Xi Jinping elevated to the status of Mao Zedong

No Chinese leader since Mao has managed to put his stamp on the party's prevailing ideology

China’s ruling Communist Party approved a revised charter that enshrined President Xi Jinping’s name under its guiding principles, elevating him to a status that eluded his two immediate predecessors.

The new constitution approved at the end of the party’s twice-a-decade congress in Beijing listed “Xi Jinping thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era” alongside the theories of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. While presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao also secured contributions to the document, neither was featured by name.

Many of Xi’s major initiatives of his first five years in power were added to the text,