• Author: Kerry Brown
• Publisher: I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd  (later Bloomsbury)
• Publication Date: 2016
• Number of Pages: ~288

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The book in 3 sentences

Xi Jinping operates not as a standalone dictator, but as a complex hybrid: the ultimate “CEO” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a “true believer” cleansing his political priesthood, and a Mafia “godfather” relentlessly consolidating power to protect his faction from the chaos of his youth. Profoundly shaped by his father’s political purge and his own brutal rustication during the Cultural Revolution, Xi blends Mao Zedong’s mastery of emotional mobilization with Deng Xiaoping’s market-driven pragmatism. To achieve his “China Dream” of a rejuvenated nation, he is executing a massive consolidation of power and a moral cleansing of the CCP, recognizing that true, durable political power relies on ideological loyalty and absolute control rather than just material wealth.

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My impressions

A fascinating, hybrid look at political power. The book brilliantly maps out how Chinese politics operates simultaneously like a massive corporate entity obsessed with the “bottom line” of GDP growth, and a religious institution demanding ideological zeal and moral purity. However, the most striking psychological layer the book adds is the idea of Xi as a trauma-driven “godfather”—a leader whose ruthless demand for loyalty and control stems directly from the terrifying insecurities of his childhood. It effectively deconstructs the western assumption that modernizing China will inevitably mean Westernizing China.

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Who should read it?

Anyone interested in modern geopolitics, Chinese history, or the psychology of power and leadership—particularly how severe childhood trauma can forge a leader obsessed with absolute control at the highest levels of a secretive, one-party state.

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My top quotes

• “The Party is, in some senses, currently the world’s most successful and complex enterprise. But Xi, as its CEO, is also trying to carry it towards a mission that is more akin to that of a religious or cultural organization.”
• “As the saying goes, a sword grows sharp when rubbed against a stone, and men grow stronger through hardship.”
• “How is it possible that someone who grew up in this climate of fear could not but have a mindset in which he would try, once in power, to reinforce his position in any way he could as a practical psychological defence against such horrible times ever returning?”
• “The truly powerful, as history proves time and time again, locate their power far away from themselves. And for Xi Jinping that is in the ideals, beliefs and passions of the world’s final Communist party…”

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Summary and notes

Childhood and family history

• The fall from grace: Born into elite CCP privilege, Xi’s early years in Beijing were peaceful until 1962, when his father—revolutionary hero Xi Zhongxun—was abruptly purged by Mao’s intelligence tsar over the approval of a supposedly subversive historical novel.
• The trauma of the “sent-down youth”: Because of his father’s political disgrace, his family was torn apart. Xi was barred from joining the violent Red Guards and was exiled in 1969 to the impoverished village of Liangjiahe in Shaanxi province. Separated from his family, he spent seven grueling years performing manual labor and living in a cave. This intense period of vulnerability and fear planted the seeds of his future need for unshakeable control.
• His father’s reformist legacy: His father was fully rehabilitated in 1978 and became instrumental in establishing the first Special Economic Zones in Guangdong. This gave Xi an impeccable “reformist” inheritance untainted by the extreme leftism of the Maoist era.
• The ultimate soft-power asset: His second marriage to Peng Liyuan, a glamorous and wildly popular military singer, provided him with immense political capital. She humanizes him for the social media age, portrays him as a “good husband and a good father,” and secures vital links to the military.

