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The Xi Jinping Effect: The Xi Jinping Effect: An Overview

The Xi Jinping Effect
The Xi Jinping Effect: An Overview
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table of contents
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright
  3. Contents
  4. Preface and Acknowledgments
  5. The Xi Jinping Effect: An Overview
  6. Part One: Taking Charge and Building Faith
    1. 1. Corruption, Faction, and Succession: The Xi Jinping Effect on Leadership Politics
    2. 2. Xi Jinping’s Counter-Reformation: The Reassertion of Ideological Governance
    3. 3. Fundamentalism with Chinese Characteristics: Xi Jinping and Faith
  7. Part Two: Socioeconomic Policies to Reduce Poverty
    1. 4. Xi Jinping Confronts Inequality: Bold Leadership or Modest Steps?
    2. 5. Pliable Citizenship: Migrant Inequality in the Xi Jinping Era
  8. Part Three: Surveillance and Political Control
    1. 6. Xi Jinping’s Surveillance State: Merging Digital Technology and Grassroots Organizations
    2. 7. Love through Fear: The Personality Cult of Xi Jinping in Xinjiang
  9. Part Four: Foreign and Cross-Strait Relations
    1. 8. Xi Jinping’s Taiwan Policy: Soft Gets Softer, Hard Gets Harder
    2. 9. Xi Jinping’s Diplomatic New Normal: The Reception in Southeast Asia
  10. Conclusion
    1. 10. Understanding the Xi Effect: Structure versus Agency
  11. Chinese Character Glossary
  12. Selected Bibliography
  13. List of Contributors
  14. Index

The Xi Jinping Effect An Overview

Ashley Esarey and Rongbin Han

In March 2018, the Chinese National People’s Congress amended the country’s constitution to eliminate presidential term limits, opening the door to Xi Jinping becoming China’s first “perpetual president” since the creation of term limits in the early post–Mao Zedong period. This move was symbolically groundbreaking. Though term limits have never existed for the more powerful position of head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the constitutional amendment implied that Xi might not step down after ten years as paramount leader, as had his predecessors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. In October 2022, the CCP extended Xi’s mandate to stay on as general secretary at its 20th Congress, granting him the longest period at the helm of the party of any leader since Mao.

Without a political successor in sight, Xi carries the torch for a political agenda that has touched many aspects of Chinese political and social life. Xi’s decade as China’s leader has contributed to poverty alleviation, suppression of political freedom in Hong Kong, a reduction in corruption among officials, repression of non-Han peoples in Xinjiang and Tibet, the expansion of development beyond China’s borders via the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), military reform and restructuring, reemphasis on “United Front” work to win hearts and minds overseas, and the hardening of claims to sovereignty in the South China Sea and Taiwan. Meanwhile, there is growing evidence of an acceptance of Xi’s political hegemony: ethnic minorities, religious groups, and even corporations are growing accustomed to playing by Xi’s new formal and informal rules.1 Unlike his predecessors Hu and Jiang, who were paramount leaders during China’s boom years, Xi has rolled out bold new initiatives during a time of slowing economic growth. Yet numerous obstacles to the country’s ascent loom on the horizon, including an aging population, heavily indebted local governments, persistent urban poverty, worsening income inequality, and low levels of education in rural areas.2 Xi’s policies in foreign affairs have led to pushback by foreign governments and nongovernmental organizations as well as by a small number of Chinese critics, who worry the country is headed, not toward the realization of the “Chinese dream,” but toward a nightmare in which China loses comparative advantages due to rising labor costs, fights a costly war over Taiwan, commits irreparable harm to the “one country, two systems” framework in Hong Kong, and silences voices calling for improved governance.

This book considers the “Xi Jinping effect”—the impact of Xi’s leadership on China’s politics, economics, social life, and global governance—in the larger context of China’s changing circumstances, while assessing the intended (and unintended) consequences of Xi’s major initiatives. We argue that the Xi effect varies from apparent to less apparent, and even negligible depending on where one looks. While in some policy areas, the impact of Xi is highly salient, Xi’s initiatives have at times fallen short as a result of China’s “inherited” circumstances—domestically and internationally—or because they failed to embrace shifting trends in public opinion or to address the needs of vulnerable populations. Xi’s leadership has also had “mixed effects,” as his government’s policies have led to change as well as new tensions and resistance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, Xi sought to contain the virus through lockdowns, frequent mass testing, and made-in-China vaccines and even to benefit from the crisis through “medical diplomacy.” Yet his pursuit of a “zero COVID” policy ultimately sparked protest by citizens who saw China’s public health measures as unnecessarily strict, costly, or inhumane. In the chapters to follow, our contributors both assess and complicate the notion of a “Xi effect,” comparing his rule to that of prior Chinese leaders, while remaining cognizant of China’s changing internal and external conditions.

Early scholarship on the nature of political authority in China since Xi’s 2012 rise was written before his plans for recentralizing political authority, eliminating domestic opposition, and remaking China’s global status were fully apparent.3 Some studies assumed the political positioning that enabled Xi’s rise, such as support for private-sector entrepreneurship and the careful avoidance of political “mistakes,” would characterize his leadership in the future.4 Yet the scope, ambition, and rapidity of Xi’s political agenda took his comrades, political opponents, and many pundits by surprise.5 Xi utilized the power of his offices to accrue vastly greater clout as paramount leader, empower CCP institutions (as opposed to governmental ones), pursue “throwback” policies favoring once powerful state-owned enterprises, and win public support for a great restoration (weida fuxing) of China’s power and status.

Coming to grips with the manifold changes in Chinese politics in the Xi Jinping era has made studying his leadership even more challenging. The China of Xi is not the China of Deng Xiaoping, or of his successors Jiang and Hu: Xi’s CCP-led government has greater capacity to formulate and implement policies. China has become more affluent, cosmopolitan, and globally connected. The country’s economic growth is also more dependent on foreign technology, capital, and markets, as well as imported energy, mineral resources, and other raw materials. Unlike the Mao period (1949–76) and the associated widespread poverty, contemporary China is plagued by disparities in wealth and education and, like other East Asian countries, has a rapidly aging population. Per capita income is roughly equivalent to that of Mexico.6 China has the most billionaires in the world. Yet many citizens remain poor by global standards.

