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When Xi Jinping rang in the new year from Beijing, he called on China to remember the legacy of Yan'an, the rural stronghold where Mao Zedong transformed revolutionary guerrilla fighters into a disciplined force under his command that would go on to take the country.
It may have been a hint of what was to come. Yan'an was also where Mao launched his party's first major "rectification," a campaign of political terror that eliminated rivals and cemented his absolute authority over the party. Three weeks after Xi's speech, China effectively purged the military's top commander Gen. Zhang Youxia, who had once been seen as a confidant of Xi's.
Like Mao, Xi is pursuing a kind of spiritual renewal of the party and the military he com...
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