Narrating China’s Governance
Stories in Xi Jinping’s Speeches
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A brief review of the world’s history suggests that famous statesmen and thinkers have the common characteristic of being apt at telling stories. It is a tradition and a notable ability of the leaders of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to tell stories. At the closing ceremony of the Seventh National Congress of the CPC held in Yan’an, Chairman Mao Zedong narrated the story of “the foolish old man who removed the mountains” before the Party representatives. The story is that every day a foolish old man incessantly tried to dig up the mountains. Moved by his perseverance, God sent a celestial being to earth to remove the two mountains from in front of his house. Through this story, Chairman Mao made clear that the CPC would even move the emotions of “God” as long as it benefited the revolution. For the Chairman, this “God” represented all Chinese civilians, with the “two mountains” being imperialism and feudalism.
Secretary-General Xi Jinping is a master of telling stories. He is skilled at conveying profound meanings and affecting others through his storytelling, and such skill can be seen in his speeches to congress, talks during investigations, addresses during state visits, and articles published in newspapers. His stories are concrete and vivid, understandable and profound, and they glow with “Chinese wisdom” and “Chinese strength”. To some extent, they reflect the profound humanistic consciousness and philosophic thought that distinctly characterize his style of leadership.
It is said that one story is better than a dozen arguments. At seminars with youth representatives on China’s Youth Days in 2013 and 2014, Xi Jinping encouraged young people to make the best use of their time and study as much as possible by citing anecdotes from his own life about reading. When he lived and worked in Shaanxi Province as an “educated youth”, he never stopped reading, even while herding sheep on mountain slopes or hoeing the fields. The recounting of his experiences of reading is much more vivid and affecting than the narration of historical figures’ feats of arduous study.
ThePeople’s Daily once published an article titledThe Flavor of the Faith , which narrates the anecdote of when Chen Wangdao was translatingThe Communist Manifesto . His concentration was so strong that he mistook the ink for brown sugar and unconsciously ate it. This story embodied the sweet flavor of the communists’ spirit and faith. To inspire the Party members and officials to maintain their ideals and keep their faith, Xi Jinping has repeatedly told this touching story of the Party’s history.
In his speech at the Meeting Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Establishment of China-France Diplomatic Relations delivered on March 27, 2014, Xi Jinping said, “Napoleon Bonaparte once compared China to a ‘sleeping lion’ and observed that ‘when she wakes she will shake the world’. Today, China, the lion, has awakened, but it is a peaceful, amicable and civilized lion.” Such contradictory but meaningful narration cleverly rebutted the “Chinese threat theory” and communicated to the world the value of the Chinese dream.
A Chinese saying goes, “Telling a good story will help you yield twice the result with half the effort.” China’s excellent traditional culture is interspersed with colorful stories and anecdotes. We cannot read them only from the perspectives of various ancient Chinese schools of thought, but rather, we should read them through the lens of popular legends. Everlasting and unfading over time, these stories and anecdotes affect the ideas and lives of generations. Story has a magic power to quickly establish an emotional connection between the narrator and the audience and to create an ideological resonance between them. Abstract conceptions can never match the ability of narrative details to convey conviction. However, with regard to narration, even the most consummate narrative techniques can never match the capacity of real sentiment to move audiences.
The ancient Chinese proposed that “writing is a means of conveying truth.” Regardless of whether he is at home or abroad, the stories and anecdotes told by Xi Jinping are his means of communicating the Chinese “way” of sharing historic culture, the Chinese “way” of approaching reform and development, and the Chinese “way” of participating in world governance and building a community of fate with the other countries of the world. He likes to guide audiences toward the “way” by explaining the profound in simple terms and enlightening them as to the “way” by giving them systematic guidance. At home, he communicates the Party’s policies so that they penetrate audiences’ minds and hearts through down-to-earth expressions to build consensus on reform and development. Abroad, he puts forth effort to establish new concepts, domains, and expressions that are understood by both China and the rest of the world, so that China’s development advantages and comprehensive strengths can be converted into advantages of international speech. This is why Xi’s stories are fascinating and thought provoking.
