In On Xi Jinping, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd provides an authoritative account of the
worldview driving Chinese behavior on the world stage. Focusing on domestic policy, political economy, and
foreign policy, Rudd argues that President Xi Jinping's worldview differs significantly from those of the leaders
who preceded him and highlights how the shift has impacted policy. A powerful analysis of the worldview of
arguably the most consequential world leader of our era, this will be essential reading for anyone interested in
how Xi is transforming both China and the international order.
An authoritative account of Xi Jinping's worldview and how it drives Chinese behaviour both domestically and
on the world stage.
In his new book, On Xi Jinping, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd provides an authoritative account
of the ideological worldview driving Chinese behaviour both domestically and on the world stage--that of
President Xi Jinping, who now hold near-total control over the Chinese Communist Party and is now, in effect,
president-for-life. Rudd argues that Xi's worldview differs significantly from those of the leaders who preceded
him, and that this ideological shift is reflected in the real world of Chinese policy and behaviour.
Focusing on China's domestic politics, political economy, and foreign policy, Rudd characterises Xi Jinping's
ideological framing of the world as "Marxist-Leninist nationalism." According to Rudd, Xi's notion of Leninism
has taken the party and Chinese politics further to the left in comparison to his predecessors. Also, his Marxism
has also taken Chinese economic thinking to the left-in a more decisively more statist direction and away from
the historical dynamism of the private sector. However, Chinese nationalism under Xi has moved further to the
right- towards a much, harder-edged, foreign policy vision of China and a new determination to change the
international status quo. Xi's worldview is an integrated one, where his national ideological vision for China's
future is ultimately inseparable from his view on China's position in the region and the world. These changes in
worldview are also reflected in Xi's broader rehabilitation of the concept of "struggle" as a legitimate concept
for the conduct of both Chinese domestic and foreign policy--a struggle that need not necessarily always be
peaceful.
Finally, Xi's ideological worldview also exhibits a new level of nationalist self-confidence about China's future--
derived from China's historical and civilizational strengths but reinforced by his Marxist-Leninist concept of
historical determinism and the belief that the tides of history are now on firmly China's side. A powerful analysis
of the worldview of arguably the most consequential world leader of our era, this will be essential reading for
anyone interested in how Xi is transforming both China and the international order, and, most importantly, why?
