Book Review: The Governance Of China I, by Xi Jinping

Ever since China opened up its economy in 1978, their politics have been somewhat unpredictable. Many leftists in America put trust in the Communist Party of China to steer things the right direction, despite the introduction of heavy capitalist policies. In my personal opinion, the past decade or so, with Xi Jinping taking over the leadership role, things have swung more left. Currently, there are four volumes of books out called The Governance Of China, composed of speeches, letters, essays, and interviews given by Xi. At the stage of the first volume, which I'll be covering here, his term was in its earliest phases, giving a good idea of how the CPC is to carry out its roles. Obviously we can judge how well this works over time, but for our purposes, we're going to examine the book itself and the main points meant to be conveyed.

First, it's important to understand that the translation from Chinese into English comes off clunky at times, and because of the nature of how this was stitched together, there's a fair amount of repetition. What's nice about that is that it makes it easier to decipher what the biggest ideas are. All throughout the first volume, Xi Jinping expresses the goal of the rejuvenation of China, the importance of Mao Zedong thought and Deng Xiaoping theory, the vital thought of the Three Represents, aiming for the Chinese Dream, and realizing the concept of Socialism with Chinese characteristics. Yeah, I know, that's a lot, so what exactly does it all mean?

Mao Zedong thought is somewhat the foundation, highlighting the fact that the party's foundations are principled around Marxism-Leninism, which has been expressed in several areas. Deng Xiaoping comes in when touching on the areas of opening up economically, which we'll revisit later. The Three Represents is representation of the Chinese people on three levels, by using the interests from the population rather than a few specific interests. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is more or less all of these things together, which are the Marxist-Leninist foundations combined with the material conditions specific to Chinese land, culture, people, and history. As we know, history doesn't exist in a vacuum, despite what your reactionary family members might say. This then paves the way for the Chinese Dream, which ultimately is meant to represent the happiness, security, democracy, and liveliness of the nation, or in other words, the rejuvenation. If I had to sum up the main points of the book in a paragraph, this is it.

But I get it, this is still a lot, and means little when not put to practice with specific measurable goals. What I like about the work is that Xi takes the initiative to do just that, lay out much of the problems China faces, how he thinks they should be resolved, and gives timelines for carrying this out. He addresses the fact that China, despite all of their advancements into a world superpower, having such a large economy, and bringing up the quality of life overall since 1949, is still behind in many ways. The "Chinese characteristics" part of the formula touches on how they need to reach a modernized level to that of the more advanced nations technologically by 2049, which is helped out by their openness to foreign trade and investment. Sure, this sounds opposite of Marxist principles, but the control of the party, that of millions, is used to fight corruption, another topic heavily addressed. There is a whole area of this book dedicated to strict discipline for fighting corruption, and how party members are to hold themselves and each other accountable. 

Oh no, how scary, that can't possibly be democratic, can it? I for one think that kind of checking power is needed. Party work is carried out as a responsibility, not a job where bureaucrats collect the wealth of the nation with the lobbying of billionaires. Of course, like I said, nothing there is perfect, and more rural and poor areas can get neglected, which is touched on. This is where concepts around government involvement become important to areas not in the immediate larger cities. Getting back on track, the use of foreign investment is not only to help their economy, but also allows newer technologies to flow in. The goal set from the time of this writing was to double the average GDP of the people by 2020, and to lift the country to the level of "rich" western powers by 2049, a centenary goal of the People's Republic of China. Now, it's also important to understand that Xi doesn't see a nation's GDP as a true measurement of its success, which is mentioned in the book. What's more important is that the nation's wealth is being utilized for the people's need in a democratic fashion, especially with the state of the world economy in a post-Soviet world.

Speaking of democracy, keep in mind that democracy in one country being different than the way it is in yours doesn't mean it isn't democracy. In fact, odds are, if your "democracy" is electing one of two "choices" chosen by the ruling class every four years, it's even less democratic than that of China. As it states, the party is massive, and The Governance Of China stresses the importance of participation on all levels, how committees get elected on local levels through the people and campaigns, working its way up to higher regions, all the way to the top of the party leadership. You can't truly be democratic without participation from the workers more than once every four years.

Moving on, Xi sees the importance of housing everybody, preventing food insecurity, and the health of the people as a necessity for everybody's happiness. He also points out, several times, how large their population is and how many different ethnic groups exist within the borders, which is an expansion of why local interests need to be represented. Everyone won't have the exact same needs, and things even get extended to other nations, in how Chinese people everywhere are still part of their people and should do all they can to improve whatever country they're living in.

This is a good time to transition into relations with other nations, which is where a lot of letters to other world leaders, especially those in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) collaboration. Even nations you would expect to be seen as "enemy" nations are addressed in positive light. Relations with the United States, one that will do everything in its power to see the destruction of China as we know it, are stressed as being important. We even see this now, with how many commodities have been produced over the decades from China, almost turning the capitalist contradiction on its head as it reaches its later stage. But more importantly, there is a lot of stress on the Belt and Road Initiative, and relations with Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Over the past decade, the activity of trading with other nations has shifted greatly from the United States to China, mostly because of things that are meant to help develop other countries without predatory loans. Not only does this help China and their economy, but now carries out Xi's idea of having good relations with the world and helping the livelihood of people everywhere.

Much of this is focused in the end of the book, around the chapters addressing peaceful development, multilateral relations, "major country" relations, and connections to the people. Divorcing the government from the people is what leads to such horrid capitalistic interests dominating, and these things become easier to understand alongside the earlier chapters on law and national defense. Even touchier subjects along the Taiwanese Strait, Macau and Hong Kong are touched on, specifying that they are indeed part of China and that there's no intentions of threat. There's a concept known as "one country, two systems" meant to help integrate these regions in a way that doesn't invoke war (assuming the many U.S. bases surrounding China don't try for that anyway). Much of this goes back to what is known as the "century of humiliation," when foreign powers had the country in its grips for colonization, and how part of the Chinese Dream is to get it to a stage where this can never happen again. It also ties into the grander rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, which brings us full circle to what this is all about.

For the most part, this covers your basis of the first volume. It's somewhat of a plan-oriented book, based on Marxist-Leninist principles alongside what needs to be done to fit the needs of the Chinese nation, regarding its history, material conditions, culture(s), and general opening up in a way that can help them grow to achieve socialism with their characteristics. Stressed in many areas, a lot of the writing followed the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which is where a lot of the party's history and leadership since its founding is discussed. It's important to understand the history, recent and far, as well as the present and how everything will be carried out.

So ultimately, you may ask yourself, is this worth reading? It comes down to how interested you are in China as a leftist. Obviously, this is not a history book and it can't be used as a judgement of how things are run, however it gives a good idea of the ins-and-outs of how the party will operate in the Xi Jinping era, and the general goals in place used to guide how things will run, whether it goes that way or not. As of now, there are three more volumes, which I'll touch on as we get to them, but it doesn't take much time to look back at how much China has achieved since this book's publishing, and what was achieved before this to bring Xi to the point he was. For the most part, it's a very straightforward and a rather easy read despite its intimidating size. I had a much easier time with this than I did with Capital Vol. 1, and it certainly makes much more sense in comparison to The Federalist Papers, an upholding of the U.S. constitution that was written, what, two hundred and fifty years ago? Somehow we've hardly moved beyond those very principles that Americans will die on a hill for, and works like this are certainly worthwhile for those eager to see a modern blueprint for a foreign nation, especially for those who follow Marxist-Leninist principles.