Intractable problems faced by Xi’s predecessors have also proved difficult for him to ameliorate. Many of these problems relate to sovereignty disputes, political and social rights, and equal access to public goods, especially in education and health care; their resolution would benefit from transparency, power-sharing, and accommodation of political and cultural pluralism, to which Xi is decidedly opposed. Such challenges include movements for religious autonomy in Xinjiang and Tibet; increasing identification with Taiwan as a nation (examined by Tony Tai-Ting Liu in chapter 8); growing international support for de facto Taiwan independence; pro-democracy sentiment in Hong Kong; widespread discontent over air, soil, and water pollution within China; and the denial of full citizenship to economic migrants resulting from local government implementation of the hukou, or residency, system. In some areas, such as the reduction of income inequality (Martin King Whyte, chapter 4), the Xi effect has been inconsequential or even the opposite of what his government has sought.

Xi’s renewed emphasis on ideological rectification for the CCP—and for the country more generally—has drawn heavily on propaganda and campaign-style strategies from the Mao period, the halcyon age of Chinese socialism.7 As Timothy Cheek argues (chapter 2), Xi’s treatment of ideology reflects both continuity and change. Even before Xi fully assumed power in January 2013, he maintained that “one cannot use the reform era to negate the pre-reform historical period, nor can one use the pre-reform historic period to negate the reform era.”8 This assertion was controversial because it implied the need to prize connections between China’s largely capitalist present and intensely socialist past; one scholar suggested that Xi had embraced a “Maoist persona.”9 Indeed, Xi’s throwback tendencies are reflected in the Maoist nostalgia of his speeches, his Yan’an-style “rectification” politics and ideological governance (Cheek), the personality cult associated with Xi’s leadership (Musapir, chapter 7), and his antagonism to liberal democratic values.10

Writing about Chinese leadership at the dawn of the Xi era, the political scientist David M. Lampton observed that “leaders have become weaker, society stronger, and both leadership and society more pluralized”; he argued that it would be “difficult to maintain social and political stability without further, dramatic changes in political and governing structures and processes, as well as further evolution of China’s political culture.”11 In many respects, what the East Asia expert Ezra Vogel called Xi’s micromanagement of high politics, direct leadership over small groups handling salient issues, and sweeping institutional reforms can be read as an attempt to reverse the trends Lampton described.12 Xi has attacked corruption within the ranks of the CCP and tightened control over the central government, including the People’s Liberation Army. He has suppressed independent thought within China and beyond via cyber trolls, censorship, and diatribes by “wolf warrior” diplomats. Under Xi, new political institutions, such as the corruption-fighting National Supervisory Commission, the National Security Commission, and the Cyberspace Administration of China, have centralized political authority and marginalized potential adversaries. Meanwhile, the arrests of civil society activists and rights lawyers, the incarceration and reeducation of Muslims, the implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong, and state surveillance have narrowed the space for political participation (Deng Kai, David Demes, and Chih-Jou Jay Chen, chapter 6). To boost his popularity, Xi has provided red meat for Chinese nationalists eager to see their country’s global status rise through the BRI, the construction of island bases in the South China Sea, the Chang’e-4 moon landing, and territorial conflict with Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Japan, Nepal, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Chinese political culture is changing, too, in ways that suggest Xi and his supporters have gambled that tighter societal control, militant foreign policy, and more power for central authorities are the best means to maintain stability.

In key respects, Xi’s rule has rolled back or dismantled prominent features of political life during the reform and opening period (1978–2012). Xi’s assault on Dengism includes the diminution of the status of other central leaders and the departure from “collective leadership” (jiti lingdao); an unwillingness to arrange an orderly (post-Xi) leadership succession; the creation of a cult of personality; a shift from a low-profile foreign policy to one that is assertive and even militant; a departure from “one country, two systems” rule for Hong Kong; the reinsertion of the CCP into citizens’ lives (Musapir, chapter 7); and contentious relations with states in Europe and North America.13 The 2021 CCP decision to rewrite its official history to emphasize the need for unshakable loyalty to Xi, as the transformational “founder” of the Party’s ideology and the “core” of its leadership, both exemplifies and solidifies this broad movement away from Dengism.14 The “resolution” on the Party’s “historical experience” highlights Mao’s accomplishments, de-emphasizes Deng’s (and those of his chosen successors Jiang and Hu), and elevates momentum for Xi to guide the country in a new era, an era that we term Xi’s “Restoration” (weida fuxing) (2013–present), not just because of what Xi has achieved but because of what he aims to achieve going forward.

Identifying and Analyzing the “Xi Effect”

Despite continuous rule by a single political party since 1949, Chinese politics have nonetheless experienced repeated transformations. The Mao period saw the importation of Soviet-style government, which was disrupted by society-wide, campaign-style mobilization associated with the disastrous Great Leap Forward (1958–61) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). The post-Mao era broke from “continuous revolution” and ideological fervor, emphasizing pragmatic economic policies under Deng Xiaoping and “seeking truth from facts.” By the 1980s, China transitioned away from a command economy to become market oriented and increasingly prosperous in the 1990s and early 2000s, with Jiang Zemin at the helm. The Hu Jintao administration (2002–12) sought social cohesion through the reduction of inequalities, the development of western China, and environmentalism. While tensions grew with the great powers, including the United States, on the whole democracies worldwide sought to engage China politically; China proved an attractive destination for foreign capital and international business initiatives.

