Xi Jinping’s power grab welcomed in the Chinese communist model village that still lauds Mao, Stalin and Lenin

Beneath the towering skylines of modern cities like Shanghai, a generation who have grown affluent from China’s economic rise are quietly alarmed.

Xi Jinping’s plan to scrap presidential term limits, due to be formally signed off during China’s annual meeting of parliament starting on Monday, sits uneasily with the country’s new middle classes.

But in Nanjie, a communist model village frozen in time in central China, the move is being celebrated with the kind of zeal expected of a community that still clings to the dogma of Beijing’s last lifetime ruler – Mao Tse-tung.

"It’s my conclusion that people are happier under strong leaders," Wang Hongbin, Communist party secretary and leader of Nanjie,…

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