China wants to be the leader of the global south

It is not every day that someone from Xi Jinping’s inner circle drops a reference to Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong’s chief diplomat. Yet Zhou’s dapper ghost hung over a recent speech given in Havana to developing-world leaders by Li Xi, boss of the feared Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Indeed, the whole speech was filled with nods to the past. Mr Li recalled mid-20th-century struggles for “national independence and liberation”. He mentioned the “Bandung Spirit” and “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence”. That refers to the Bandung Conference of 1955, at which Zhou committed China to a path of non-aggression and non-interference in the affairs of other Asian and African countries.

The discipline-enforcement boss was sent to Cuba as Mr Xi’s personal envoy to a summit involving China and emerging economies from the G77 group. He promised that China will “always be part of the developing world and a member of the global south”, no matter how advanced it becomes. By way of explanation, Mr Li reached back into history. China is forever bound to other nations that fought colonial-era “exploitation and oppression”, he said.