Chinese Communist Leader Tier List

Who is the S-Tier Chinese Communist Leader? Welcome to China Uncensored, I'm Chris Chappell. Tier lists are all the rage on YouTube. So today, I'm going to rank all the leaders of the People's Republic of China. Some of my rankings may surprise you. Mainly because I'm not inventing a letter lower than Z to add them all into. This episode was actually suggested by a fan, so remember, I do read your comments. Especially the comments from subscribers to my website, ChinaUncensored.tv. That's where we've built a real community of China watchers. Be sure to check it out. So here's how this ranking system works. The ranking, S through F, with S being the best, is based on the leader's power, his grasp of communist ideology, his success in inner party factional struggles, and, of course, his bloodthirstiness. Which is a whole different kind of drip than the one kids talk about these days. And remember, though the leaders of China are usually called presidents in Western media, that's propaganda. Their actual title is Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. We'll start from the present and work our way back. Which means, first up is Xi Jinping. And this may surprise you, but I'm putting Xi in B tier. That's not a knock on him, we just have some great communists ahead of us. Don't get me wrong, Xi Jinping has done a fantastic job. He's survived some coup attempts, and launched an anti-corruption campaign that was really about purging his political rivals. With a million investigated in just 2025 alone. Those are some good authoritarian time management skills. He's made himself the chairman of basically everything. Everyone answers to him. He completely ruined any semblance of Hong Kong freedom and autonomy. And as far as bloodthirstiness goes, his persecution of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, turning them into a massive slave labor pool and organ pool, makes Xi sound like he should be at least A tier. But I gotta ding him for a few things. He kind of let the mask slip too soon. He started off strong, doing things like having a pint with British Prime Minister David Cameron. But he got too aggressive too quick, and the world kind of wised up that the Chinese Communist Party wasn't actually our friend. If he had just played it cool for just a few years more, he probably could have completely destroyed the West. But hey, in his defense, his story's not done yet. After the Covid debacle, he still managed to leverage his useful idiots to get China to edge past the US in global approval ratings. So maybe he can still pull it off. Invade Taiwan. Get a few more genocides under his belt. Cripple America. And in a few years, we can revisit this and put him in A tier or even higher. So keep your chin up, big guy. And that weird bloated toad throat it rests on. Next up, Hu Jintao. I almost want to put him in F tier, but he pulled off a stunning last minute turnaround that gets him out of F and into D tier. Hu did not handle the communist system well. When he was young, he was bubbly, he was happy. But by the time he became chairman, he got the nickname Woodface. Which sounds like a below Z tier Batman villain. To get into the higher tiers, you gotta thrive in the bloody backstabbing world of Chinese politics. You can't have a soul to lose. That'd be like Miss Rachel getting into MMA. Talking about your feelings doesn't rack up wins in the octagon. From the moment Hu Jintao came to power in 2002, he was a lame duck. The previous leader, Jiang Zemin, expanded the Politburo Standing Committee from 7 members to 9 and filled it with people loyal to him, not Hu Jintao. So who couldn't do much of anything? In Dick Cheney's memoirs, he talked about how Hu Jintao essentially had a handler with him at all times, keeping him on script. And if anyone would know about puppeteering the supposed leader above you, it's Dick Cheney. Of course, maybe what Hu is most known for these days is being unceremoniously led out of a major meeting, practically begging Xi Jinping to stay. But there are a few things that save Hu from F tier. Brutal bloody crackdowns on Tibetans in 2008, and Uyghurs in 2009. Chinese communists really excel at brutalizing ethnic minorities. If it was an Olympic event, I'd write a strongly worded letter to the Olympics on hosting such a horrible event. And in the final hour of his time in power, Hu managed to block Jiang's chosen successor, Bo Xilai, from becoming the next chairman. Although getting Xi in power instead didn't work out so well for him. Chinese communists really need to get some anti-knife armor for their backs. So yeah, definitely D tier communist leader. Next is Jiang Zemin. I'm putting him in C tier. He had some things going for him. He really understood how to use communism to bring out the worst in people. And he put no value on human life, really solid communist traits. But he blows it in a few places. He was really unpopular within the Party, barely held onto power. That is, until he launched a massive persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual group. I'm telling you, whenever Chinese communist leaders are in doubt, they tell a minority group to get out. He convinced