Book Review: How Xi Jinping Derailed China’s Peaceful Rise
However, in contrast to his strong-willed predecessors, the low-key Hu viewed himself simply as the first among equals. This left the expanded standing committee unwieldy and rudderless. As a result, the committee’s powerful members, often referred to as the ‘nine dragons’, each acted independently to expand their fiefdoms and resources, with Hu unable to control them. Instead of the collective leadership intended by Deng, the standing committee was sometimes referred to as simply a collection of leaders.
Shirk cites numerous examples of poor coordination. In 2007, the People’s Liberation Army tested an anti-satellite weapon by shooting down one of its own satellites, in the process spreading debris and endangering the satellites of other countries. When questioned by the US, China’s Foreign Ministry said it was unaware of the test. Coordination was particularly weak in the South China Sea, with the Foreign Ministry, navy, coastguard and fishing groups led by provincial governments all independently stirring up disputes in the name of the national interest.
As Deng’s policy of ‘hiding one’s strength and biding one’s time’ started to unravel, Hu ‘sent the pendulum swinging back to Xi’s Mao-style overconcentration of power’, Shirk writes. Xi inherited a governance system that was poorly coordinated and deeply corrupt, but with the foundations for overreach already firmly in place. As one Chinese entrepreneur described it, ‘Deng Xiaoping unplugged the Party’s Leninist machine, but Xi just put in the plug and it started up right away.’
Overreach is thoroughly researched and brims with information on events during the Hu and Xi eras obtained from interviews with well-informed insiders. A particularly useful chapter titled ‘Inside the black box’ outlines the workings of a political system ‘almost as opaque as North Korea’s’.
Under Xi, foreign policy went to extremes, security and anti-corruption measures were tightened and paranoia grew, with cadres at all levels scrambling to please the leader. As Xi continued to rein in the private sector and the economy faltered, dissatisfaction within the CCP also deepened. This reportedly came to a head at the party’s informal gathering in Beidahe last August.
Shirk’s book is a pleasure to read, but would have benefited from a final round of fact-checking. Her assertion that ‘Chinese diplomats now lead more than fifteen UN agencies’ is an exaggeration. And Shirk claims that APEC was ‘founded by the United States’, without any reference to the pivotal role played by Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke.
These minor errors notwithstanding, Shirk makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of how relations between China and the West have deteriorated, noting that China went into overdrive well before Xi came to power.
Shirk concludes with recommendations for China and the US to bring their relationship onto a more even keel. Some are practical, while others, in the current inflamed environment, are unrealistic. But it’s hard to disagree with Shirk that re-establishing consultations and getting the two countries’ leaders to meet regularly would be a good place to start.
Robert Wihtol is an adjunct faculty member at the Asian Institute of Management and former Asian Development Bank country director for China and director general for East Asia. This article is published courtesy of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).
