Overview of What Xi Jinping Wants
This episode of the New York Times Opinion podcast is a deep dive into Xi Jinping’s worldview, political rise, and strategic goals with former Australian Prime Minister and diplomat Kevin Rudd. Rudd argues that Xi is best understood as a convinced Leninist-Marxist nationalist: someone driven by party control, historical inevitability, and China’s rise as the dominant global power. The conversation traces how Xi’s ideology shapes China’s internal repression, economic strategy, military posture, and escalating pressure on Taiwan, while also exploring how the U.S. should respond through managed strategic competition rather than wishful thinking or all-out decoupling.
Kevin Rudd’s Unique Perspective on China
Kevin Rudd brings an unusually broad set of credentials to the discussion:
- Former Prime Minister of Australia and former Australian ambassador to the U.S.
- Fluent Mandarin speaker with early Foreign Service experience in China
- Personal acquaintance with Xi Jinping from the years before Xi became China’s top leader
- Oxford PhD scholar who read extensively in Xi’s own writings and speeches
- Author of The Avoidable War and president of the Asia Society
Rudd says he pursued his doctorate partly to force himself to read everything Xi had written, because he realized he was no longer confident in his own interpretation of Chinese politics.
Xi Jinping’s Political Worldview
Rudd’s core argument is that Xi sees the Chinese Communist Party as the central engine of history and China’s national destiny.
Core beliefs Rudd attributes to Xi
- The Party must lead everything: politics, the military, society, the economy, and ideology.
- China is historically a great power when it is unified and free from foreign pressure.
- National rejuvenation requires unity and strict political control.
- The Party is the safeguard against collapse, not a temporary instrument to be replaced.
Rudd emphasizes that Xi’s political identity was shaped by his family history, especially his father Xi Zhongxun’s repeated purges and rehabilitation. Rather than turning against the Party, Xi and his father appear to have internalized the lesson that the Party is always right in the long arc of history.
From Deng’s Reform Era to Xi’s Centralization
The episode draws a sharp contrast between two eras:
Deng Xiaoping and reform/opening
- Introduced market mechanisms and global integration
- Prioritized growth over equality
- Allowed private enterprise and foreign engagement
- Tolerated inequality as a temporary condition for national development
Xi Jinping’s reversal
- Restores stronger Party control over the economy and society
- Pushes the system back toward a more Marxist-Leninist model
- Reasserts the principle that “the Party leads in all”
Rudd says Xi inherited a country transformed by reform, but then turned the ideological dial back toward centralized authority and state direction.
How Xi Rose Through the System
Rudd outlines Xi’s rise through the Chinese Communist Party as a combination of family pedigree, technocratic competence, and political caution.
Key stages in Xi’s ascent
- Worked in local and provincial posts
- Served in reform-oriented regions like:
- Fujian
- Zhejiang
- Shanghai
- Built a reputation as a “safe hands” official
- Demonstrated strong growth numbers and administrative stability
- Benefited from being “red second generation” due to his father’s revolutionary status
Rudd notes that Xi was likely attractive to the Party leadership because he seemed both loyal to the system and capable of managing growth without causing political instability.
Anti-Corruption as Control
One of Xi’s signature initiatives is the anti-corruption campaign launched after taking power in 2012.
Rudd argues that while corruption is real, the campaign is also a tool of political consolidation:
- It removes rivals and potential dissenters
- It tightens discipline across the Party and military
- It creates fear and compliance
- It reinforces Xi’s personal control over the system
In this view, anti-corruption is not just about cleaning up the system; it is also a means of ensuring loyalty to Xi.
Freedom, Civil Society, and Repression Under Xi
Rudd describes Xi’s China as much less free than it was a decade earlier.
Areas of tightening control
- Religious groups
- Journalists and media outlets
- Lawyers and legal advocates
- Academics and intellectual debate
- NGOs and civil society organizations
- Local democratic experiments
His view is that Xi sees these independent forces as threats to Leninist Party control.
The Military and the Logic of Purges
The conversation also touches on Xi’s recent military purges.
Rudd suggests these are driven by:
- Genuine concern about corruption
- Desire for absolute loyalty
- Distrust of internal dissent
- Fear of weakness or hesitation on Taiwan
His broader point: the Chinese system has enormous personnel depth, so purges are less about removing the system’s capacity than about reasserting discipline and control.
Xi’s Economic Model: Industrial Power Over Consumer Prosperity
A major theme is Xi’s shift in economic priorities.
