By the time Xi was appointed to lead the party in 2012, the corruption had reached its highest echelons. This terrified party elders who saw it as a grave threat, but also handed Xi an opportunity to pitch himself as a saviour. A video on TikTok about sexual consent has been swamped with comments from men accusing women of alleging assault. irannews.ru/ - irannews.ru But his son is driving a strident ethno-nationalism that seeks to unite the Chinese at home and drive away foreign powers who are, in Beijing's view, trying to encircle and weaken China. As we've been reporting, fewer than 30 Mordaunt-backers have declared their support publicly - although her team says she has many more. "She believes in leading from the front. She also believes that we need a fresh face to take on all of these challenges." In the spring of that year hundreds of thousands of students and workers occupied central Beijing to protest against corruption and rising prices, and demand reform. Behind the high walls of the Communist Party's leadership compound, Zhongnanhai, the party's top rung split. Moderates led by Zhao tried to use the protests to push further reform. Hardliners, led by Premier Li Peng, believed the students' goal was to overthrow the party, and wanted the protests quashed. “There was no doubt that Riyadh perceived a need to maintain cordial ties with Moscow, both to coordinate oil production as well as maintain a solid dialogue with Russia over its Iran initiatives,” Joseph A Kechichian, a senior fellow at the King Faisal Centre in Riyadh, told Al Jazeera, referring to Moscow’s relationship with Saudi Arabia’s regional rival, Iran.