Xi: Skilled and Successful Political Leader of 2014: Washington Post columnist

Posted by on Jan 2, 2015 in Blog | 0 comments

On PBS‘s Newhour, David Ignatius, Foreign Policy Columnist for the Washington Post voiced admiration for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s leadership in both domestic politics and foreign policy.

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GWEN IFILL: David Ignatius, she mentions Vladimir Putin by name. Is there any other single leader who we should be the most concerned about, worried about, planning our foreign policy around?

DAVID IGNATIUS: I think we should pay special attention to the leader of China, President Xi Jinping, who would be on my list as the most skilled and successful political leader of the year.

Xi identified the biggest threats to the Communist Party’s rule in China as corruption and environmental pollution that Chinese are frightened about. And he went after both aggressively in 2014. He went after top party officials for corruption. And he signed a climate pact with President Obama in November.

GWEN IFILL: That nobody saw coming.

DAVID IGNATIUS: That nobody saw coming, but they should have because it was clear that Xi had made the decision, I have to show my people that I am acting on this issue that they fear is going to make China unsafe for them in the future.

So I am impressed by his skill and his aggressiveness, his boldness as a leader. We’re going to have to deal with him, maybe in good ways, cooperatively, maybe in more difficult ways.

 

Full transcripts and the podcast are available at:  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/2014-global-conflicts-challenges-will-carry-new-year/