Xi expounds upon the Chinese “way” of sharing historic culture by telling stories. It is an important ruling style of Xi Jinping to seek out notable stories in the treasure trove of historical material. As he has commented, “For any country in the world, the past always holds the key to the present, and the present is always rooted in the past. Only when we know where a country has come from can we possibly understand why the country is what it is today, and only then can we realize in which direction it is heading.” He often makes the past serve the present by quoting ancient fables, fairy tales, and historical events to explain the present and reality in a clever way, in hopes that people will learn from them and acquire wisdom and knowledge to enhance self-cultivation and doing well in their work. For instance, in his night talk at Yingtai with then-US President Barack Obama, Xi described the history of Yingtai: “Yingtai witnessed many historic events. The Qing Emperor Kangxi made the policies there to pacify civil strife and recover Taiwan from the Ming loyalists. Emperor Guangxu, who had launched the Hundred Days of Reform when the dynasty began to fall into decay, was imprisoned by Empress Dowager Cixi after his modernizing reform failed.” Hearing this story, Obama sighed with emotion, “China and the US share that aspect of history-that reform nearly always encounters resistance and demands courage to push forward.” Xi concluded, “Knowing the modern history of China is of great importance to understanding the Chinese people’s ideals today and their path toward development.”
Xi expounds upon the Chinese “way” of reform and development by telling stories. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the central leadership with Xi Jinping as general secretary has formed new concepts, new ideas, and new strategies for the governance of China. President Xi Jinping’s series of important speeches is a highly concentrated expression of new concepts, new ideas, and new strategies. In his speeches, he is skillful at building consensus as well as clearing up confusion and reassuring misgivings by telling stories, citing instances, and presenting facts. In doing so, he makes abstract theories and abstruse principles easy to understand. With his anecdote of swimming in Xiamen, Fujian Province, in the 1980s, he once exemplified that to cross the “river” of reform, we should know well the nature of water, and we should employ both the methods of strengthening top-level design and crossing the river stone by stone and understanding this steady approach as an important means of promoting reform. He also related “his memory of Liangjiahe in northern Shaanxi Province” to express his affection toward grassroots activists and his wish that we remain true to our original aspirations in reform and development: “We rely on the people of the CPC for our survival. We must bear in mind the purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly. We should always remember that we are the servants of the people and take the people’s fundamental interests to heart.”
Xi explains the Chinese “way” of great power diplomacy by telling stories. He employs a warm, down-to-earth tone, succinct without a loss of profundity. These are the characteristics of Xi’s speeches on international occasions. He has already built a weighty “brand” on the platform of international politics with a fresh style of speech and a unique charm. The concepts of the Chinese Dream, cooperation and mutual benefits, sound values of justice and benefit, Asian security, the community of common destiny, and the path of peaceful development convey a powerful diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, made easy to understand, remember, communicate, and accept as Xi has blended them into the stories he has told in his speeches. In the speech delivered at the State Great Khural of Mongolia on August 22, 2014, Xi Jinping stated, “China wishes to provide Mongolia and other neighboring countries with both opportunities and space for common development. All countries are welcome to get on board the express train of China’s development and hitch a lift. As the saying goes, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.’” “Hitch a lift” was originally an expression used by some countries to mock and discredit China. Yet this derogatory expression was cleverly transformed by Xi Jinping into an expression that not only refutes the misrepresented “China responsibility theory” but also conveys China’s diplomatic concept of cooperation and mutual benefit.
A philosopher once said, “The people who are good at telling stories will win the support of the audience, and then they will win the right of speech.” Both history and reality tell us that only if a statesman has a deep understanding of the history and culture of his country, insight into the trends of world civilization and the ability to tell his people and foreign friends in an understandable way about his concept of governing his country and such concept is understood and recognized by the people can he serve his country as a good ship’s captain and steer his country to victory after sailing through stormy seas.
The further into the past one looks, the farther forward one is likely to see. Theory is gray, but stories are colorful. As a saying goes, “Once the roots are established, the Way will grow therefrom.” What inspired us to compile this book,Narrating China’s Governance: Stories in Xi Jinping’s Speeches , was that we hope to show readers a way of learning the art of consensus and help them understand how to manage state affairs, to tell the stories of China more compellingly, and to write new stories of China together.
