Book Review - On Xi Jinping - The Telegraph (London)

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-f ... tugendhat/


What Xi Jinping really wants – and how he plans to get it
Beware the rise of ‘Marxist nationalism’. As Australian ex-PM Kevin Rudd explains in his new study, On Xi Jinping, China has imperial dreams

Tom Tugendhat – a former Member of the British Parliament where he was Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

12 January 2025 9:15am GMT


For an organisation that shuns the limelight, the United Front Work Department has been in the news a lot recently. That’s the price of dealing with royalty. As we were reminded last month, during the furore over alleged “Chinese spy” Yang Tengbo and his relationship with the Duke of York, the Chinese Communist Party has for years been distributing propaganda and trying to influence our politics, all to further Xi Jinping’s ambitions. The question about the latter is: what are they?

The Communists don’t care what Prince Andrew says. Even if Yang was a UFWD asset, the organisation was merely using the Duke, as it uses professors, politicians, businesses and journalists around the world, as a tool to build a different future – a new world order that China shapes. Xi hasn’t been shy about it. He has set out in speeches and articles how he wants to recast the international order. From challenging the existing, US-led global system, and promoting a new “community of common destiny for all humankind”, Xi wants China to replace America as the global leader.

The mistake many have made is not to read what China’s most powerful leader in decades has actually said. Kevin Rudd has. Australia’s former prime minister has been studying China since he was a student in Taiwan almost 50 years ago, and has built up an understanding of both what Beijing says and what it means. For those of us less fluent in Mandarin or Marxism, that makes his new book essential reading.

On Xi Jinping goes back to the original sources to build up an explanation of how China has changed, and explains clearly the background to the hostility we have seen emerge since the end of the Golden Era of relations between the United Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom. Rudd’s analysis of Xi’s ideology reveals a complex blend of Marxism-Leninism and Chinese nationalism, dictating both China’s internal policies and its foreign-policy objectives.

At the heart of this ideology is “Xi Jinping Thought for the New Era”, which aims to transform China into a major global power, rivalling the West with a new mandate from heaven. This ranges beyond the scope of a political manifesto, aspiring almost to theology: it forms what Rudd calls “a Chinese counterpoint” to the United States’ self-understanding. “Marxist Nationalism” is akin to George Washington’s “Divine Providence”, Teddy Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet” and John Winthrop’s “city upon a hill”.

Xi views the world through this ideological lens. Understanding his perspective is key to anticipating China’s actions. As the General Secretary puts it, “if we turn a blind eye to challenges, or even dodge or disguise them, if we fear to advance in the face of challenges and sit by and watch the unfolding calamity, then they will grow beyond our control and cause irreparable damage.” He’s right. But that applies to China and the West equally.

Many countries talk about pursuing multilateralism through the UN; for China, however, it means more than cooperation. Xi’s aim isn’t just to transform existing institutions, but to create alternative ones, and transform the Global South into a political support base for his new international order. The chairman of the Central Military Committee has also advanced the idea of a “new type of great power relations”, especially in relation to the United States, which can be seen as a call for mutual respect and non-aggression, based on the acknowledgement of each side’s core interests.

On Xi Jinping does more than set out the outline. In 600 pages [Reading Liberally note – 407 pages sans notes and index] of hardcore academic study – with a reduced reading suggestion for the less assiduous student – Rudd details the tenets that define Xi’s ideology. It’s been a while since I read any Marxism, but that’s the vernacular of the Chinese leader’s thought: Xi uses it as the basis of his analysis of both domestic and international conflicts, and views the world as a site of competing ideologies. His goal is to restore China to its former glory, and to overcome a past century of humiliations – as Chinese officials so often bring up.

That resentment is fuelling a more assertive foreign policy. Advancing the CCP’s cause means rejecting the West, and that’s where we come back to the UFWD. Rudd reveals the clear implications of Xi’s strategy for the UK. We face ideological warfare, political interference, economic espionage and influence operations as the CCP tries to counter Western narratives with propaganda. None of this started in Buckingham Palace: the techniques grew out of the Chinese Civil War, during which the UFWD became a pillar of the CCP’s efforts to take control.

For British readers, Rudd’s book may take work: it’s serious scholarship. But it’s worth it to make clear that Xi’s ideological framework is essential to any assessment of the threat from China. Using tools such as TikTok, overseas “police stations”, and far too many useful idiots in British society, China’s efforts at undermining our country won’t stop just because one “spy” has been kicked out. Rudd’s warning has never been more timely: “We ignore Xi’s clarity of ideological purpose at our peril.”