Observers have identified major changes in Xi’s China, though they debate both the nature and the extent of his leadership’s effects. The political scientist Elizabeth Economy characterizes Xi’s impact as “a third revolution” that “represents a reassertion of the state in Chinese political and economic life at home, and a more ambitious and expansive role for China abroad.”15 Whereas Economy associates Xi’s leadership with growing global influence and the emergence of China as a “transformative power,” pundits such as Kevin Rudd see continuities in Xi’s leadership, asserting that “what Xi has done is intensify and accelerate priorities and plans that have long been part of the Party’s strategy.”16 Susan Shirk and other prominent scholars associate Xi’s ambitious policies with overreach and strategic miscalculation that risks sowing the seeds of disaster.17 Still others view Xi-era changes as signs of China regressing to post-totalitarian government.18 As Minxin Pei argues, Beijing may repeat “some of the most consequential mistakes of the Soviet regime,” with growing regime rigidity, even ossification.19

Unlike prior work on Xi’s life and career before he became general secretary, this volume focuses on the impact of Xi’s leadership after he came to power.20 Our contributors take up the concept of a “Xi Jinping effect” to explore, contextualize, and problematize the influence of Xi’s leadership, while drawing on their diverse disciplinary backgrounds and respective expertise. The book helps explain why the Xi effect is more salient in some areas but not others and what that tells us about the “new normal” (xinchangtai) of Chinese politics. The book is organized into four parts: (1) the anti-corruption campaign and ideological rectification and their impact on elite politics; (2) social policies to reduce poverty and economic inequality; (3) heightened surveillance and political control; and (4) a newly activist foreign policy.

Taking Charge and Building Faith: Anti-Corruption Campaign and Ideological Reformation

Xi Jinping’s decision to launch an anti-corruption campaign of unprecedented scale was essential to establishing his political authority. The campaign targeted not just “flies,” that is, officials at low bureaucratic levels, but also “tigers,” including centrally appointed bureaucrats, high-ranking military officers, and former members of the Politburo Standing Committee (addressed by Andrew Wedeman in chapter 1). Utilizing an extra-legal system that governs nearly one hundred million CCP members, the campaign has sacked hundreds of officials at the provincial level or above, with many more investigated and receiving disciplinary punishment. Chinese anti-corruption campaigns in the past, though frequent since the Mao period, targeted mostly lower-level officials. Xi’s anti-corruption efforts have garnered widespread public support but unsurprisingly have not played well with many officials, who, at a personal level, may have lost income and whose freedom to undertake a range of projects has been greatly curtailed. Chinese officials have become reticent to engage in the types of political experimentation that proved vital in the reform period (1978–2012).21 Others question the economic utility of the anti-corruption campaign, seeing it as doing little to reduce economic inequality, for example, an aim more readily addressed through redistributive measures or progressive taxation (Whyte, chapter 4).

Scholarship on the anti-corruption drive has also debated the motives underlying the campaign, with some arguing that Xi’s heavy emphasis on fighting corruption stems from a desire to save the CCP from domestic opposition and international subversion.22 Other researchers such as Andrew Wedeman (chapter 1) see the campaign as an effort by Xi to reduce the influence of rival factions in the Politburo and the Politburo Standing Committee. We see the campaign as serving multiple complementary purposes—building public support for Xi’s rule; reducing corrupt behavior among Party members; replacing officials with Xi loyalists tasked with remaking China’s “political ecology”; increasing performance legitimacy, for example, through military restructuring and force projection; and signaling to officials high and low that they must support Xi or risk becoming a target.23

But is there more to the crackdown than power and control? Timothy Cheek (chapter 2) and Gerda Wielander (chapter 3) look to ideational dimensions of the Xi effect. As Cheek argues, Xi’s efforts reflect a revival of ideological governance seen not only during Mao’s rule but also in earlier modern Chinese regimes led by Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek. Xi’s reassertion of Party leadership is what Cheek terms a “counter-reformation” to the Deng Xiaoping–style reform of the preceding decades. Xi aims to revive the capacity of central CCP bodies and central state institutions to save China from domestic and international perils. Despite grumbling among CCP insiders, Xi appears to have unified the Party under the group élan of well-rewarded and substantive public service to recoup the CCP’s faltering prestige. In doing so, Xi draws on a standard set of Party administrative practices employed since the 1940s. The rectification campaign, trumpeted by the media as a “mass line campaign,” is a rewrite of the software that runs the military and security forces and the organizational muscle of the Party-state.

In part because Xi Jinping has sought to bolster public support for his government during a period of a weakening economy—a crucial source of legitimacy during the post-Mao boom—Xi has placed heavy emphasis on ideological guidance of society. For Xi, a central thrust has been the pursuit of the China Dream, or Zhongguo Meng, emphasizing China’s great revival as an economic and military power.24 The concept, first articulated in March 2013, carries both domestic and international implications. Domestically, the China Dream indicates that the CCP hopes to draw on nationalism as a source of legitimacy, particularly a brand of nationalism that sees foreign powers as unjustly obstructing China’s path to greatness. Internationally, the China Dream proposes a new positive narrative of China’s rise that, when paired with Xi’s BRI and with dramatic military restructuring, suggests the world must make way for China as the preeminent superpower.25 Domestically, the China Dream thus serves as justification for greater repression of domestic dissent and more assertive or even aggressive approaches to advancing the country’s interests abroad.26 In comparison to the efforts of Xi’s predecessors to pursue “peaceful rise” or “peaceful development,” explications of China’s place in the world that were less threatening, Xi’s China Dream exemplifies the departure from Dengist “low-profile” approaches to securing global influence and the dismantling of Dengism.27 Chasing the China Dream helps to legitimize the expansion of Chinese military action in the South China Sea, hardball tactics to suppress global recognition of Taiwanese sovereignty, “wolf warrior” diplomacy against foreign critics of Chinese human rights, and resistance to investigation of the origins of COVID-19.28

At the same time, Xi’s China has become more conservative and more rigid ideologically. Though the purge of Bo Xilai, who was known for leftist populism and Mao-era nostalgia, prior to Xi’s ascension to power seemed to indicate China’s aversion to communist ideological legacies, Xi has taken a “left turn,” as reflected in Xi’s many paeans to Mao, his heavy emphasis on propaganda, and his Stalinist personality cult (geren chongbai), or what might be called “leader worship.”

As Wielander argues, faith, or xinyang, has been another central term associated with Xi’s political discourse. Using the Habermasian concept of a “post-secular society” as an analytical framework, she sees the reaffirmation of faith under Xi as a direct response to the challenges brought about by the pluralization of religious voices and the public sphere. Yet, instead of affording genuine validity to religion and associated values of faith in a post-secular world, Xi has appropriated faith by putting the Party and Xi at the center of political discourse, while suppressing traditional faith-based activities by Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians. The positioning of Xi as the personification of authority and the object of public adulation contributes to the state’s neo-totalitarian look, most intensely in Xinjiang and Tibet, which have become epicenters for the coercive assimilation of “minoritized” peoples to Han culture and the CCP’s political ideology (Musapir, chapter 7).