President of thePeople’s Daily
Understanding China Through Xi Jinping’s Narrative on Governance
Stories provide the logic underwriting the narrator’s arguments, concepts, thinking, and foresight including his persona and establishes a channel of communion with his audience leaving an indelible impression is if s/he is the master storyteller or narrator. The Storytellers was an important school of thought during Han Dynasty in China, which was classified under the category of “Masters and Philosophers” along with the likes of Taoists, Confucians, Legalists, Mohists, etc. The novellas or short stories section in theComplete Library in Four Sections (Sikuquanshu), a compilation running into over 36,000 volumes ordered by Emperor Qianlong in 1773, includes 123 books ranging from Han to Sui Dynasty of which theNew Account of Tales of the World (Shishuoxinyu) is the most famous collection. Though the book includes miscellaneous stories including those of supernatural, but what is the most striking feature of the book is the style of the narration and commentaries which make an instant connect with the reader.
In the same vein,Narrating China’s Governance: Stories in Xi Jinping’s Speeches strikes an instant chord with the narratee and compels the latter to seek more information which to a large extent has been provided in the accompanied commentaries at the end of each story. With genuine creativity, Xi Jinping engages his audience in a sort of conversation, where moods and sentiments of the narrator are mirrored in the narratee with elements of refreshing surprises. Notwithstanding, Xi Jinping’s educational background of chemical engineering, he eloquently and passionately takes us through the entire journey of Chinese civilization from ancient to contemporary times. The tapestry that has been woven tells us the beauty and grandeur of China’s landscape; the words of wisdom from sagacious personages like Confucius, Mencius, and others; literary spectacles of the giants like Si Maqian, Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, etc.; valor, heroism, and patriotism of Yue Fei and many unsung heroes of the Chinese revolution, pain, and agony caused by the destruction, barbarity, and humiliation of a century; the heroic struggle of the people in the revolution led by Mao Zedong; the trials and tribulations of the Cultural Revolution, miracle of the four decades of reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping; and stories about the Chinese dream, rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the Silk Road Spirit offering the new global good—the Belt and Road initiative and much more has been narrated with passion and profundity. Xi Jinping has shunned formalism and has advocated short and crisp writing, no wonder he refers to Mao Zedong’s epitaph dedicated to the Monument to the People’s Heroes which summaries the entire modern history of China in just 14 characters! It is for the same reason that he appreciates the Government Work Report drafted by Deng Xiaoping in 1975, which for the first time advocated the “Four Modernizations” for China.
AlthoughNarrating China’s Governance: Stories in Xi Jinping’s Speeches is divided into only two sections, namely, domestic affairs and foreign affairs; however, besides covering the facets mentioned above, could be further classified into stories about Xi’s people-oriented thought, anti-corruption crusade, and poverty alleviation; stories about China’s traditional value system and cultural soft power; the miracle of the reforms and rejuvenation of the Chinese nation; the Belt and Road initiative and the idea of common development, common prosperity, and common security in the region and beyond; people to people and cultural exchanges; socialism with Chinese characteristics as the development path of China, etc.
First and foremost, the “people-oriented thought” remains at the core of Xi Jinping’s governance of China, essentially the reinforcement of China ancient philosophical thought. The Chinese dream, the goal of “two centenaries”, his tirade against the “tigers and flies”, reinforcing the “mass line” as a fundamental of the Party, providing the best public services and goods to the people of China and beyond in the form of state-of-the-art infrastructure including the high-speed rails, the length of which was more than doubled during his first term in office, as well as promoting close people-to-people relations as far as China’s relations with foreign countries are concerned. Anti-corruption campaign has been an ongoing crusade aimed at providing the people a clean government with good governance. “Governance lies in reassuring the people; reassuring the people lies in observing their suffering.” “Dispelling the suffering of the people is like treating your own severe illness.” These two ancient adages form a microcosm of Xi’s people-oriented thought (p. 59).
Xi has elucidated his point by using anecdotes and telling stories of the ancient incorruptible and upright officials. While on investigation tours in the interiors of China, he has cited the examples of clean and righteous officials to drive home his point. For example, while in Lankao, Henan province, he narrates the story of Zhang Boxing (1652–1725) of Lankao who had told the people that “Though a thread of silk or a grain of rice is tiny, it concerns my reputation. Though a cent or a dime is negligible, it is derived from the hard-earned wealth of the people.” With the anecdotes of Zhu Geliang (181–234) and Sima Guang (1019–1086) as regards their honesty and diligence, Xi Jinping exemplified the political attainments that the Party officials must have. By using the tragedy of “Farewell My Concubine” as a metaphor, he also cautioned Party officials and members that a poor work style will cause the Party to lose the support of the masses and push the Party and country to end in tragedy (p. 30). He also cites the downfall of the flourishing Tang Dynasty (618–907) to emphasize that corruption is a cancer of society and to remind the whole Party to take history as a mirror, to learn the historical lessons, and to fight unswervingly against corruption.
