’. Yet if there is one period in history that appears ‘good’ to Mr Xi, my bet would be it is the period of 1914 to 1945, where there was great destruction, yes, but also great influence by ‘great men’. It seems to me that Mr Xi is looking for his moment to define his greatness for posterity. Could this be the ‘pride before the fall’ of Proverbs 16:18 that was so instrumental in the collapse of Europe in the period of history mentioned above?
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