Socioeconomic Policies: Growth and Redistribution

Across a broadening range of economic matters, Xi Jinping has taken the position that the CCP should have greater control over decisions made by state-owned enterprises, private firms, and even foreign firms, which under Xi have been encouraged to give Party leaders greater authority. To achieve these aims, Xi has centralized economic decision-making and sidelined Peking University–trained economist Premier Li Keqiang.29 Xi’s tack thus differs from that of previous administrations in which the premier, also a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, took the lead in economic matters. Foreign pundits, in particular, point to Xi’s support for the trend of “state enterprises advance, the private sector retreats” as a rollback of economic liberalization and a worrisome sign that Chinese economic growth rates will decline further and the country will risk falling into the “middle income trap.”30

Positioning corporations to lead in next-generation technologies such as 5G and artificial intelligence has been a central component of Xi’s efforts to grow the Chinese economy and solidify China’s superpower status. Beijing has spent heavily on research and development in this area; it has lent diplomatic clout to firms such as Huawei that have been embroiled in disputes over corporate governance, intellectual property violations, and the security risks of products due to Chinese laws mandating data sharing by firms on national security matters. Big data approaches to state surveillance have also expanded greatly under Xi, utilizing networked video cameras, smartphones, and social media content. Led by the Cyberspace Administration of China, Xi’s China has used digital forensics to suppress dissidents and human rights activists and implement broad surveillance of Chinese political, social, and economic activity (Deng, Demes, and Chen, chapter 6).

Xi’s goal of leading China to greater prosperity has meant attaching more importance, at least rhetorically, to poverty reduction and redistribution of wealth. The debate over economic efficiency versus equality, that is, whether the government should prioritize economic growth irrespective of inequality or strive for fairer redistribution of wealth, has been much commented on by Chinese socialists.31 The topic has gained prominence in China’s political agenda given the country’s well-known achievements in economic growth and public support for continued development, despite rising economic inequalities. At the National People’s Congress meeting in 2010, then premier Wen Jiabao stressed, “We must not only develop our economy so that we can make the cake of social wealth bigger, but also set up proper institutions of income distribution to better distribute the cake.”32 Though Xi has repeatedly expressed support for fighting poverty, the Party leadership has been divided on this question, as reflected in the Dengist notion that some people could get rich first (rang yibufen ren xian fuqilai) and the ideological struggle between the Chongqing model and the Guangdong model, with the former emphasizing fairer redistribution and the latter attaching more importance to growth and efficiency.33

Unsurprisingly, considering Xi’s preference for state-led poverty reduction, his government has rolled out a steady stream of measures to further poverty alleviation (tuopin), with considerable funding and programming in education and health care devoted to this purpose. In February 2021, in advance of the CCP’s centennial celebration, Xi announced a “comprehensive victory” in the fight against poverty and the elimination of extreme poverty, declaring that nearly one hundred million people had been lifted from poverty within a decade.34

The evaluation of the effects of these policies by foreign observers has been less sanguine. Some economists have suggested that the metrics used in China artificially inflate the success of the country’s anti-poverty campaign, though others—notably Martin Raiser of the World Bank—argue that China has actually eliminated extreme poverty in rural areas.35 The political scientist Dorothy J. Solinger opines, however, that such narratives neglect the plight of urban poor.36 As the scholar Jennifer Pan asserts, the safety net for low-income households (dibao) is insufficient to cover people’s basic needs and impossible to access for millions of economic migrants living away from their hometowns.37

Martin King Whyte (chapter 4) considers conflicting accounts of whether Xi’s China has reversed income inequality or seen increases. Whyte finds more evidence for the latter. Social programs under Xi, including the expansion of medical insurance coverage, retirement pensions, and equalizing access to education, have largely failed to lower income inequality. Whyte argues that far bolder measures are needed to create a Xi effect in this area, such as progressive income, capital gains, inheritance, and property taxes or the abolition of the hukou “residency” system, which discriminates against people based on their family’s birthplace.

In chapter 5, Alexsia T. Chan further complicates state propaganda accounts that Xi is the champion of poor Chinese. Through her focus on access to public goods by migrants, Chan argues that inequalities in public goods provision persist because they serve the interests of resource-poor local governments. She finds that despite the newly enacted National New-Type Urbanization Plan, allegedly human-centered and oriented to the marginalized population, it is difficult to identify a clear-cut Xi effect on migrant well-being. Drawing on rich fieldwork data, Chan asserts that decentralization of migrant benefit provision has resulted in “pliable citizenship.” Migrant workers’ social rights are dependent on place, time, and even characteristics of the specific individual, which in turn helps the state to achieve the goals of political individualization and disempowerment. Chan argues that Xi’s government has shown surprisingly little interest in centralized coordination or policy changes combating discrimination against migrants and reducing barriers to upward mobility for this large demographic.

State-Society Relations: Change and Continuity

Scholars of Chinese politics have documented shifts in state-society relations in the Xi era, with citizens and social groups responding to the state’s imposition of tighter control over the society in general.38 Journalists, lawyers, and activists face much harsher repression, with hundreds of them having been arrested. Citizens face more constraints and potentially harsher repression when engaging in popular protest, which used to be tolerated by the Party-state, as protest provides valuable policy feedback; this information in turn helps central authorities discipline local cadres for failing to maintain political stability and enables the projection of a benevolent image of the regime as a whole.39

Under Xi, we have also witnessed growing state control over the media and the Internet. In the realm of cyber politics, for instance, real-name registration, though introduced earlier, has been more uniformly enforced in the Xi era, and state-corporate collaboration has gained traction for a nationwide “social credit” system associated with a crackdown on corporate fraud as well as on political dissent (Deng, Demes, and Chen, chapter 6). Online critics of the regime and activists have been suppressed or silenced; state trolls, referred to as the “fifty-cent army,” have been more active in manipulating public opinion and constructing Xi’s public image.40