Character and values as a leader

• “China’s Godfather” – Trauma-induced power consolidation: Exiled writer Yu Jie characterizes Xi as a Mafia “godfather” driven by a deep psychological need for absolute control. Having survived the extreme fear and family fragmentation of the Cultural Revolution, Xi relentlessly consolidates power as a “practical psychological defence” to ensure his family and faction never suffer such political chaos again.
• Zero democratic sympathy: Because Xi’s generation was raised entirely on the “Yan’an spirit” and Maoism as their only accessible ideology, critics argue they possess “zero real understanding or sympathy with democracy”. He places fidelity to ideology above everything else, much like a mob boss enforcing a strict code of loyalty.
• The “Pope Francis” of China: Xi operates as a hybrid leader: part corporate executive, part religious reformer. Like Pope Francis, Xi took over a vast, ancient, and highly hierarchical institution that had become bureaucratic, arrogant, and divorced from the people. His fierce anti-corruption campaign is a moral crusade to cleanse the CCP “priesthood” of its venality.
• Master of the “two 30 years”: Xi’s values bridge the Mao and Deng eras. He recognizes that Mao was a master of intangible power—emotion, narrative, and loyalty—which cannot be bought with money. Xi utilizes this Maoist emotional mobilization to pursue Dengist goals of economic and national strength.
• Rule by fear: Through his alliance with anti-corruption tsar Wang Qishan, Xi utilizes fear-based tactics to demand discipline. By taking down “untouchable” targets like former security chief Zhou Yongkang, he proved that no one is safe.

Specific anecdotes

• The fail-safe strategy (Shanghai, 2007): Just months before the crucial National Congress that would determine the next national leader, Xi was temporarily placed in charge of Shanghai. When a minor UK delegation visited, they surprisingly met Xi himself, who handled the meeting with robotic, risk-free precision. British journalists explained Xi’s brilliant tactic: on the verge of ultimate promotion, he deliberately chose only the lowest-risk engagements to ensure he gave his political enemies zero ammunition.
• Leaving the palace for the provinces (1983): In his late 20s, realizing that true political power in China lay in civil administration rather than the military, Xi voluntarily left a comfortable capital job to work as a village official in poor, rural Hebei province.
• Refusing the perks of power: When he was briefly Party secretary of Shanghai, he actively opposed the lavish supply of government goods. He asked for a smaller apartment than the one allocated to him and insisted he did not need the massive fleet of cars at his disposal.

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Key takeaways

• The psychological roots of a “Godfather”: Xi’s massive consolidation of power—earning him the nickname “Chairman of Everything”—is not just about administrative efficiency. It is deeply rooted in the childhood trauma of the Cultural Revolution, forging a leader who relies on brute ideology and total control to ensure his inner circle is never left vulnerable again.
• Narrative and emotion are true sources of power: Unlike his robotic predecessor Hu Jintao, Xi Jinping effectively uses his personal life story—particularly his time as a rusticated “sent-down youth” and his father’s reformist legacy—to authenticate his leadership and connect with the public. Furthermore, he recognizes that wealth creation alone cannot guarantee long-term loyalty; true, durable political power relies on emotional mobilization, national pride, and ideological discipline.
• The absolute supremacy of the Party: Xi is not a standalone emperor or dictator; he operates as the ultimate servant of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He believes that only a unified, morally cleansed CCP can guide China through its unprecedented challenges. His massive consolidation of power into central “leading groups” is designed to bypass entrenched vested interests and save the Party from destroying itself through corruption.
• Modernization without Westernization: Xi’s political program is highly pragmatic, embracing a profound contradiction: he seeks to give the market a more decisive role to make the economy sustainable and force inefficient State-Owned Enterprises to compete, while simultaneously clamping down on Western political ideals. “Document No. 9” explicitly bans the promotion of Western constitutional democracy, civil society, and press freedom, proving that China intends to modernize strictly on its own terms.
• The anti-corruption campaign is a survival strategy: The fierce anti-corruption drive, spearheaded by the Central Discipline and Inspection Commission under Wang Qishan, is not just about economic efficiency or a moral crusade. It is a vital political weapon used to eliminate rival patronage networks, smash the monopolies of state-owned enterprises, instill fear in the bureaucracy, and restore the Party’s credibility with the public.
• Geopolitical pragmatism and the “China Dream”: Internationally, Xi seeks a “new model of major power relations” to secure diplomatic space and parity, particularly with the United States. Through initiatives like the “new Silk Road,” he aims to secure China’s energy needs and build pragmatic, trade-driven partnerships that benefit China’s rise without dragging it into debilitating global conflicts. All of this serves the ultimate “China Dream” of becoming a fully developed, rich, and powerful nation by 2049.