Rudd’s summary of the model
Xi is building a state-directed industrial powerhouse centered on:
- Semiconductors
- Electric vehicles
- Batteries
- Aerospace
- AI
- Quantum technologies
- Critical minerals and supply chains
Rather than maximizing domestic consumption and private-sector dynamism, Xi is prioritizing:
- Supply-side dominance
- Technological self-reliance
- National security resilience
- Control over global manufacturing and supply chains
Tradeoff
This comes at a cost:
- Lower domestic consumption
- Weaker private-sector confidence
- Youth unemployment
- Property sector stress
- Slower growth
Rudd argues Xi accepts these costs because he sees strategic industrial power as more important than short-term prosperity.
Jack Ma and the Private Sector Crackdown
The episode uses Jack Ma and Alibaba as a case study in Xi’s attitude toward private enterprise.
What happened
- Jack Ma publicly criticized Chinese financial regulation
- Xi responded with a crackdown on Alibaba, Ant Group, Tencent, and other platform firms
- The government increased Party presence inside private companies
- Private wealth and influence were politically constrained
Rudd says the message was clear: private entrepreneurs may be useful, but they may never become bigger than the Party.
How Xi Sees the Soviet Collapse
Rudd says Xi views the Soviet Union’s collapse as a warning story, not a triumph of liberalism.
Xi’s interpretation, as Rudd reconstructs it
- Too much ideological loosening undermined Party discipline
- Economic and political openness weakened Communist legitimacy
- The military did not defend the Party hard enough
- Corruption and decadence destroyed the system from within
This leads Xi to believe:
- The Party must control ideology
- The military must obey the Party absolutely
- Political liberalization is a path to collapse
Xi, Marxism, and Historical Inevitability
Rudd spends time unpacking Marxist-Leninist ideas for a non-Chinese audience.
Key concepts
- Dialectical materialism: history advances through struggle between opposing forces
- Historical materialism: societies evolve along an almost scientific historical path
- Scientific socialism: the Party can accelerate history toward socialism and eventually communism
Rudd’s point is not that this worldview is persuasive to outsiders, but that it is genuinely embedded in the CCP’s internal logic. Xi sees history as moving in China’s favor.
Chinese Nationalism and “Great Rejuvenation”
Rudd argues that Xi’s Marxism is fused with Chinese nationalism.
The nationalist dimension includes:
- Pride in civilizational achievement
- Resentment over the “century of humiliation”
- A promise to restore China’s rightful global status
- A goal of surpassing the United States
In this framework, communism is no longer just an ideology imported from abroad; it is tied to a distinctly Chinese historical mission.
The U.S.-China Rivalry
The conversation turns to how Xi views the United States.
Xi’s view of America, according to Rudd
- The main obstacle to China’s rise
- A military and technological competitor
- An ideological alternative model
- A potentially declining power riven by domestic division
Rudd says the CCP also watches American politics for signs of weakness, fragmentation, and unreliability.
What the U.S. Should Do: Managed Strategic Competition
Rudd rejects both naïve engagement and uncontrollable confrontation. His preferred model is managed strategic competition.
His framework has three parts:
-
Clear red lines
- Especially on Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the East China Sea
-
Open competition where appropriate
- Trade
- Technology
- Capital
- Talent
- Industrial policy
- Ideas
-
Selective cooperation on shared threats
- AI governance
- Pandemic prevention
- Public health
- Biotechnology and cancer research
His argument: the U.S. and China are not in a friendly relationship, but they also should not be sleepwalking into war.
Taiwan: The Most Dangerous Flashpoint
Taiwan is the most immediate risk in the relationship.
Rudd says Xi wants:
- Reunification by 2049, the centenary of the People’s Republic
- A hardening posture on Taiwan
- Increased military exercises that increasingly resemble invasion or blockade rehearsals
Why Taiwan matters
Rudd argues that a Chinese takeover of Taiwan would:
- Undermine U.S. credibility worldwide
- Trigger regional nuclear proliferation risks, especially in Japan and South Korea
- Signal the collapse of Pax Americana
- Strengthen Xi’s wider geopolitical ambitions
His policy recommendation
- Preserve deterrence
- Maintain the status quo
- Avoid miscalculation
- “Kick the ball down the road,” as Deng Xiaoping once put it
Books Mentioned
Rudd closes with three reading recommendations:
-
Joseph Torigian, The Party’s Interests Come First
A biography of Xi Jinping’s father, Xi Zhongxun -
Ian Johnson, The Souls of China
On religion’s return in post-Mao China -
Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical on artificial intelligence
Rudd cites it for its reflections on human dignity in the age of AI
Key Takeaways
- Xi Jinping is presented as a deeply ideological leader, not just a pragmatic authoritarian.
- His central goal is to restore China’s power through Party control, industrial strength, and national unity.
- China’s crackdown on civil society, private capital, and the military all serve the same purpose: tighter political control.
- The U.S.-China relationship is best understood as a long-term strategic rivalry, not a temporary misunderstanding.
- Taiwan remains the most dangerous point of potential crisis, and deterrence is the essential stabilizer.