Jiang Shigong — Jiang Shigong on ‘Philosophy and History: Interpreting the “Xi Jinping Era” through Xi’s Report to the Nineteenth National Congress of the CCP’

This essay by Jiang Shigong 强世功 (b. 1967), published in the Guangzhou journal Open Times (开放时代) in January 2018, aims to be an authoritative statement of the new political orthodoxy under Xi Jinping 习近平(b. 1953) as Xi begins his second term as China’s supreme leader. It offers a new reading of modern Chinese history in general and the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in particular, arguing that Xi Jinping’s ‘thought’ (sixiang 思想) is the culmination of a century’s historical process and philosophical refinement, produced through the ongoing dialectic of theory and practice. This is ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’ 习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想, which Jiang defends as the new ideological superstructure to the material base of China’s economy after nearly forty years of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’. Although the language bears considerable resemblance to the propagandistic slant of People’s Daily editorials, Jiang’s text is not a specious rant, but an intelligent and penetrating critique of the limits and failures of the liberal democratic system. It also offers a considered case for an alternative way of viewing politics and history that defends the past actions and current legitimacy of the CCP and holds up Xi Jinping as the man of the hour to complete China’s century-long recovery of its dominant place in the world....