CEO, China: The Rise of Xi Jinping

290 Pages·2016·2.01 MB·English

by  Kerry Brown

KERRY BROWN is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director
of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London, and
Associate Fellow specializing in Asia at Chatham House.
With 20 years’ experience of life in China, he has worked
in education, business and government, including a term as
First Secretary at the British Embassy in Beijing. He writes
regularly for international media, and has authored over
ten books on contemporary China, among them The New
Emperors (I.B.Tauris, 2014), Contemporary China (2012) and
Struggling Giant: China in the 21st Century (with Jonathan
Fenby, 2007).
‘Xi is determined to reshape China and bring it into the centre of the
international stage. We all feel these profound changes, but few of us
have the ability to step back, put Xi in perspective, analyse his rise,
and guess where Xi will take us. Kerry Brown has it, and he delivers.
This book provides an excellent account of Xi’s rise, his visions, his
determination, and the future he is making for China and for the world.
All who are interested in China and its global role should read it.’
Yongnian Zheng, Director of the East Asian Institute,
National University of Singapore
‘Kerry Brown is one of our most perceptive and accurate foreign
observers of China’
John Simpson, BBC
‘CEO, China is a thoughtful and thought-provoking study of China’s
current leader… A fascinating glimpse into the workings of the
Chinese leadership.’
Frank Ching, First Bureau Chief in Beijing
for the Wall Street Journal and author of Ancestors
‘A necessary read for anyone who thinks about China, which is most
of us these days… Kerry Brown’s book is very timely, thorough and
insightful, and gives some of the prevailing orthodoxies a bit of an
overdue nudge. A lot of the commentary about Xi to date has been
fairly trite; this book isn’t.’
Clinton Dines, former CEO of BHP Billiton
in China and an expert on Chinese business
‘One of the most useful studies available of how power works in today’s
China. I doubt any other writer provides as many insights into how a
closed system makes decisions and allocates authority.’
Bob Carr, Director of the Australia–China Relations
Institute at UTS, former Australian Foreign Minister
and longest-serving New South Wales Premier
CEO, CHINA
The Rise of Xi Jinping
Kerry Brown
Published in 2016 by
I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd
London • New York
www.ibtauris.com
Copyright © 2016 Kerry Brown
The right of Kerry Brown to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book,
or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced
into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
References to websites were correct at the time of writing.
ISBN: 978 1 78453 322 9
eISBN: 978 0 85772 961 3
ePDF: 978 0 85772 757 2
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Typesetting and eBooks by Tetragon, London
Printed and bound in Sweden by ScandBook AB
Dedicated to Jim O’Donoghue and Katherine Peters

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi
NOTE ON THE TExT xii
PREFACE xiii
LiST OF ABBREViATiONS xViii
KEY PEOPLE xix
TiMELiNE OF xi JiNPiNG’S LiFE xxi
MAP OF CHiNA xxiV
iNTRODUCTiON 1
1 THE HUNT FOR POWER iN MODERN CHiNA 15
2 xi THE MAN 49
3 xi, HiS ENEMiES AND HiS FRiENDS 106
4 THE POLiTiCAL PROGRAMME OF xi JiNPiNG 146
5 HOW DOES xi JiNPiNG SEE THE OUTSiDE WORLD? 185
6 WHAT DOES xi WANT iN THE NExT TWO DECADES? 209
CONCLUSiON 225
NOTES 233
BiBLiOGRAPHY 251
iNDEx 257