Thanksgiving is a time of family gatherings in the United States.  Yet over in China, Xi Jinping is beset by a challenging set of family relationships.

The ideal leader of China, as envisioned by the ancient Confucian philosopher Mencius, was the “father and mother to the people.”  Until the collapse of China’s imperial system in 1911, the emperor would leave the throne to his son as his successor. 

Mr. Xi, however, is a father without a son. He has one daughter, but she does not seem to align with her father’s populist, nationalist image. According to media reports, she has spent much of the past decade in the United States studying at Harvard, after having attended a foreign language high school in Hangzhou where she studied French.  

Mr. Xi is also a son without a father. His father, Xi Zhongxun, was a Chinese Communist revolutionary who was exiled and imprisoned for allegedly leading a rival clique.  The elder Xi passed away in the early 2000s, and his image has now been rehabilitated. Mr. Xi seems to look up to his father, and perhaps feels his absence.

While missing a father and a son, Mr. Xi is, however, surrounded by successful women in his family.  There is his mother, an early communist; there is his wife, a star singer who was arguably more famous than Mr. Xi himself when he first became chairman and general secretary; there is his daughter, multilingual and academically accomplished. In this family of accomplished women, Mr. Xi carries the weight of the masculine family roles as the father, the son, and the husband.  

There are certain advantages to not having a son.  Cracking down on corrupt sons of other officials — so-called “princelings” — is a lot easier when you don’t have sons of your own to be corrupt. In the case of Bo Xilai, formerly a major rival to Mr. Xi, top leadership explicitly pointed to his son’s impropriety as a key reason for Bo’s purge.  

Without a son to continue Mr. Xi’s family lineage, and with a daughter seemingly more focused on the United States than on China, Mr. Xi alone carries the burden of preserving his father’s legacy, and knowing that nobody will carry on his legacy in the same way.  

Mr. Xi’s role at the end of the father-son line helps explain his behavior.  He can take down rival factions without a younger generation of the Xi political dynasty serving as a moderating force. Instead, he can focus on his legacy and his father’s. And Mr. Xi has to ensure his accomplishments and legacy are cemented in Chinese history: without major accomplishments, he risks fading into obscurity, with no son to continue his legacy, rehabilitate his image, and memorialize him the way he did for his father.

While Mr. Xi not having a son can make him more uninhibited, it also creates a blind spot: a son — or a daughter — spending more time in China could provide him important insight into the thinking of younger generations of Chinese Communist Party cadres. An age-old concept in China is the quiet revolution that occurs beneath the surface and is so successful that the emperor is the last to find out that he has been displaced.

As we sit down for our Thanksgiving meals with our families, let us be thankful for family, including the generations that preceded us and those that will come after us.

As for Mr. Xi, we don’t know whether his daughter’s time in America has led to Thanksgiving becoming a part of their family.  Yet without a son to be thankful for, rest assured that he is busy ensuring that he has a legacy that others will remember.

With contributions from Suzette Kane, Senior Analyst at Baron Public Affairs’ China practice.