Book Talk: The Political Thought of Xi Jinping

Over the course of a decade, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has implemented extraordinary changes in China that have profound implications not only for the Chinese people but nations throughout the world. Given how swiftly and fundamentally China’s relations with the rest of the world are changing under Xi’s rule, it is imperative that we know what “Xi Jinping Thought” is, how it evolved, and why it is so important.

 

On Tuesday, April 2, 2024 Professor Steve Tsang, Director of SOAS China Institute at

SOAS University of London discussed his latest book The Political Thought of Xi Jinping with the Munk School's Professor Lynette Ong.

 

 

In The Political Thought of Xi Jinping, Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung provide an authoritative overview of Xi Jinping Thought, explaining what it is, what it is not, and what it means for both China and the world. Xi, now effectively the leader of China for life, has worked to ensure that Xi Jinping Thought becomes cemented as the new state ideology.

 

Clearly inspired by the doctrine of Mao Zedong Thought, which shaped the parameters of acceptable thinking during Mao’s quarter-century reign, Xi wants his doctrine to define what he calls the “China Dream of national rejuvenation” and serve as the pathway to its fulfillment by 2050. As Xi conceives it, the China Dream is about making China great again—restoring China to the height of its power, influence, and international standing in the mythical era of grandeur—the long centuries before the “century of humiliation” that began in the mid-nineteenth century.

 

 

Steve Tsang is Director of the SOAS China Institute at SOAS University of London. He is also an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College at Oxford, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He previously served as the Head of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies and as Director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham.

 

Before that he spent 29 years at Oxford University, where he earned his D.Phil. and worked as a Professorial Fellow, Dean, and Director of the Asian Studies Centre at St Antony’s College. He has a broad area of research interest and has published extensively, including five single authored and thirteen collaborative books.