David Shambaugh - China’s Leaders - From Mao to Now

Previous Books by David Shambaugh

Where Great Powers Meet: America & China in Southeast Asia (2021)

China & the World (edited, 2020)

The China Reader: Rising Power (edited, 2016)

Chinas Future (2016)

International Relations of Asia (co-edited, 2008 and 2014)

China Goes Global: The Partial Power (2013)

Tangled Titans: The United States and China (edited, 2012)

Charting Chinas Future: Domestic & International Challenges (edited, 2011)

Chinas Communist Party: Atrophy & Adaptation (2008)

ChinaEurope Relations: Perceptions, Policies, and Prospects (co-edited, 2008)

China Watching: Perspectives from Europe, Japan, and the United States (co-edited, 2007)

Power Shift: China & Asias New Dynamics (edited, 2005)

The Odyssey of Chinas Imperial Art Treasures (co-authored, 2005)

Modernizing Chinas Military: Progress, Problems, and Prospects (2002)

Making China Policy: Lessons from the Bush and Clinton Administrations (co-edited, 2001)

The Modern Chinese State (edited, 2000)

Is China Unstable? (edited, 2000)

The China Reader: The Reform Era (co-edited, 1999)

Chinas Military Faces the Future (co-edited, 1999)

Contemporary Taiwan (edited, 1998)

Chinas Military in Transition (co-edited, 1997)

China and Europe: 19491995 (1996)

Greater China: The Next Superpower? (edited, 1995)

Deng Xiaoping: Portrait of a Chinese Statesman (edited, 1995)

Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory & Practice (co-edited, 1994)

American Studies of Contemporary China (edited, 1993)

Beautiful Imperialist: China Perceives America, 19721990 (1991)

The Making of a Premier: Zhao Ziyangs Provincial Career (1984)

DAVID SHAMBAUGH

polity

Copyright David Shambaugh 2021

The right of David Shambaugh to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2021 by Polity Press

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4652-7

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Shambaugh, David L., author.
Title: Chinas leaders : from Mao to now / David Shambaugh.
Description: Cambridge ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: A world-renowned Sinologist explores Chinas modern history through the lives of its leaders-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021008012 (print) | LCCN 2021008013 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509546510 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509546527 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Zhongguo gong chan dang. Zhong yang wei yuan hui--Biography. | Heads of state--China--Biography. | Statesmen--China--Biography. | China--Politics and government--1949- | China--History--1949
Classification: LCC DS734 .S43 2021 (print) | LCC DS734 (ebook) | DDC 951.05092/2--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008012
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008013

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Dedicated Admiringly to the Memory of Roderick MacFarquhar The Doyen of Chinese Leadership Studies

Ever since I first started studying China and its politics in 1973 I have focused on a variety of aspects and dimensions of the Chinese political system, but none more consistently than its senior leaders and leadership. My first book in 1984 was in fact about a Chinese leader (Zhao Ziyang); it traced his life and career path from being a sub-provincial official in the different dimensions of how Chinese communist leaders ruletheir individual idiosyncrasies, how they interact with each other, what strategies and tactics they adopt, how they use the institutional levers of power and control at their disposal, how they impact Chinese society, and how they interact with the other leaders from other countries.

This book about Chinas leaders has thus been Rod founded in 1960, Rod was also very supportive and mentoring from across the Atlantic and his professorial position at Harvard.

While China has many leaders at any given time, who populate the approximately 25-member Political Bureau (Politburo) and the 7-member Standing Committee, there has always been one dominant paramount leader (much more than a primus inter pares). This book is about the five main individuals who have been in this position (Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping)but it also definitely considers others who held the top institutional portfolios as party leader (Hua Guofeng, Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang) as well as a variety of other Politburo members who have been significant political players in their own rights.

While the book is centered on the lives of these individual Chinese communist leaders it is also very much focused on their times as well. It is thus simultaneously a survey of the evolution of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) over the past seven decades. Taken together, I hope that the combined focus on leaders and their times will serve as a good overview and introductory text for students and readers who seek a comprehensive survey of the PRC. In trying to make this an accessible and readable account that keeps the narrative moving along, inevitably I have had to make numerous judgments along the way concerning certain facts and eventsproviding sufficient detail but not so much as to bog the reader down. This has been a fine balance to strikeproviding lots of detail but not too much. As Chinese politics (like all systems but perhaps more than most) are filled with lacunae, specialists and scholars of Chinese politics will inevitably ask, What about this or what about that? But I have intended this book to be more for the general public and students than for my scholarly colleagues, so I hope they will remember this when they read it.

Although I have been teaching this material for a long time Ogden-Peters for his research assistance on the Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping chapters.

I am also indebted to the great team at Polity Press in Cambridge, England, for their highly professional support throughout the writing process. This is the second book I have published with Polity, and to Elizabeth Ball for compiling the Index. One of the great things about Polity as a publisher is their speed of productionthis volume went from final draft manuscript to published book in six months! It was truly a team effort by all of these individuals. Altogether, working and publishing with Polity has been a very enjoyable experience.