An Unhinged Putin Is A Warning to China and Xi
As he turns 70, Vladimir Putin won’t be reflecting on how his longevity at the top has resulted in a rotten state structure and disaster abroad. Xi Jinping, who is 69 and counting, should.
Changing of the guard.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/BloombergWhen Soviet dictator Josef Stalin celebrated his 70th birthday in 1949, he sat alongside Chinese leader Mao Zedong in the Bolshoi Theater for extravagant celebrations of trooping Young Pioneers and vast choirs. Newspapers printed congratulations for weeks and there were so many gifts that a display was set up at the Pushkin Museum. Vladimir Putin, who turns 70 on Friday, may not be quite so lucky.
First elected in 2000 and now in his fourth term as president, Putin is already Russia’s longest serving leader since Stalin, and that's a significant part of the problem. His protracted tenure and the concentration of power he has carefully nurtured go a long way to explain the deep rot in the armed forces and in local administration, his crippling paranoia, imperialist obsessions and insulation — all of which have led to disaster in Ukraine. Military adventurism is, after all, a classic in the list of aging autocrats’ self-inflicted wounds.