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Chapter summaries and notes

Here is a comprehensive and detail-filled summary of each chapter:

Introduction: Meeting the future leader

The introduction sets the stage by exploring the unpredictable nature of political succession in China, anchored by an anecdote from 2007 when the author led a Liverpool delegation to Shanghai. At the time, Shanghai’s political boss, Chen Liangyu, had just been purged in a massive corruption scandal involving pension funds. His temporary replacement was a provincial official from Zhejiang named Xi Jinping. The author recounts meeting Xi, who kept a deliberately low profile and handled the meeting with cautious, risk-free precision. British journalists later explained that as Xi was close to a potential final promotion to the central leadership, his strategy was to avoid any controversial encounters, making a minor delegation from Liverpool the perfect, safe audience. This careful maneuvering perfectly encapsulates how Xi navigated his path to the top, contrasting sharply with the volatile, often lethal, power struggles of the Mao era.

Chapter 1: The hunt for power in modern China

This chapter examines the locations and manifestations of political power within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Power in China is not merely institutional; it is deeply ideological and historical. The CCP bases its legitimacy on a carefully controlled historical narrative, claiming it alone rescued China from a “century of humiliation” and delivered the economic miracle of the post-1978 reform era. Institutional power flows through the Central Committee, the Politburo, and ultimately the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, which acts like a council of “philosopher kings”. Xi has uniquely consolidated his authority by establishing and chairing powerful “leading groups” that oversee everything from economic reform to national security, earning him the nickname “the Chairman of Everything”. The chapter notes that true power in China also relies on controlling the language of leadership and emotional appeals, with Xi leveraging the “China Dream” to inspire nationalistic pride, a stark departure from the robotic, slogan-heavy rhetoric of his predecessor, Hu Jintao.

Chapter 2: Xi the man

Xi’s biography is marked by early privilege, sudden trauma, and a slow, calculated rise. Born into the CCP elite as the son of revolutionary hero Xi Zhongxun, Xi’s childhood was shattered in 1962 when his father was purged by the ruthless intelligence tsar Kang Sheng over the approval of a supposedly subversive historical novel. During the Cultural Revolution, Xi’s family was torn apart, and he was sent to Liangjiahe, a poor village in Shaanxi province, to perform hard manual labor as a “sent-down youth”. This painful period of rustication is now utilized as a powerful political anecdote to prove Xi’s authentic connection to the rural masses and his resilience. Following his father’s rehabilitation in 1978, Xi chose a path of provincial administration over a comfortable military career. He endured the grueling life of a local official in Hebei, Fujian, and Zhejiang, navigating the complexities of land sales, economic zones, and corruption. Despite his “princeling” background—which actually caused him to nearly lose an election to the Central Committee in 1997—his track record of promoting private enterprise in Zhejiang and his ability to remain untainted by major scandals positioned him perfectly to leapfrog rivals like Li Keqiang and become the heir apparent in 2007.

Chapter 3: Xi, his enemies and his friends

Xi relies on a dynamic, concentric network of relationships to wield power. His most potent emotional and public relations asset is his wife, Peng Liyuan. Before 2007, Peng—a glamorous military singer famous for performing at the CCTV New Year’s Gala—was far more recognizable than Xi. She helps humanize him for the social media age and provides a critical link to the military. Politically, Xi’s most vital ally is Wang Qishan, the feared head of the Central Discipline and Inspection Commission (CDIC). Wang is a maverick “fixer” who historically handled crises like the SARS outbreak and is now the ruthless enforcer of Xi’s anti-corruption drive. Xi also relies on shadowy intellectual advisors like Wang Huning, the ultimate ideological survivor, and Liu He, an advocate for market economics. Conversely, Xi faces formidable enemies. His deepest threats come from within the Party: the corrupt, entrenched vested interests of state-owned enterprises (epitomized by the purged security tsar Zhou Yongkang) and the Neo-Maoist “leftists” (associated with figures like Bo Xilai and the Utopia website) who attack the reforms for causing rampant inequality and ideological decay.