Deng Kai, David Demes, and Chih-Jou Jay Chen discuss the role of mass surveillance in social control, a realm where observers have identified major changes in the Xi era. Deng, Demes, and Chen argue that China under Xi features a surveillance state that results from a specific process of institutionalization and is based on an organizational and administrative infrastructure that draws heavily on digital technology. Their chapter illustrates how the government utilized new technological capabilities and street-level bureaucracies and communities to implement population control throughout the country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In chapter 7, Musapir complements the work of Deng, Demes, and Chen by addressing the political and cultural effects of state surveillance in Xinjiang. Drawing on rare fieldwork data, interviews with Uyghurs in the diaspora, media reports, and archival sources, this contribution sheds light on the lives of Uyghurs living in fear of state surveillance and repression as well as the experiences of exiles who have lost touch with loved ones. As widely reported by the international media, and confirmed by Chinese internal documents, China has constructed “reeducation” camps in Xinjiang where millions of Uyghurs and other minorities have been forced to go through skills training courses and ideological study sessions. Musapir notes that Uyghur homes feature portraits of Xi Jinping, ostensibly a gesture of loyalty, but also a strategy to avoid mistreatment for presumed harmful thoughts, including belief in Islam. While Xi builds on his predecessors’ efforts to engineer Uyghurs to become “proper” Chinese citizens, depictions of Xi’s image, thoughts, and leadership in state propaganda reflect deep changes in the Uyghur heartland.

Though Xinjiang is the site of the most noticeable increase in social control during the Xi era, his leadership is also associated with the suppression of political rights and civil liberty in Hong Kong, a special administrative region that, due to its history as a British colony, has felt politically and culturally distant from Beijing. Since 2014, frustrated residents of Hong Kong have participated in waves of protests demanding direct elections for their chief executive and greater political accountability concerning the government’s use of force against protesters. The Chinese central government responded to these challenges with the passage of the 2020 National Security Law, using it to justify curtailing academic and media freedom and arresting numerous activists and pro-democracy politicians. Lawyers seeking to defend the Hong Kong dissidents have been disbarred, a fate “rights lawyers” suffered previously in the People’s Republic of China. Growing political tensions even led to a spike in emigration—with growing numbers of Hong Kong residents bound for Taiwan—and has cast a pall over China’s relations with democracies around the world.41

Foreign Policy and Cross-Strait Relations: An Assertive Turn

For years, there has been running debate in Chinese media and in foreign policy circles about China’s foreign policy strategy, centering on whether China should continue “keeping a low profile” or become more ambitious, to “strive for achievements” (fenfa youwei).42 Observers in academic and policy circles generally agree that a strategy shift toward the latter has taken place and that it is largely attributable to Xi Jinping, despite disagreement about the effectiveness of the new approach.43 The Chinese foreign relations scholar Yan Xuetong has argued against those critical of Chinese assertiveness, claiming that the “striving for achievement” strategy shows promise for “shaping a favorable environment for China’s national rejuvenation” and “has achieved progress beyond people’s expectation.”44 The assertive turn by Xi’s government is unsurprising. Even before assuming power, Xi was critical of perceptions of China abroad, famously complaining of “well fed foreigners who have nothing better to do than point fingers at our affairs.”45 It is worth noting that the debate over Chinese assertiveness commenced before Xi took power; most pundits maintain that Xi’s efforts have sped up China’s rise, rather than proved a game changer, with some arguing that Chinese power is peaking and therefore more dangerous.46

In chapter 9, Brantly Womack explains how, in the new “Xi normal” of China’s foreign relations, shifts in Chinese influence have played out in the context of Southeast Asia, a region where polling data suggests the People’s Republic of China has become the most influential state. For Womack, both the achievements and the challenges of Xi’s diplomacy toward Southeast Asia have roots in the policy trajectories of Xi’s predecessors. Southeast Asians’ perception of China, while certainly affected by Xi’s political style, interacts with two other major factors, namely, China’s economic primacy in the region and concerns about the uncertain future of American engagement.

To explain both continuity and change, Womack finds that China’s regional economic clout, Xi’s political style and assertiveness, and American leadership under former president Donald Trump have together contributed to patterns in Chinese relations with Southeast Asia in which all parties prioritize stability despite continuing tensions. Womack argues that while Xi has been an important contributor to development, the region worries about his arrogance and potential fallout from China’s rivalry with the United States.

While China under Xi has sought to improve ties with developing countries, it has struggled to maintain good relations with the United States. Through the BRI, China has expanded its influence across the globe, including large-scale transportation and energy projects in Southeast Asia, Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Yet, since 2018, the United States and China have become embroiled in a “trade war,” with both sides levying hundreds of billions of US dollars in punitive tariffs on imports.

Xi’s opposition to US political influence in China and elsewhere began early in his tenure. In 2014, Xi voiced support for what in popular discourse is referred to as “de-Americanization” (qu Meiguo hua), and he has favored a new Asian security concept in which the region’s security problems are handled by Asians.47 Xi has proposed the notion of “community with a shared future for humankind” (renlei mingyun gongtongti) as an alternative to a liberal postwar world order shaped by the United States.48

While China collaborated with the Barack Obama administration in efforts to slow climate change, Chinese actions since the Trump presidency suggest a weakening commitment to reduce coal use by 2030, a major goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement.49 In response to power outages and concerns over energy insecurity, China has increased production at a growing number of coal-fired power plants, leading experts to point out that increases in Chinese coal use could negate worldwide reductions.50 Though Xi did pledge that China would stop building coal-fired plants abroad, he did not attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, where China joined India in support of “phasing down” coal use, rather than phasing it out. As Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi remarked to US climate envoy John Kerry, cooperation on climate change between the United States and China could prove a fragile “oasis” in a broader context in which the relationship resembles a “desert.”51

China’s relationship with Taiwan in the Xi era has grown tense and distant since the victory of the nominally pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in both presidential and parliamentary elections in 2016. Beijing broke off exchanges and intergovernmental communication, discouraged Chinese tourists from visiting Taiwan, and whittled down the number of countries maintaining formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. The 2020 reelection of DPP president Tsai Ing-wen and the return of her party’s parliamentary majority sparked an escalation in Xi’s propaganda war against Taiwan’s independence. Chinese state media have featured articles in which People’s Liberation Army officers warned that independence was “a road to death” (silu yitiao). Yet, despite the fiery rhetoric, Xi’s comments on Taiwan have at times been conciliatory; his government has offered a range of inducements to Taiwanese seeking opportunities in China in fields such as academia, government, and industry, including the “Made in China 2025” project to promote high-tech manufacturing. The aim is greater leverage over segments of the population that have been supportive of the DPP and encouraging the adoption of Beijing’s approved political outlook, which includes skepticism of the intentions of the United States vis-à-vis Taiwan (yimeilun).

