While giving a talk on China I was asked an unusual question: ‘What is the one word you would use to describe China?’ By China we mean of course the Chinese Communist party (CCP) and, more specifically, Xi Jinping. My reply was: ‘Solipsistic.’
Xi wants China to lead the world, but to take very limited responsibility for solving the world’s problems
Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung, from the School of Oriental and African Studies, have produced a study in solipsism, and a mighty fine one. Xi and the CCP are solipsistic in the vulgar rather than true philosophical sense. They are supremely self-centred in their belief that the external world should exist or conduct itself only in so far as it reflects the CCP’s reality.
Understanding Xi’s political thought is vital. Barring premature death or economic catastrophe, he will be shaping China and thereby influencing the world for the coming decades. Tsang and Cheung have done the hard work for us by ‘munching rhinoceros sausage’, as the sinologist Simon Leys described reading CCP documents.
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