One of the most remarkable things about China is how poorly understood it is, even by experts. By way of example, you probably think China has a president named Xi Jinping (習近平). Most people do. But actually, China doesn’t have a president. That title doesn’t exist in any official Chinese language documents or news reports.
If you can read Chinese, you can confirm this with a few taps on plastic. Try it. You will see that Xi is called chairman, general secretary, and core leader. He has many other official titles too. But he is never called president by the regime except in English-language propaganda materials intended for foreign consumption.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda services are professionals. They are masters of mental manipulation. They know better than anyone that words matter. For that reason, they intentionally mistranslate Chairman Xi, using the title “President Xi” to make him seem less communist, less dictatorial, and most equal to his main rival, the President of the United States of America.
When it comes to China, nothing is as it seems. The CCP excels at deception. Indeed, deception is an integral part of its organizational DNA and probably the main reason the CCP has been able to survive and thrive as the most successful radical political organization in modern history.
Elizabeth Economy points out in her book, The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State, that an explosion of information about China has accompanied its emergence as a superpower. Yet, she argues, this information doesn’t always help inform us. More often, it confounds understanding. When information fails to inform, but rather serves to confuse, is it really information?
Of course, the confusion about China is not the result of an accident. It’s by design. The CCP employs millions of people in both civilian and military organizations whose main purpose is to distort the truth. We’re not talking about simply spinning the news to benefit the regime. All governments, and, indeed, all organized groups of people, spin the news to one degree or another. No, we’re talking about the wholesale destruction of the truth, the corruption of meaning and thought itself, and the fabrication of facts in tandem with the concealment of facts.
To get a sense of how this manifests itself and why it matters, try to engage a Chinese government official in conversation on Tibet, or Hong Kong, or liberal democracy. Try to read an official CCP document on pretty much anything. It won’t take you very long to become seriously befuddled by all the logical contradictions and lies you are being hit with.
The CCP inhabits an alternative universe. It is an organization that takes Orwellian mass surveillance for granted and believes murder in the name of the state is normal — even just. Xi Jinping’s establishment of concentration camps and his war on religion are chilling reminders that China is in the grip of a wicked and warped regime. Make no mistake about it, China’s leaders are tyrants. But they are also very sophisticated and smart. Some might even say diabolical.
This matters a great deal because China is not weak like North Korea. China is a powerful, hyper-competitive authoritarian power that seeks world domination. Beijing intends to undermine the liberal world order and replace it with something unenlightened and dark. Getting away with such a heinous crime against human progress would normally be next to impossible. Reasonable and rational people are naturally attracted to the ideas of freedom and representative government and repelled by oppression and bad governance. Yet, if mass deception works, the CCP can continue to infiltrate the United States, United Nations, European Union, Japan, and other bastions of liberal values with its money and technology. It can weaken them, corrupt them, and silence them, inducing their complacency and inaction until it is too late.
There is little doubt that China is a remarkably high-performing totalitarian state. By comparison, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union made only modest achievements in their respective quests for power. So far, in the absence of a countervailing American-led strategic effort, China’s strategy has worked. The US and its allies, like Taiwan, are now ill-prepared for the common threats they face.
What does it say about the usefulness of our free and open Indo-Pacific strategy when the State Department claims it’s not a strategy, it’s a mere “vision,” and it’s not about China? What does it say about the quality of our thought and diplomacy when we say China has a president?
So, the next time you see someone refer to the leader of the People’s Republic of China as “President Xi,” remember they are using a false and purposely misleading title. And remember to question received knowledge.
My friends, let’s be honest. China has no president.
Ian Easton is a research fellow at the Project 2049 Institute and author of The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American Strategy in Asia (中共攻台大解密).
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) were born under the sign of Gemini. Geminis are known for their intelligence, creativity, adaptability and flexibility. It is unlikely, then, that the trade conflict between the US and China would escalate into a catastrophic collision. It is more probable that both sides would seek a way to de-escalate, paving the way for a Trump-Xi summit that allows the global economy some breathing room. Practically speaking, China and the US have vulnerabilities, and a prolonged trade war would be damaging for both. In the US, the electoral system means that public opinion
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
RSS