In chapter 8, Tony Tai-Ting Liu historicizes and contextualizes the Xi effect on China’s relations with Taiwan. Liu identifies factors that shape China’s Taiwan policies under Xi, including Xi’s career experience in Fujian, China’s domestic challenges, Taiwan’s inclination toward independence, and the influence of the international community, especially that of the United States during the Trump and the Joseph Biden administrations. Comparing “hard” and “soft” aspects of Xi-era Taiwan policy, Liu finds little evidence that Chinese inducements are winning hearts and minds in Taiwan, but he does see hard policies—in particular, military coercion—as contributing to the internationalization of the “Taiwan question.” Repeated Chinese air force incursions into Taiwanese airspace have rung alarm bells in North American and European capitals, prompting closer military collaboration between the United States and Taiwan, the strongest postwar expressions of Japanese support for Taiwan’s security, European efforts to improve ties with Taiwan, and greater Taiwanese commitment to resist Chinese aggression.

Making Sense of the Xi Effect: Structure vs. Agency

A concluding chapter by Kevin J. O’Brien highlights the contributions of the book by asking: Is Xi a cause or an effect? If there is a Xi effect, what is it, where is it, how apparent or strong is it, and why (and why not)? Do changes associated with Xi have deep roots in the past, or can they be traced directly to his ascent? What about the future? We acknowledge that not all chapters engage all of these questions or answer them fully. After all, as O’Brien points out, this book is grappling with “one of the knottiest problems in the social sciences: sorting out the consequences of structure and agency.” This book does, however, provide numerous insights to help navigate the little-charted waters of leadership politics in the Xi Jinping era as well as its domestic and global implications.

By exploring the levels and types of Xi’s influence, and the different realms it affects, we break from a dichotomous view of the Xi effect and instead conceptualize it as a continuous measure: Xi’s leadership has produced apparent effects in some policy areas, mixed effects in others, and fewer effects in others. The impact of Xi’s leadership is visible from the ideological realm to the policy realm, as contributors to this volume argue from manifold perspectives. Many changes reverse the course of China’s central government prior to his rise, dismantle post-Mao norms concerning collective leadership and leadership succession, and are unpopular even among the Chinese, especially the imposition of enhanced ideological constraints, political repression, and social control.52 Still other policy directions are popular and somewhat progressive, including the anti-corruption campaign, poverty alleviation, promotion of social welfare, the “community with a shared future for humankind,” and reductions in China’s carbon footprint through renewable energy use and the electrification of transportation.

This volume seeks to contribute to the understanding of China, as a country with changing political norms and values and as a superpower facing both challenges and opportunities. To a large extent, Xi has steered his country’s political life in a rigid and ruthless direction, while also moving toward an effective and popular system of authoritarian governance. The features of such a political system were exemplified by the Chinese response to COVID-19 during the pandemic. Pervasive fear and the rigidity of government policies help to explain the initial failure to contain the virus and the subsequent campaign-style measures to enforce lockdowns and mass testing, leading to a wave of public resistance in late 2022, when the “zero COVID” policy was deemed intolerable. Though aspects of China’s pandemic response received widespread criticism within and beyond China, including the early suppression of whistleblowers such as Li Wenliang, the overall effectiveness of the Chinese system to prevent the spread of the virus as long as it did, especially in contrast to the United States, has helped to justify the regime’s approach. Through propaganda and policy adjustments, Xi sought to leverage his government’s performance during the pandemic to garner domestic support and a measure of international respect. While facing pressure and growing military constraints abroad, Xi’s China has shored up authoritarian resilience through an approach to governance featuring tighter control and considerable popular support.

Notes

  1. 1. See Sarah Lee and Kevin J. O’Brien, “Adapting in Difficult Circumstances: Protestant Pastors and the Xi Jinping Effect,” Journal of Contemporary China 30, no. 132 (2021): 902–14.

  2. 2. Dorothy J. Solinger, ed., Polarized Cities: Portraits of Rich and Poor in Urban China (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019); Martin King Whyte, “China’s Economic Development History and Xi Jinping’s ‘China Dream’: An Overview with Personal Reflections,” Chinese Sociological Review 53, no. 2 (2020): 155–34.

  3. 3. Kerry Brown, CEO, China: The Rise of Xi Jinping (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016); Kerry Brown, The World according to Xi: Everything You Need to Know about the New China (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018); Willy Lam, Chinese Politics in the Era of Xi Jinping: Renaissance, Reform, or Retrogression? (New York: Routledge, 2016); Steve Tsang and Honghua Men, China in the Xi Jinping Era (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); Robert S. Ross and Jo Inge Bekkevold, eds., China in the Era of Xi Jinping: Domestic and Foreign Policy Challenges (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2016).

  4. 4. See Andrew Wedeman’s contribution (chapter 1) for a description of how international perspectives of Xi have changed over time.

  5. 5. Brown, CEO, China.

  6. 6. Thomas Fingar and Jean C. Oi, “China’s Challenges: Now It Gets Much Harder,” Washington Quarterly 43, no. 1 (Spring 2020): 70.

  7. 7. Xi Jinping, “Zai jinian Mao Zedong tongzhi danchen 120 zhounian zuotanhui shang de jianghua” (Speech commemorating the 120th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s birth), Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China website, December 26, 2013, http://www.gov.cn/ldhd/2013-12/26/content_2554937.htm.

