What Xi Jinping Really Thinks

Xi Jinping has changed China fundamentally. He has kept the same political system that Chairman Mao Zedong created when he founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Mao governed China with “Mao Zedong Thought,” which he introduced in 1945. Deng Xiaoping put that aside when he took power in 1978 and unleashed the “reform and opening up” era. The Dengist approach was in turn jettisoned with “Xi Jinping Thought” as the de facto state ideology in 2017. Xi is not attempting a Maoist restoration; he has ambitions even greater than Mao.