the rest of the Party they were an existential threat that could only be solved by giving him near unlimited power. And created his own personal Gestapo called the 610 Office to do it. Jiang was the guy who created the whole industrialized system of organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience. You know, solid communist atrocities, respectable bloodthirst drip. But he couldn't seal the deal. Despite bragging he could wipe out Falun Gong in three months, they just went overseas and kept exposing the persecution and suing Jiang. And then creating the popular show Shen Yun that calls itself China Before Communism. Kind of backfired there. A real Streisand effect. If you're trying to murder Barbara Streisand. But under Jiang, China was able to dupe a bunch of Westerners and American politicians that doing business with China was a great idea. Then they stole trillions of dollars of worth of IP from them. But there's one other thing that makes Jiang a good communist. He's dead. Now we come to Deng Xiaoping. I'm putting him in A tier. Now Deng technically was never chairman of the Communist Party. But he was the quote unquote paramount leader. Or is it Paramount Warner now? Anyway, he appointed Jiang and Hu. Before he came to power, he was purged not once, not twice, but thrice. And it just kept coming back because he knew how the game was played. And even though he was surrounded by hardcore Maoists, he made economic reforms that they hated. He began what was called Reform and Opening Up. This is the guy responsible for the entire Chinese economic system where they dupe gullible Westerners into propping up a hostile authoritarian regime. And as if you couldn't get any better than that. He was also the one that ordered the Tiananmen Square Massacre. 10,000 students killed just for asking for a little bit of political reform. Now that is an A tier communist. A for a**. But who is not A tier is Hua Guofeng. Yeah, I bet you probably never even heard of him. I'm putting him in F tier. He was technically the guy who succeeded Mao. But Deng forced him out in just a matter of years. He didn't even get an awesome purge. He just retained some titles and kind of faded away into obscurity. That's not how a good communist goes out. A good communist goes out in a blaze of glory. Like being thrown from a helicopter. Which, fun fact, is my screensaver. And now, finally, Mao Zedong. As if there were any doubt, he is going in S tier. Mao was probably the best communist, period. No one else was as good as Mao at understanding the true essence of communism—jealousy, bitterness, and envy. And he was able to manipulate those emotions to make your average Chinese person do horrendous, unspeakable things. All so he could sit in power. And as for bloodthirstiness, come on. Mao killed more than anybody. He was so good at killing, he killed millions by accident. His whoopsies are more effective than everyone else's intentional. His cult of personality was top-notch. Let me give you an example. In 1968, Pakistan's foreign minister gave Mao a box of mangoes. Now Mao was a fat bastard, despite starving millions of Chinese to death. He preferred pork belly, so he just gave the mangoes to some Red Guards at Tsinghua University. And they saw it as an amazing act of generosity and self-sacrifice that the Great Helmsman would give them the mangoes instead of eating them himself. Especially because most people in China had never even seen a mango. Or food in general, for that matter. So the whole country went absolutely bananas for Mao's mangoes. The originals were preserved in formaldehyde. Because why eat food when you're starving when you can make mummy mangoes? And wax replicas were literally worshipped throughout China. You can't wear a cross around your neck, but you can wear a tropical fruit, I guess. This was not a small fringe thing. There were reliquaries made in the form of plates, which by the way was the only time you saw food on plates during his leadership. You saw cups, pencil boxes, vanity mirrors, medallions, and all sorts of other things. In one place, a guy said they looked like sweet potatoes. They executed him. And Mao's cult is still going strong. Today, you can see his swimsuit on display in a museum. Or even his mummified remains. I just don't see that happening for Xi. But hey, there's still time. So keep your chin up, big guy. And that weird bloated toad throat it rests on. What do you think? What would your tier list look like? Do you agree or disagree with mine? Let me know in the comments. And I hope you keep watching episodes like this, because YouTube may be actively trying to stop you. According to a survey you all filled out, more than half of you have not been getting notifications from YouTube about all of our episodes. And YouTube has secretly unsubscribed a quarter of you. Sometimes two or three times. That's why we created a free weekly newsletter sent directly to your email. It has links to all of our episodes that week. So defy YouTube and sign up for free now. We stand up to authoritarian dictators with the weapon they fear the most— making fun of them. So be a part of it. Link is below. Once again, I'm Chris Chappell. See you next time.