Preface and Acknowledgments

Ashley Esarey

This volume is unique in its examination of the impact of Xi Jinping’s leadership across a broad scope of issue areas. When Rongbin Han and I commenced planning for the project at the American Political Science Association’s annual conference in 2018, no one had done anything quite like it, though scholars had written about Xi’s family background, views on governance, and experiences prior to becoming the most powerful Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping. To supplement our own skills, we needed to recruit other scholars with diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Researchers working on the project had to have sufficient expertise to consider Xi’s effect—not simply on political life—but also on related topics: the anti-corruption campaign, poverty alleviation, economic inequality, religion, public service provision, state surveillance, Han-minority tensions, and China-Taiwan relations.

Consequently, we encouraged scholars worldwide to submit paper proposals and hosted the “Xi Jinping Effect” international conference at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, in 2019. Six of the conference papers were published in the Journal of Contemporary China, volume 30, numbers 131 and 132 (2021). One of those, “Xi Jinping’s Counter-Reformation: The Reassertion of Ideological Governance in Historical Perspective” by Timothy Cheek, is included here with permission of Taylor & Francis. Other papers, which complicate and even problematize the Xi effect, were reserved and developed for publication in this book. We solicited additional chapters to fill important gaps and wrote an introductory overview, and Kevin J. O’Brien drafted a concluding chapter, based on his insightful commentary at the conference. Contributors updated their analyses to account for such major developments as the COVID-19 pandemic and the 20th Party Congress in October 2022, when Xi received a green light to continue for a third term as head of the Chinese Communist Party.

As is true of all books, Rongbin Han and I incurred many debts as we labored to bring this project to fruition. Special thanks are due to the staff at the China Institute at the University of Alberta for providing the funding and administrative talent that brought the group together for the first time at the “Xi Jinping Effect” conference in Banff, including a post-conference hike to Bow Valley Falls. The project also benefited from financial support by the School of Public and International Affairs and the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. Individuals who helped us mightily at various stages include Gordon Houlden, Genevieve Ongaro, Christine Park, Philippe Rheault, and Jia Wang. We are grateful to the following conference participants for enriching our conversations about Chinese politics and foreign relations: Yong Deng, Rachel Hulvey, Jue Jiang, Siqin Kan, Andy Knight, Lynette Ong, and Mark Sidel. We wish to thank Lorri Hagman, executive editor at the University of Washington Press, for early input that encouraged us to expand our group of scholars beyond political scientists and for shepherding this project along expeditiously. Several stellar participants in a July 2020 webinar, “The Xi Jinping Effect in China and Beyond,” deserve our thanks: Elizabeth Economy, Joseph Fewsmith, Min Jiang, Benjamin Read, the late Ezra Vogel, and Suisheng Zhao. For advice and perceptive commentary on draft chapters (often delivered while hiking in the Cascades), we thank Stevan Harrell; we are appreciative of the excellent research assistance provided by Li Du, Solbi Kim, and Jason Zhang. Sole responsibility for any errors is ours alone.

This book is dedicated to all who seek peace, truth, and dignity for the people of China.