The Political Thought of Xi Jinping

"This is an absolutely extraordinary book, which is just a model of contemporary Sinology done well. The authors are based at SOAS. Essentially, they close-read the entire canon of material that Xi Jinping has put his name to since taking power, which is voluminous because ‘Xi Jinping thought’ has opinions about a whole lot of things, from ethnic harmony and ethnic minorities to the environment to the rule of law to foreign policy. They read through and across this body of sources to paint a picture of his political worldview, where he wants China to go, his vision for the governance of China and his ideas about the place of China in the world. There are a couple of operative concepts that emerge from that book. One is his concept of national rejuvenation, which is the overarching idea for what he’s trying to do by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the PRC. What comes through in the book is the scale and scope of ambition in that vision. Taiwan plays a role, and the discussion of Taiwan in the book is, I think, masterful because it shows how Taiwan is connected to and is inseparable from all of these other goals, which include making China technologically advanced, economically self-sufficient, domestically harmonious and culturally confident. So Taiwan, in a sense, seems to be the keystone in the arch of national rejuvenation, but it’s not the same as national rejuvenation itself. This book has had a deep impact on my thinking, and I cite it multiple times in my own book, because if you want to deter Xi Jinping, you have to show you can hold at risk things that he cares about. And this book tells us, better than any other, what he cares about. What’s interesting about the book is that, amidst all of this scope and scale of ambition, he doesn’t articulate any sense that there are trade-offs between these different goals. He wants it all. He wants every gold medal at the Olympics and every silver medal and every bronze. That speaks to his confidence and ambition, but it also speaks to his insecurity and vulnerability, because when you promise that much, there are consequences if you fail to deliver, not by a little, but by a lot, across many domains, and it’s hard to see how China can accomplish all that by 2049. There’s more beyond the things I listed. There’s reshaping international institutions and global governance to be more favourable to China’s system of government and values. It essentially involves redefining the concepts of human rights and rule of law and democracy in the world to make the world a safer place for China. It has to do with the reform and flourishing of China’s institutions in every aspect of life, including the social system. Domestic harmony of every kind, peace and tranquillity at home. But if you’re refusing to stack-rank your priorities, to say that the following things are more important than others, potentially you can be deterred if you’re presented with very hard choices. That’s my takeaway. Taiwan has been the single most salient propaganda issue for the CCP since it took over the mainland in 1949, because Taiwan represents the unfinished business of the Civil War. Taiwan proves that the CCP’s claim that Chinese people are not ready for democracy is a lie, because Taiwan is not only a thriving democracy—a freer society than France or the UK or the United States, according to Freedom House—it’s also technologically advanced. It’s far wealthier than the mainland. It maintains a society that is deeply Chinese in many respects, but also enjoys so many advantages that citizens of the PRC do not have. It’s a living, breathing challenge to the CCP’s legitimacy. With that said, the CCP historically has shown that it can dial the propaganda up and down depending on domestic circumstances and other factors, in the same way that they can dial propaganda against Japan and the United States up and down. So there are some who argue China is a peaking power, that actually their best days are behind them. The growth engine has sputtered and it’s all downhill from here. Therefore, there is a risk that Xi Jinping, out of desperation or domestic pressure, might try to wag the dog with a crisis over Taiwan. I don’t think you can rule that out, but as I discuss in my own book, I think that’s quite unlikely. This idea of China as a peaking power, which is articulated in a very interesting set of articles and books by Michael Beckley and Hal Brands, is deeply thought-provoking. I’m actually sympathetic to their argument, but I think the Tsang and Cheung book proves pretty comprehensively that that’s not how Xi Jinping sees the world. His worldview is just confident by nature, and I don’t think it can be spun in a less confident way. Despite the paranoia and the insecurity, I think it’s very easy—as we also see from Kevin Rudd—for Xi Jinping to look around the world and see the advantages of the Chinese system, of the CCP system, and therefore to believe that China’s best days are still ahead."