SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Xi Jinping has been pushing to make his thought a major addition to China’s ideology, which guides China’s direction of travel. No other Chinese leader apart from Mao Zedong had their theoretical contributions elevated to this status. This book provides a contextualized reading of Xi Jinping Thought and examines how it has been implemented in practice. While China’s political system remains a Leninist party-state, how it operates has been substantially modified following the introduction of Xi Thought. What has happened is akin to replacing the operating system of a computer. This book conceptualizes the modified system as a Sino-centric consultative Leninist system. The Chinese Communist Party is being reinvigorated as a Leninist machine, by which the Party leads everything. A new de facto social contract is offered to the Chinese people, who are being indoctrinated by Xi Thought so they will think like “one patriotic people.” China’s economy is being restructured following Xi’s vision of a “socialist market economy,” while its interactions with the rest of the world, his reconstruction of the ancient tianxia, or all-under-heaven, world order, which commits to a “China First” principle. The end goal set in Xi Thought is the fulfillment of “the China Dream of national rejuvenation” by 2050 at the latest. Whether this will come to pass or not, the introduction of Xi Thought has already changed China, with significant implications for the rest of the world.