INSIDE THE MIND OF XI JINPING.
By Francois Bougon.
Couldn’t resist reading this book, when China is, all in the air and for all the wrong reasons.
Francois Bougon, has come out very timely with his work, helping the readership to know Xi Jinping closely. To better assimilate his work a working knowledge about Chinese history and culture would be essential.
Initial chapters of the book kindled a sense of deja vu in my mind about Shri Narendra Modi ji, our honorable Prime Minister. But how each delivered is a different story.
Xi took reigns of PRC,with a great resolve to strengthen the Chinese nation from its core. He set up many special commissions (small groups), that reported directly to him. These included, Taiwan & Foreign Affairs, Economic Reforms, National Security, Cyber Security and Computerisation,and later National Defence and Military Reforms.
A diplomatic telegram from American Embassy reported ” Xi, is not interested in money but you can say he is corrupted by power”. Power, is intoxicating. A scientific study at Oxford reported :
“Power, especially absolute and unchecked power, is intoxicating. Its effects occur at the cellular and neurochemical level. … The primary neurochemical involved in the reward of power that is known today is dopamine, the same chemical transmitter responsible for producing a sense of pleasure.”
https://theconversation.com/the-neurochemistry-of-power-has-implications-for-political-change-23844
Xi is determined and clear in his aim to realise the the Grand Chinese Dream. His ambitions can we’ll be deduced from, I quote from the book ” Chinese Dream which must be extensive and belong to all of the humanity. …one day world will be thankful for China’s existence.
Xi, has broken with the Low profile doctrine of Deng, building nationalism even if it means revival of old enmity with Japan, even if it involves explicitly identifying the United States as great twenty first century enemy, she must not hesitate.
What sets apart Xi from his predecessors is his tendency to use the Military tool not for engaging in military action, but for conducting his foreign policy. It puts the aggression in Eastern Ladakh into context, when read with US & Japan as twenty-first century enemies.
The author also exposes, the infamous Document-9 Xi issued to his Politburo. It identifies nine threats that could subvert, and implode Chinese polity, and Western Powers will relentlessly attempt at. It gives away the Achilles heels of the Empire in making. History is witness to the fact that authoritarian regimes have finite reigning time.
Yet, the Trojan War must be fought to kill Achilles, and some Hectors must be sacrificed.
By swiveling one’s memory to the January of 1976 and the central lobby of Foxtrot Squadron where the 55th were congregating as first termers; it could be seen within that motley group that were meeting each other as fledglings that there were four – Shamsher Singh Sangwan, Ram Bhaj Singh Suhag, Sanjay Saxena and Akhilesh Kumar Namdeo who greeted each other as old pals, they were after all, the ambassadors of Sainik School, Rewa. To me, within the world that I had then grown up in, Rewa stood out as the place where Tigers were bountiful and where the “white” strain had first evolved. And as alI of us would also soon see, this belief was borne out since each of them had the fierceness, the physical strength and the character of this formidable species.