In 2018, when I listened to President Xi Jinping’s New Year message, the line that struck me most was “Can I get a big broad shelter a thousand, ten thousand spans wide, huge roof that all the world’s poor people can share with smiling faces?” This I thought was the most powerful message conveyed to the domestic as well as international audience while revealing his own conscientiousness toward the sufferings of the people. Xi Jinping has expressed his resolve to eradicate poverty by 2020 so as a moderately prosperous society in all aspect is established when China celebrates the first Centenary in 2021, i.e., the hundred years of the establishment of the Communist Party of China. Invoking “To be the first in the country to worry about the affairs of the state and the last in the country to enjoy oneself” quote from the famous Chinese reformer Fan Zhongyan (989–1052), Xi narrates heart-wrenching stories as to how some of the Party officials such as Jiao Yulu turned around the fortune of poverty-stricken Lankao by planting paulownia for windbreaks and sand fixation, and in turn converting paulownia as a major industry in Lankao with an annual output value of RMB 6 billion yuan by 2014 (p. 86). In the same vein, when he was in Ningde, an extremely poor region in Fujian, Xi Jinping traveled through all the nine counties under Ningde and fully pulled it out of poverty. When he left the post from Ningde, 94% of the poverty-stricken households in the region had had their problems of food and clothing solved (p. 105).
Xi Jinping has attached importance to extensive field investigations through which an individual is identified with the masses on the one hand and he gets to know about the empirical realities on the other. It is in this context that he has referred to the Xunwu County investigation in Jiangxi by Mao Zedong in 1930. It was an extensive 185-page investigation whereby Mao got to know about the bewildering social, political, and economic complexities of the rural Jiangxi. It is the same context where he tells stories about “learning and thinking” invoking adages from Confucius (551 BC–479 BC) and Xun Zi (?–238 BC). According to Xun Zi, “if you do not climb a high mountain, you will be unaware of the height of the sky. If you do not look down into a deep gorge, you will be unaware of the thickness of the earth.” Therefore, Xi Jinping’s commitment to practicality and achievability is demonstrated by his field investigations before and after assuming the supreme leadership of the Party. For example, in December 2012, just after assuming office, he braved the snow and severe cold blizzards and traveled through the narrow and bumpy roads to get to the depth of Taihang Mountain, one of the poorest areas of China (p. 217). The same is true when he served as County Party Secretary of Zhengding, Hebei, as he toured all the villages under Zhengding, going on foot or riding his bicycle. While serving in Fuzhou and Ningde, he traveled to all townships under them.
Second, as China continues to advance economically and endeavors toward realizing the two centenaries, Xi Jinping sees the stimuli in China’s traditional value system and cultural soft power and the dialogs between the civilizations. It is for this reason that he dumps the “clash of civilizations” theory of Huntington and approves the paradigm of “learning from civilizations.” According to him, it is the civilizational interaction that has enriched cultures and civilizations and enhanced understanding between the people and nations. Undoubtedly, the inter-civilizational exchange is fundamental to the community of shared future. It was the unhindered circulation of ideas, technology, objects, and people that enriched these civilizations. Whether it was the birth of Chinese Buddhism or the dissemination of western regions’ astronomy, literature, music, languages into China, or technologies such as sugar making, paper manufacturing, steel smelting, silk, porcelain, tea, etc. traveling from China to the world enriched the knowledge systems across the world beyond doubt. Moreover, this happened owing to the unimpeded flow of the people.
