Abstract
The two books under review address changes in the structure and operations of the two most significant institutions in China today, the Chinese Communist Party and the People’ Liberation Army. The author, an astute commentator on China has an eye for detail and the ability to go beyond the common narrative. These two books present an occasion to review Xi Jinping’s promises and his performance 5 years after he came to power.
The two books deal with two different but related issues. The first, Xi Jinping’s China, is a compilation of previously published articles by the author and the second, Cadres of Tibet, is a foundational book on the Communist Party of China’s (CCP) organisation and hierarchy in Tibet, from Lhasa down to administrative districts, counties, prefectures and towns. Xi Jinping’s China is a collection of 47 articles that the author wrote over a seven-year period from 2010 to 2017, a period when China gained global influence and its aspirations also grew rapidly. This also coincided with Xi Jinping’s emergence as the most significant and ambitious Chinese leader since Mao.
The book on Tibet provides a database of the CCP’s controlling network in Tibet. This book is useful in explaining the nature of the Party’s control over Tibet by revealing its omnipresence. This also becomes a backgrounder for understanding how China has managed to clampdown on more recent cases of self-immolations by Tibetans after the first spate of self-immolations were covered by the Chinese and global media.
Xi Jinping has been an enigma for most outside China, and this may be true for most inside China as well. Xi’s rise to power and the projection of his persona, work ethic, governance style and ability created a lot of optimism within China and among China watchers over the smooth transfer of power and his focus on development and attacking corruption. Over the past 5 years, this optimism enigma has certainly faded as he has consolidated power and, at the same time, delivered on fewer of his promises of governance and reforms. Xi Jinping’s China shows how this has come to pass. The strength of Xi Jinping has been his control over the Party essentially through the vigorous anti-corruption campaign since March 2013 when he became president. Since then Xi has been mentioned by name in the Party’s constitution and designated as the core of the fifth generation of the CCP. Xi Jinping has been able to consolidate more power than any other leader except Mao Zedong. To this end he has relied on isolating the once powerful Communist Youth League (CYL) group under Hu Jintao and succeeded in nearly breaking the hold of the Shanghai faction led by of Jiang Zemin. On the other hand, much of the reforms agenda is repeated year on year without much progress on the agenda. From this perspective the book discusses various developments under Xi, especially in areas of party reform, doctrinal and strategic changes with the PLA, India–China relations, and China’s new philosophy of diplomacy.
But Xi Jinping’s China could have done so much more in explaining why Xi has acted the way in which he did over the last 5 years, after becoming Secretary General of the Party and the country’s president. It could have, for example, dealt with the question of the extent to which Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power has support within the Party or whether Xi is an ace manipulator who has built up his own network and bested his colleagues in the politburo. An introduction and conclusion, both of which the book lacks, could have provided unifying frame- work to explain Xi’s enigma to the reader. Moreover, the articles could have been organised into thematic sections around party politics, defence and foreign policy, neighbourhood strategy, India–China relations, and other domestic policies. Such categorisation would have structured the book and provided an inner coherence. Since these were articles published in the media and thus essentially were event based the author should have connected the dots between events over a seven-year period, especially in the absence of an overview.
Additionally, the utility of republishing newspaper articles is questionable. For example, the first article written in October 2010 counts Zhou Yongkang as one of Xi supporters (p. 4). By the time the book went into publication Zhou, along with his supporters, was behind bars for life, the biggest star to fall in the anti-corruption campaign. This exemplifies the limitations of republishing newspaper articles, especially when so much water has flown under the bridge. This is all the more the reason why a strong backgrounder/introduction would have added much value in introducing the subject and discuss as to why some of the premises and optimism regarding Xi Jinping was either overestimated or did not materialise. Some of the articles, particularly about India–China relations have little to do with Xi Jinping as such or do not spell out the Xi imprint on India–China relations. A discussion on this aspect would have been highly beneficial for the book.
The book also ends rather abruptly, overlooking many of the more significant issues in the later years. For example, there is no article on China’s and Xi Jinping’s relations with the Trump administration and on issues like the North Korean peace process. The discussions on the USA–China relations are limited to Xi–Obama summits in 2015. On issues like the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), while there are a couple of articles again, when events move quickly, 2015 and 2016 publications need to be updated. There is nothing on the Belt and Road summit as well. Other notable areas misses are domestic policies in areas like energy and environment, Xinjiang economic policies and the reforms of the state-owned enterprises (SoEs). On the external front, China’s rapidly changing relations with Russia, Europe and with Central Asia and Africa, all significant initiatives by Beijing, are missing as well.
Despite these structural and substantive omissions in the book challenges facing the book, the author’s ability to interpret developments in the CPC and the PLA stands out quite clearly. His articles on these subjects are comprehensive and cover nearly all relevant areas. In particular, the articles on PLA reforms, budgets and the Defence White Papers are excellent and provide detailed information and analyses. Similarly, the articles on Tibet have keeping in mind the context of these articles.
While there is a lot written on China on a daily basis, there is little known about the Tibet issue to the outside world. Moreover, what is known is only through the two filters of oppression and subversion or development and integration. There is little known of the way the CPC manages its affairs in the province and the way it selects and promotes its cadre. The work Cadres of Tibet benefits immensely from the author’s attention to detail as well as diverse knowledge and experience of the subject. This helps the book to become a good starting point on understanding CPC’s work methods within Tibet.
There are a few aspects the inclusion of which could have added even more value to this book and made it a proper first reading on Tibet for beginners. First, the addition of a list of readings or books on the Tibet issue as part of the appendix could be useful. Second, the timeline on Tibet issue could have started much earlier since the contemporary history of Tibet dates back at least 100 years when the first republican Chinese government was established. Also some of the maps used are of Chinese origin and they include Arunachal Pradesh, either partly or fully, as part of China. These incidents should have carried adequate clarification. Moreover, the brief discussion on Tibet’s economy would have been useful because Beijing claims that Tibet and other minority provinces tend to exceed national growth averages each year without disclosing its subsidy structures and the sister-city/province contributions and rebates behind these claims. While the author does mention the Aid Tibet programme, the discussion is not comprehensive.
In many ways, China has replaced Pakistan as the subject of principal interest as far as foreign relations are concerned in India. Hence, books from and India perspective are welcome. In a democracy like India, where people are aware of their history, international relations is discussed and debated practically everywhere, thoughtful discussion of India–China relations or China’s foreign and domestic policy fills a gap. China’s rise has been both awe inspiring and alarming which is why there is a need to inform and debate issues around China’s rise and development. The book on Tibet is a good start and can improve and a second more comprehensive edition would be extremely useful since Tibetan studies would benefit greatly from academic publications that are factually grounded and have adequate data and statistics to verify government’s claims. While the articles in the book Xi Jinping’s China are good on their own there needs to be candid reassessment of the relevance and lasting value of thousand-word newspaper articles driven by current events as part of a book where the whole needs to be larger than the sum of its parts.