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Party of One

The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future

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Party of One

By: Chun Han Wong
Narrated by: Feodor Chin
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About this listen

 'Compelling and informative... a useful gateway into [Xi Jinping's] mind' Rana Mitter, Literary Review

From one of the most admired reporters covering China today, a vital new account of the life and political vision of Xi Jinping, the authoritarian leader of the People's Republic whose hard-edged tactics have set the rising superpower on a collision with Western liberal democracies.

Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future shatters the many myths and caricatures that shroud one of the world's most secretive political organizations and its leader. Many observers misread Xi during his early years in power, projecting their own hopes that he would steer China toward more political openness, rule of law, and pro-market economics. Having masked his beliefs while climbing the party hierarchy, Xi has centralized decision-making powers, encouraged a personality cult around himself, and moved toward indefinite rule by scrapping presidential term limits-stirring fears of a return to Mao-style dictatorship. Today, the party of Xi favors political zeal over technical expertise, trumpets its faith in Marxism, and proclaims its reach into every corner of Chinese society with Xi portraits and hammer-and-sickle logos. Under Xi, China has challenged Western preeminence in global affairs and cast its authoritarian system as a model of governance worthy of international emulation.

As a China reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Chun Han Wong has chronicled Xi's hardline strategy for crushing dissent and his political repression in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Wong spent five years in Beijing before the Chinese government forced him to leave mainland China in 2019, after which he moved to Hong Kong and continued writing about Xi's leadership. Now, Wong has drawn on his years of first-hand reporting across China to create a lucid and historically-rooted account of China's leader, and how he inspires fear and fervor in his party, his nation, and beyond.

Timely, revelatory, and important, Party of One explains how the future Xi imagines for China will reshape the future of the entire world.©2023 Chun Han Wong (P)2023 Hachette Audio UK Art Literary History & Criticism Political Science Politics & Activism Politics & Government Presidents & Heads of State United States World China Government
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The author offers a reasonably well sourced and well written overview of different aspects of Chinese politics: historical perspectives, internal policy, diplomacy, international strategy, military strategy, media control, party dynamics and power struggles in Xi’s China. The tone is quite neutral, but overall western/liberal leaning. An informative read. I hated the reading, which I found distracting and way too dramatic for the non-fiction nature of the book.

An overall balanced account of contemporary Chinese politics

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This is an excellent account of Xi’s life and times. It is unfortunately marred by a poor choice of narrator for the audiobook. Those with even a working familiarity with the Chinese language will find the narration suffering from the typical Anglo-American tendency to horribly mangle the pronunciation of Chinese language names and terminology. This is not acceptable in this day and age, and the audiobook’s producers need to do better.

An excellent book marred by poor reading

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