Xi Jinping reveals that during the golden period of the Chinese civilization, i.e., the Tang Dynasty, of all its foreign ministers 29 were foreigners, while the number of foreigners serving as officials were as many as 3,000. There is a detailed analysis of Tang’s prosperity and openness in theStudy in History by Wang Guowei which states, “In the South China Sea, there are merchant ships from the Arab Empire. In Chang’an, there are Zoroastrian temples built by Persians. Foreigners flock here like they are returning home because the Tang Dynasty is in the middle of its heyday” (p. 171). Therefore, it is of little surprise that Xi has been invoking the Spirit of the Chinese culture as well as the ‘Silk Road Spirit’ which he says favors peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefits. He tells us the story of Kasyapa Matanga and Dharmaraksa, two eminent monks from India, arriving in Luoyang, China in 67 AD where they translated theSutra of Forty-two Chapters , the first ever Chinese translation of Buddhist scriptures. Xi also tells us stories of the white horse carrying Buddhist scriptures to China and scholar-monk Xuanzang’s pilgrimage to the west, and the great Chinese navigator Zheng He’s seven voyages into the Indian Ocean who irrespective of having a brute force never seized an inch of foreign land. The unearthing of the 20 pieces of Roman and West Asian colored glaze from the underground palace of Famen Temple Pagoda in 1987, tells the same story of unimpeded civilizational exchange (p. 314). Therefore, as rightly said by Xi Jinping, “civilizations have become richer and more colorful through exchanges and mutual learning.”
Third, through Xi’s stories, we travel through the entire period of Chinese modern history and then on to the miracle of Chinese reforms. If the ancient history of China was of civilizational glory and dialog, the modern history of China (1840–1949) has been termed as a century of humiliation and lost opportunities. This was the time, when China was humiliated, its sovereignty infringed upon, and its people bullied by foreigners to quote from one of Xi Jinping’s speeches from theGovernance of China (p. 189), a clear reference to China’s defeat in the Opium Wars (1840, 1856), Sino-French War (1875), the Sino-Japanese War (1895), and the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931–1945). Largely this is the period when China was forced to sign humiliating unequal treaties and lost precious opportunities to rise as a power (pp. 169, 191). For example, between 1842 and 1895, Japan and Russia could modernize but not China; between 1912 and 1945 though China established a republic but could not modernize, this was the period when late entrants like Turkey did turn over their economy. Another lost opportunity was during the late 1950s and the period of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), the period when the labor-intensive industries moved from developed countries to developing countries, China lost but Korea, Singapore, and Chinese Taipei developed rapidly. Chinese, however, do believe in their own saying that “the crop that is sown late ripe early,” for it took the UK and US almost 150 years to realize the modernization; Germany, France, and other European countries on the contrary did it in 70 years; with this logic, China could realize its modernization even faster. I myself have been a student of China studies since 1986 and a witness to the earth-shaking changes since 1991 when I visited China for the first time. I have been mystified by the developments in China, and have no definite answers as my understanding remains inconclusive and incomprehensive, albeit I am not in the category of those who characterized the reforms in China as the westernization, and predicted the disintegration of China, or China moving toward the western democracy. The following figures answer some of the questions partially.
After 40 years of reforms and opening up, China’s per capita GDP reached over 9000 US dollars in 2018 from the meager 384 US dollars in 1978. As revealed by Xi Jinping in his speech marking the 40th anniversary of reforms and opening up on December 18, 2018, the share of China’s GDP in the global GDP has risen from 1.8% at the beginning of reform and opening up to 15.2%, and its contribution to world economic growth has exceeded 30% over the years. The total import and export volume of China’s goods has increased from 20.6 billion US dollars to more than 4 trillion US dollars. In the last 40 years, 740 million people have been alleviated from the poverty, and the urbanization has reached 55.26%. Today China boasts of 22,000 km of Hi-Speed railways (largest in the world), 123,000 km of expressways nonexistent prior to the reforms. China didn’t have a single private enterprise prior to the reforms, at present there are over 20 million!
