Photo/Illutration Chinese President Xi Jinping opens the 20th congress of the Communist Party of China in Beijing on Oct. 16. (Provided by Xinhua News Agency)

As a child, I first came to learn about China during the mid-1970s, when I was an elementary school student.

As I outgrew picture books, I encountered a Japanese translation of “Tao Qi’s Summer Diary” as one of the first children’s books I read.

The book was written in the form of a diary kept by a fictitious Chinese girl named Tao Qi in the summer of 1953. It was translated by Takeshiro Kuraishi, a scholar of Chinese literature and language.

It was an intriguing read full of colorful characters, including a mischievous child, an honor student and a wealthy family.

I wondered what kind of drink suanmeitang (sour plum drink) was and who “Chairman Mao,” thanked by an old woman, was.

As I reread it, I found the book was set in “young communist China,” only four years after Mao Zedong (1893-1976) declared the foundation of the People’s Republic of China.

The Communist Party of China wrapped up its twice-a-decade congress on Oct. 22.

President Xi Jinping, who has secured his third five-year term as general secretary of the party, was born in 1953, when Tao Qi wrote the diary, and is counted among the fifth-generation leaders of communist China.

After decades of economic growth that has increased the country’s presence, China is now a leading power that rivals the United States.

As Xi concentrated power in his hands and cemented his “core” status at the party congress, observers are talking about the arrival of a new “Mao Zedong era.”

Mao, a national hero as the founding father of communist China, established a dictatorship based on his personality cult amid a power struggle and caused social and economic confusion by launching the Cultural Revolution.

Like many other intellectuals at the time, Xie Wanying (1900-1999), author of “Tao Qi’s Summer Diary,” was forced to work in a provincial area under Mao’s Down to the Countryside Movement. She is known by her pen name Xie Bingxin or Bing Xin.

Xie was one of the leading Chinese female writers and helped build a foundation for Chinese children’s literature.

She had a connection with Japan. She lived in Tokyo for about five years from 1946, a year after the end of World War II, and served as a lecturer at the University of Tokyo.

In the world Xie depicted, I was impressed by how pure-minded Chinese citizens worked hard to help each other and talked about their dreams.

What would Tao Qi think about the current situation in which senior party members compete to demonstrate their loyalty to the nation’s leader?

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 23

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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