  8. 8. Guo Junkui, “Xi Jinping ‘Two Cannot Negates’ shi shixian ‘Zhongguo Meng’ de kexue lunduan” (Xi Jinping’s “Two Cannot Negates” is a scientific thesis to realize the “Chinese Dream”), CPC News, May 10, 2013, http://cpc.people.com.cn/n/2013/0510/c241220-1441140.html.

  9. 9. Willy Lam, “Xi Jinping’s Ideology and Statecraft,” Chinese Law and Government 48, no. 6 (November 2016): 412.

  10. 10. Chris Buckley and Andrew Jacobs, “Maoists in China, Given New Life, Attack Dissent,” New York Times, January 4, 2015; Alfred L. Chan, Xi Jinping: Political Career, Governance, and Leadership, 1953–2018 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), 269–70.

  11. 11. David M. Lampton, Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 8.

  12. 12. Ezra Vogel, “The Leadership of Xi Jinping: A Dengist Perspective,” Journal of Contemporary China 30, no. 131 (2021): 693–96.

  13. 13. On Xi’s utilization of state propaganda, see Ashley Esarey, “Propaganda as a Lens for Assessing Xi Jinping’s Leadership,” Journal of Contemporary China 30, no. 132 (2021): 888–901. Some of Deng’s greatest achievements included the improvement of relations with the United States, Japan, South Korea, and the Soviet Union. Ezra Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), 713–14. Additionally, Deng successfully negotiated with Britain for the retrocession of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. See Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, 487–510.

  14. 14. Tony Saich, “Xi Jinping Has Made Sure History Is Now Officially on His Side,” Guardian, November 16, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/16/xi-jinping-china-consolodation-of-power.

  15. 15. Elizabeth Economy, The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 10.

  16. 16. Economy, The Third Revolution, 250; Kevin Rudd, The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping’s China (New York: PublicAffairs, 2022), 77.

  17. 17. Susan Shirk, Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023); Thomas Fingar and Jean C. Oi, eds., Fateful Decisions: Choices That Will Shape China’s Future (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020); Carl Minzner, End of an Era: How China’s Authoritarian Revival Is Undermining Its Rise (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018); David Shambaugh, China’s Future (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2016).

  18. 18. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).

  19. 19. Minxin Pei, “China’s Coming Upheaval: Competition, the Coronavirus, and the Weakness of Xi Jinping,” Foreign Affairs 99, no. 3 (May/June 2020): 82.

  20. 20. On Xi’s life and career before becoming general secretary, see, for example, Chan, Xi Jinping.

  21. 21. Fingar and Oi, “China’s Challenges”; Sebastian Heilmann, “Policy Experimentation in China’s Economic Rise,” Studies in Comparative International Development 43, no. 1 (March 2008): 1–26.

  22. 22. Zach Dorfman, “China Used Stolen Data to Expose CIA Operatives in Africa and Europe,” Foreign Policy, December 1, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/21/china-stolen-us-data-exposed-cia-operatives-spy-networks.

  23. 23. Joseph Fewsmith, Rethinking Chinese Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 172; Joel Wuthnow and Phillip C. Saunders, Chinese Military Reforms in the Age of Xi Jinping: Drivers, Challenges, and Implications (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2017); David Shambaugh, China’s Leaders: From Mao to Now (Medford, MA: Polity Press, 2021), 305–8.

  24. 24. Geremie R. Barmé, “Chinese Dreams (Zhongguo Meng 中国梦),” in China Story Yearbook 2013: Civilising China, ed. Geremie R. Barmé and Jeremy Goldkorn (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2013), 5–13; Bates Gill, Daring to Struggle: China’s Global Ambitions under Xi Jinping (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), 10–12.

  25. 25. On military restructuring, see David Finklestein, “Breaking the Paradigm: Drivers behind the PLA’s Current Period of Reform,” in Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA: Assessing Chinese Military Reforms, ed. Phillip C. Saunders, Arthur S. Ding, Andrew N. D. Yang, and Joel Wuthnow (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2019), 45–83; Gill, Daring to Struggle, 28–29.

  26. 26. Stig Stenslie and Chen Gang, “Xi Jinping’s Grand Strategy: From Vision to Implementation,” in China in the Era of Xi Jinping: Domestic and Foreign Policy Challenges, ed. Robert S. Ross and Jo Inge Bekkevold (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2016), 121–22.

  27. 27. Shambaugh, China’s Leaders, 281.

  28. 28. Zhiqun Zhu, “Interpreting China’s ‘Wolf-Warrior Diplomacy’: What Explains the Sharper Tone to China’s Overseas Conduct Recently?,” Diplomat, May 15, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/interpreting-chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomacy.

  29. 29. Li Keqiang has a bachelor’s degree in law and a doctorate in economics, both from Peking University.

  30. 30. Ben Hillman, “The State Advances, the Private Sector Retreats,” in China Story Yearbook 2018: Power, ed. Jane Golley, Linda Jaivin, Paul J. Farrelly, and Sharon Strange (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2019), 294–306; Michael Wines, “China Fortifies State Businesses to Fuel Growth,” New York Times, August 29, 2010; Dali L. Yang and Junyan Jiang, “Guojin Mintui: The Global Recession and Changing State-Economy Relations in China,” in The Global Recession and China’s Political Economy, ed. Dali L. Yang (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 33–69; George Magnus, Red Flags: Why Xi’s China Is in Jeopardy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019).

  31. 31. Yuezhi Zhao, “The Struggle for Socialism in China,” Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine 64, no. 5 (October 2012): 1–17.

  32. 32. Jiabao Wen, “Tongguo heli shouru fenpei zhidu ba shehui caifu ‘dangao’ fenhao” (Distribute the social wealth “cake” well through a reasonable income distribution system), CNTV News, March 5, 2010, http://news.cntv.cn/china/20100305/102492.shtml.

  33. 33. Louisa Lim, “‘Cake Theory’ Has Chinese Eating Up Political Debate,” NPR, November 6, 2011.

  34. 34. Joe McDonald, “China Celebrates Official End of Extreme Poverty, Lauds Xi,” AP News, February 24, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/china-celebrates-end-extreme-poverty-1449b5dc8a48483af847f4c38f64c326.