InNarrating China’s Governance, Xi Jinping demystifies some of these figures by telling the stories of some of the unsung heroes who have been behind such an astounding success. For example, Xi tells the story of Zheng Chunlin who irrespective of being differently abled raised minks and provided employment to dozens of families in the 1980s in Zhengding County, Hebei (pp.155–57). Millions of migrant laborers were equal partners in this success story. With the restructuring of the Chinese economy gradually taking shape during recent times, Xi Jinping narrates how innovation and supply-side structural reforms are taking place in China. He tells us how smart terminal products produced in Chongqing, especially laptops accounted for one-third of global laptop production in 2014. The BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd., the Chongqing company to which Xi Jinping paid an inspection visit, has become world’s leading suppliers of the semiconductor display technologies, products, and services, with a marketing and service system covering Europe, the US, Asia, and other major regions (p. 163). Nonetheless, the miracle of the reforms has been accompanied by great damage to the ecological environment, here again, Xi cites examples of world’s top eight pollution incidents that killed thousands of people (p. 207). Therefore, building a sound ecosystem remains an important element of Xi Jinping’s governance stories, which is demonstrated by his APEC Blue story.
This has been possible, for the Chinese people according to Xi Jinping has chosen the present path, theory, and system in the course of historical explorations. Adhering to the notion of Chinese thought of continuity, Xi sees the development of socialism as a continuous phenomenon that has been advanced by all his predecessors irrespective of differences in guiding principles, thinking, and policies during the revolution, development, reforms, etc. phases. The path which is economic development remains the main priority guided by the theory developed by first to his generation of the Chinese leadership, and guaranteed by such a political and economic system that is rule based. The system has been successful in guaranteeing unity, diversity, social cohesion, and peaceful development; therefore, rather than abandoning the system, it would be further improved, and perfected albeit requiring discipline from the party and government officials.
Fourth, in section two, dedicated to China’s foreign affairs, Xi Jinping narrates thought-provoking tales of friendship, people-to-people bonds, common development, and prosperity. The stories about people who stood by China during the times of war and barbarity rekindles the touching memories of Norman Bethune from Canada, Dwarkanath Kotnis from India, Jean Bussiere from France, Michael Lindsay from Great Britain, Hans Schippe from Germany, Bernhard Arp Sindberg from Denmark, etc., who tirelessly and selflessly helped Chinese people when in the abyss of sufferings during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. John Magee, an American who regarded China as his “home”, was in Nanjing, and secretly filmed the Japanese atrocities inflicted on Chinese people by the Japanese during the Nanjing Massacre of 1938. The story of “The Flying General” Tang Duo, the lone Chinese pilot who fought with the Luftwaffe in the Soviet Union, Poland, and Germany, and Air Marshal Aleksej Sergejevič Blagoveščenski’s fighter plane company composed of Chinese and Soviet pilots destroying 36 of the Japanese fighters during Wuhan air raids are equally thrilling.
Xi Jinping affectionately telling these stories while feeling indebted toward these foreign friends also reminds us that peace is not easily come by, and it must be resolutely defended. Other stories, be it the stories of Pablo Neruda and Jose Venturelli of Chile or Antonio Fernandez Arce and Guillermo Da Ino Ribatto of Peru or the Peruvian gold inlaid with Chinese jade used in the gold medals for the 2008 Olympic Games, or the “Love of Africa” group in Zimbabwe doing a brilliant job in ameliorating the condition of Zimbabwean orphans, or Xi’s special meeting with the Manorma Kotnis, sister of Doctor Dwarkanath Kotnis in 2014, etc. speak volume about the universal brotherhood and the internationalist spirit of these people. The tale of an Arabian restaurant in Yiwu City opened by Muhamad from Jordan or the story of Valentina and Ruslan from Khzakistan reveals how people have integrating their own dreams with the Chinese dream of happiness and success. According to Xi Jinping, the Chinese dream is never closed or isolated, but it is interlinked with dreams of people around the world (p. 259). Chinese football team under Milutinovic qualifying for its first appearance at the World Cup, and Mexico under Ma Jin sweeping all eight gold medals for diving events at the 2011 Pan-American Games demonstrates that mutual cooperation can do wonders and that developing together is much better than developing by oneself (p. 267). This is what exactly he means by the Silk Road Spirit which is all about peace, cooperation, openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning, and mutual benefit.
Finally, I have foundNarrating China’s Governance: Stories in Xi Jinping’s Speeches extremely thought provoking, vivid and lifelike, simple but profound reflecting the historical and present realities of China, reflecting a strong sense of continuity and connectedness, be it the Chinese society, Communist Party of China, or China’s relations with its neighbors and major powers. It remains a must read not only for the domestic but especially the foreign readers who wish to know more about the Chinese leader, his governance of China, and the course China may be taking in future.