COMMUNIST RULE RETURNS TO COMMUNIST CHINA: Xi Jinping more powerful than ever after being named ruling party’s ‘core’

When you are “the core” of the Communist Party, you aren’t just another leader — your will is now law.

“The whole ting about being ‘the core’ is that you can get policies done,” David Zweig, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology professor, told CNN.

“The risk is that you will take power to yourself, undermine the power bases of the people beneath you. Give him greater authority to replace people who are allied with Jiang Zemin or their own networks.”

Zweig said there had already been a push to make Xi “the core” in early 2016 but it hadn’t succeeded.

“Everyone in the Politburo has their networks, even in the Standing Committee of the Politburo, so if you give all the power to one guy you give him the power to push your people out and push his people through,” he said.

Xi has been following the Augustus Caesar path to absolute power — collecting enough official titles and powers to put a legal veneer on his emerging dictatorship.