Power, Party, and Patience: Xi Zhongxun

Power, Party, and Patience: Xi Zhongxun explores the remarkable and turbulent life of Xi Zhongxun, a revolutionary, senior Chinese Communist Party official, and influential political figure whose career unfolded through some of the most dramatic periods of twentieth-century Chinese history. Long before his son Xi Jinping became China’s paramount leader, Xi Zhongxun had already experienced the extraordinary reversals of revolutionary politics. His career carried him from the revolutionary struggle and the establishment of the People's Republic of China into senior Party and government positions, followed by political persecution, years of difficulty, rehabilitation, and a return to public life. The story becomes especially revealing when Xi Zhongxun's experiences intersect with the historical development of his son. Xi Jinping grew up during a period when his father's political fortunes changed dramatically, and later encountered the hardships associated with the Cultural Revolution. Decades afterward, the elder Xi played a role in the reform-era political landscape, including his tenure in Guangdong during a period of major economic and institutional change. This biography follows those turning points without reducing Xi Zhongxun's life to simply being the story of Xi Jinping's father. Instead, it examines the elder Xi as a historical figure in his own right: his revolutionary career, political relationships, setbacks, rehabilitation, administrative work, and place within the transformation of modern China. Along the way, the book considers the complicated relationship between political power and personal history. What happens when a revolutionary becomes a target of political campaigns? How does a political career survive years of upheaval? And how much can one…