  35. 35. Indermit Gill, “Deep-Sixing Poverty in China,” Brookings (blog), January 25, 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2021/01/25/deep-sixing-poverty-in-china; Keith Bradsher, “Jobs, Houses, and Cows: China’s Costly Drive to Erase Extreme Poverty,” New York Times, December 31, 2020.

  36. 36. Dorothy J. Solinger, “Banish the Impoverished Past: The Predicament of the Abandoned Urban Poor,” in Polarized Cities: Portraits of Rich and Poor in Urban China, ed. Dorothy J. Solinger (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019), 59–60.

  37. 37. Jennifer Pan, Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for Its Rulers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).

  38. 38. Lee and O’Brien, “Adapting in Difficult Circumstances”; Daniel C. Mattingly, The Art of Political Control in China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 181–82.

  39. 39. Peter Lorentzen, “Regularizing Rioting: Permitting Public Protest in an Authoritarian Regime,” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 8, no. 2 (February 2013): 127–58; Kevin J. O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, Rightful Resistance in Rural China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Lily L. Tsai, “Constructive Noncompliance,” Comparative Politics 47, no. 3 (April 2015): 253–79.

  40. 40. Rongbin Han, Contesting Cyberspace in China: Online Expression and Authoritarian Resilience (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018).

  41. 41. Helen Davidson, “Number of Hong Kong Residents Moving to Taiwan Nearly Doubles in 2020,” Guardian, February 25, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/25/number-of-hong-kong-residents-moving-to-taiwan-nearly-doubles-in-2020.

  42. 42. Haiyan Ma and Jianmin Wu, “Zhongguo waijiao jiang changqi jianchi ‘Taoguang Yanghui’ fangzhen” (China will adhere to the “Keeping a Low Profile” diplomatic guideline for a long time), China News, July 25, 2005, http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1026/3565534.html; Wuping Ren, “Zhongguo waijiao xuyao yinghan” (China needs tough-man diplomacy), Global People, January 6, 2014, http://paper.people.com.cn/hqrw/html/2014-01/06/content_1373716.htm; Xuetong Yan, “From Keeping a Low Profile to Striving for Achievement,” Chinese Journal of International Politics 7, no. 2 (Summer 2014): 153–84.

  43. 43. On attributing this shift in strategy to Xi, see Christopher K. Johnson, “Xi Jinping Unveils His Foreign Policy Vision: Peace through Strength,” Freeman Chair China Report (Center for Strategic and International Studies), December 8, 2014, https://www.csis.org/analysis/thoughts-chairman-xi-jinping-unveils-his-foreign-policy-vision; Jane Perlez, “Leader Asserts China’s Growing Importance on Global Stage,” New York Times, November 30, 2014.

  44. 44. Yan, “Keeping a Low Profile,” 153.

  45. 45. Josh Rogin, “WikiLeaked: China’s Next President Lashed Out in Mexico against ‘Well Fed Foreigners,’” Foreign Policy, January 12, 2011, https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/12/wikileaked-chinas-next-president-lashed-out-in-mexico-against-well-fed-foreigners.

  46. 46. On China’s rise, see M. Taylor Fravel, “Revising Deng’s Foreign Policy,” Diplomat, January 17, 2012, https://thediplomat.com/2012/01/revising-dengs-foreign-policy-2; Deborah Welch Larson, “Will China Be a New Type of Great Power?,” Chinese Journal of International Politics 8, no. 4 (Winter 2015): 323–48; Kaisheng Li, “Fandui zaiyong ‘Taoguang Yanghui’ zhidao duiwai zhengce” (Oppose the continued use of “Keeping a Low Profile” to guide China’s foreign policy), China Newsweek, March 7, 2012, https://opinion.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnJuuGq; Suisheng Zhao, “Chinese Foreign Policy as a Rising Power to Find Its Rightful Place,” Perceptions 18, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 101–28. On China’s peaking, see Andrew S. Erickson and Gabriel B. Collins, “A Dangerous Decade of Chinese Power Is Here,” Foreign Policy, October 18, 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/18/china-danger-military-missile-taiwan; Hal Brands and Michael Beckley, “China Is a Declining Power—and That’s the Problem,” Foreign Policy, September 24, 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/24/china-great-power-united-states.

  47. 47. Suisheng Zhao, “President Xi’s Big Power Diplomacy: Advancing an Assertive Foreign Policy Agenda,” in Mapping China’s Global Future: Playing Ball or Rocking the Boat?, ed. Axel Berkofsky and Giulia Sciorati (Milan: ISPI and Ledizioni LediPublishing, 2020), 24–36, https://www.ispionline.it/sites/default/files/pubblicazioni/ispi_mappingchina_web_1.pdf.

  48. 48. See Jacob Mardell, “The ‘Community of Common Destiny’ in Xi Jinping’s New Era,” Diplomat, October 25, 2017, https://thediplomat.com/2017/10/the-community-of-common-destiny-in-xi-jinpings-new-era; Jane Perlez, “Xi Jinping of China Calls for Cooperation and Partnerships in U.N. Speech,” New York Times, September 28, 2015.

  49. 49. Ashley Esarey, Mary Alice Haddad, Joanna I. Lewis, and Stevan Harrell, eds., Greening East Asia: The Rise of the Eco-Developmental State (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020).

  50. 50. On increased production at China’s coal plants, see Saich, “Xi Jinping Has Made Sure.” On the effects of China’s increased coal use, see Azi Paybarah, “China Says It Won’t Build New Coal Plants Abroad. What Does That Mean?,” New York Times, September 22, 2021; Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, “China Dominates 2020 Coal Plant Development,” Global Energy Monitor, February 2021, https://globalenergymonitor.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/China-Dominates-2020-Coal-Development.pdf.

  51. 51. Nick O’Malley, “Xi Says China Will Not Build New Coal-Fired Power Projects Abroad,” Sydney Morning Herald, September 22, 2021, https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/xi-says-china-will-not-build-new-coal-fired-power-projects-abroad-20210922-p58toq.html.

  52. 52. Rongbin Han, “Cyber Nationalism and Regime Support under Xi Jinping: The Effects of the 2018 Constitutional Revision,” Journal of Contemporary China 30, no. 131 (2021): 717–33; Lee and O’Brien, “Adapting in Difficult Circumstances.”

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