Behind this was the question of what the party stood for. ‘Ever since Mao’s day, and the beginning of Reform and Opening Up,’ Xi said, ‘we have talked about a “crisis of faith”, the sense that rapid growth and political turmoil have cut China off from its moral history.’ The answer was to renew the ideology, and the source of renewal would not be Western liberal ideals; it lay, Xi thought, in a re-energised party and in the rediscovery of the greatness of Chinese civilisation.