Chapter 4: The political programme of Xi Jinping

This chapter analyzes Xi’s policy manifesto, derived from his unprecedented personal explanatory note attached to the 2013 Third Plenum document. Realizing that the era of double-digit GDP growth is over, Xi’s program is designed to transition China to a “fast, sustainable model” by breaking the monopolies of corrupt vested interests. His 11-point agenda includes granting the market a “decisive” role to starve inefficient State-Owned Enterprises of subsidies, pushing for urbanization, and reforming the tax and judicial systems to ensure greater economic predictability. An anecdote regarding the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline—fined heavily following a bribery scandal—illustrates how the new “rule by law” serves both to modernize the economy and punish foreign leverage. Xi’s anti-corruption purge is not purely a moral crusade; it is a vital tool to restore the Party’s credibility and eliminate rival patronage networks. Simultaneously, Xi has tightened ideological control, creating a National Security Commission and releasing “Document No. 9” to explicitly ban the promotion of Western constitutional democracy, civil society, and press freedom.

Chapter 5: How does Xi Jinping see the outside world?

China’s foreign policy under Xi operates in concentric circles of pragmatic self-interest. The United States is the primary focus, viewed simultaneously with admiration and deep suspicion of its “containment” strategies. Xi has sought to redefine this relationship as a “new model of major power relations” to secure diplomatic space and parity, notably holding a highly unusual 9-hour summit with President Obama at Sunnylands. For other regions, Xi tailors his grand narratives. The European Union is treated as a “civilizational partner,” a flattering label that also serves to deflect the EU’s frequent, frustrating lectures on human rights and Tibet. Towards Central Asia, the Middle East, and beyond, Xi champions the “New Silk Road” (One Belt, One Road). This romanticized narrative facilitates massive Chinese investments in oil and infrastructure, ensuring energy security while tying neighboring economies to the Renminbi. An anecdote capturing the friction in China’s immediate neighborhood is Xi’s encounter with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the 2014 APEC summit—a meeting so visibly sour that netizens compared the two leaders to Winnie-the-Pooh meeting a depressed Eeyore.

Chapter 6: What does Xi want in the next two decades?

Unlike Western politicians bound by short election cycles, the CCP maps out visions decades in advance, aiming for “perfection” of its socialist market model. Xi’s “China Dream” translates to two centennial goals: becoming a “moderately prosperous society” by 2021, and a fully developed, “rich, strong, powerful country” by 2049. By 2035, the Party envisions a nation where 70 percent of the population lives in cities, the economy is driven by services and consumption rather than cheap manufacturing, the smog-choked environment is healing through green technology, and the CCP remains firmly in control. However, this vision is threatened by four major risks: social instability (such as ethnic unrest in Xinjiang), political decay (loss of CCP legitimacy), geopolitical conflicts, and economic stagnation. If China fails to transition, the nightmare scenario involves severe environmental collapse, financial ruin, or a Soviet-style fragmentation of the state.

Conclusion: Who is Xi?

The book concludes by offering two striking metaphors to understand Xi Jinping. The author compares him to Pope Francis: both men took over ancient, vast, and deeply hierarchical organizations that had become corrupted, bureaucratic, and detached from their followers, and both launched fierce internal campaigns to cleanse their “priesthoods” and restore the original faith. Alternatively, exiled writer Yu Jie compares Xi to a Mafia “godfather” who relies on fear, brute ideology, and power consolidation to ensure his family and faction never suffer the traumas of the Cultural Revolution again. Ultimately, the author concludes that Xi is neither a standalone emperor nor a simple dictator; he is the ultimate servant of the Chinese Communist Party. Without the Party apparatus, Xi is nothing, but he possesses an intuitive understanding that to save the CCP from destroying itself through greed, he must restore its ideological discipline, instill fear in corrupt officials, and emotionally mobilize the Chinese people toward a grand national destiny.