The recently published collection of speeches by China’s leader Xi Jinping offers a rare glimpse into the workings of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and how the country’s leadership sees China’s role in the coming Asian century. Tellingly, the speeches foreground China’s place and role in the development of an integrated and prosperous Asia, but makes little mention of the West.

‘The governance of China’ which features around 80 speeches delivered by Xi Jinping, the leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the president of the country, is a hugely important book by any standards. Published recently by the Foreign Languages Press of Beijing (2014) and translated into English, this is obviously an attempt to tell the world how the senior leadership of the country sees itself and its role as the party that will determine the future development of the country and the role that China is likely to play in the Asian region in the coming century.

The speeches cover a wide range of topics from China’s need for rapid economic development to the risks and costs of urbanisation and modernisation; from maritime policy to the need to secure China’s land borders; from educational development to the promotion of Chinese cultural identity abroad as a tool of soft power and diplomacy.

…Farish A. Noor is an Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.