In China’s Conservative Turn: The Origins of Xi Jinping’s New Era, Lin Le offers a fresh take on the origins of the “conservative” turn in Chinese politics under Xi Jinping. Rather than treating the more “conservative” features of Xi’s leadership, such as the reinvigoration of the Party leadership and the emphasis on regime security and ideological governance, as a sharp departure from the Hu Jintao period, Le argues that the conservatism of the Xi era can be traced back to the Hu decade itself.
The book’s central claim is that Chinese politics from Hu’s tenure through Xi’s first term witnessed a “two-line struggle” between reformists and conservatives within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). According to Le, a key puzzle of Xi-era politics is not why China has turned more conservative, but why Xi’s early years were marked by a mixture of reformist and conservative signals before becoming “conservatism all the way” (p. 7). The answer, he maintains, lies in this two-line struggle. Xi initial’s source of support was said to be reformist, but this was later replaced by conservative backing, which prevailed decisively over the reformists around 2015–2016.
To make this case, Le relies on interpretive textual analysis of publicly available political publications. He reconstructs the trajectory of elite politics by tracing changes in political language, keywords and rhetorical formulations. Several key concepts are used as focal points of analysis, including the “Marxism project” (chapter two), “governing capacity” (chapter three), the “scientific outlook on development” (chapter four), “harmonious society” (chapter five), “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (chapter six), the “Soviet lessons,” historical nihilism, Chongqing model and common prosperity (chapter seven), socialist core values (chapter 9), and the “Chinese dream” (chapter ten). The patience, diligence and sensitivity to political context exhibited throughout the book are impressive. Each chapter contains valuable observations and interesting details on the production, circulation and contestation of official political ideas.
The book successfully demonstrates that many “conservative” ideas associated with the Xi era could be found in the Hu period. However, I do wonder how far the claim can go in suggesting that they “originated” in the Hu era. This raises questions about historical scope. Would it provide more analytical leverage to extend further back into the Jiang, Deng or Mao periods? If the origins of Xi-era politics are to be explained historically, why stop at Hu?
In writing this book, Le’s research design rests on several key assumptions that merit closer engagement.
First, a central assumption throughout the book is that the appearance of contradictory rhetoric in official discourse signals contestation between reformist and conservative camps. This can be true, but it may not always be the only plausible or most likely explanation. It is not uncommon for CCP leaders, and political leaders elsewhere, to incorporate elements associated with conservatism and reformism into their governing framework. For example, Xi simultaneously emphasizes Party control, state ownership, market competition and the private sector, while presenting all of them as complementary components of a “socialist market economy.” Whether contradictory rhetoric reflects factional ideological competition or the leadership’s efforts in ideological synthesis requires much more direct engagement with the worldview and policy preferences of individual leaders themselves, something that is downplayed in this book.
Second, the “red aristocrats” Party oligarchy, which is emphasized in this book, could use further analysis and explanation: who are these “red aristocrats,” how do they operate collectively, and why should they be regarded as the principal force shaping Chinese politics? The book assumes that they are the main determinant of China’s future. On this basis, in the conclusion of the book, Le sketches three future scenarios centred on increased repression, a zero-sum foreign policy, and the veneration of Mao leading to policy rigidity. It is not entirely clear how these scenarios are derived from the analysis presented in the preceding chapters. Nor do they engage sufficiently with current scholarship on, or developments in, Chinese domestic and foreign policy.
Third, there is the relative absence of policy analysis. While the book painstakingly tracks political formulations and discursive changes, it pays less attention to policy implementation and policy outcomes. As a result, the discussion can occasionally feel detached from the actual practice of governance.
The above points are intended to enrich the research agenda opened up by what is a dense and empirically rich book, commendable for its original interpretation of the Hu-era roots of Xi-era Chinese politics.
