{"product_id":"the-partys-interests-come-first-the-life-of-xi-zhongxun-father-of-xi-jinping-hardback-9781503634756","title":"The Party's Interests Come First; The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping (Hardback) 9781503634756","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eThe Party's Interests Come First\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eThe Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eJoseph Torigian (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781503634756\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 3 June 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e718 pages, 5 halftones, 2 maps\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"The book is valuable not only for its portrait of its subject [Xi Zhongxun]—who was a major figure in the party's history in his own right—but also for its insights into his progeny [Xi Jinping], now the supreme leader. The worldview [Xi Jinping] learned from his father will affect not only 1.4bn Chinese people, but the whole of humanity.\"\u003cbr\u003e —The Economist\u003cbr\u003e \"This book is an extraordinary work of scholarship.... Perhaps above all else, The Party's Interests Come First is a study in the nature of political power – what it means to have it, the complexities and fallibility of those who wield it, and how quickly it can slip away.\"\u003cbr\u003e —Katie Stallard, The New Statesman\u003cbr\u003e \"The Party's Interests Come First is indispensable reading for anyone who wants to know what may drive Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader since Mao.\" —Kathrin Hille, Financial Times \"Joseph Torigian, a young scholar of both Communist Chinese and Soviet politics, has written a masterly biography of Xi Zhongxun, the father of China's present-day president, Xi Jinping. The Party's Interests Come First is a scrupulously researched and keenly perceptive account of an important but, in the West, little-known historical figure.\"\u003cbr\u003e  —Robert B. Zoellick, The Wall Street Journal \u003cbr\u003e \"Magisterial.... Torigian uses memoirs, letters, interviews and archival sources inside and outside China to explore the details of his subject's life but it is the biographer's radical empathy and subtlety of mind that illuminates it.\"\u003cbr\u003e —Denis Staunton, Irish Times\u003cbr\u003e \"Joseph Torigian... contributes greatly to our understanding of China. The book, deeply researched, tells the story of a man torn between his humanity and his loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, offering insights into the party's workings and the human suffering that shaped his son's governing style and conception of power.\"\u003cbr\u003e —Li Yuan, New York Times \u003cbr\u003e \"[The Party's Interests Come First is a] state-of-the-art [analysis] of [a] senior Chinese [leader], commendable for [its] wide-ranging use of sources and attention to detail.\"\u003cbr\u003e —Ian Johnson, New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e \"This brilliant biography of Xi Zhongxun, revolutionary politician and father of China's current leader, reveals the human dramas and intrigue behind the curtain in Chinese politics. Joseph Torigian is a prodigious researcher whose interviews with the Dalai Lama and others are worth the price of the book. A vividly written page-turner and a major scholarly accomplishment.\"\u003cbr\u003e  —Susan Shirk, University of California, San Diego \"Joseph Torigian's trademark indefatigable pursuit of detailed information illuminates Xi Zhongxun's experience in working under Mao and Deng in a party culture that leadership should vest in a 'core leader' who would have to be obeyed, and where no significant force stood up to either of them. This mammoth study provides much to reflect on continuities from Mao to Xi Jinping \u003ci\u003ethrough\u003c\/i\u003e Deng.\" \u003cbr\u003e  —Frederick C. Teiwes, University of Sydney \"In China today, people often ask the question: how could Xi Zhongxun have had a son like this? The son in question is China's current president and Communist Party boss, Xi Jinping. Joseph Torigian's biography of Xi Zhongxun addresses this question only in its final chapter, but his rich and densely documented study of the father's life and career from the 1930s through the Tiananmen incident of 1989 is important in its own right—as an account of Xi Zhongxun's unshakable dedication to the Party and the revolution. Xi paid an enormous personal and political price for this dedication, but he remained loyal to the end. Torigian's fine study pays careful attention to Xi's personal and political life, and to the complex and ever-changing dynamics of politics in China's capital, adding important new texture to our understanding of China's political elite under Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and now Xi Jinping.\"\u003cbr\u003e  —Joseph W. Esherick, University of California, San Diego \"A fascinating dive into the contradictions and internal struggles that defined the life of one of the Chinese Communist Party's leading figures. Rich in detail and light on grand pronouncements, Torigian's book illuminates the complexity and tension inherent in Chinese leaders' efforts to define and remain loyal to the party against stiff and constantly changing political winds.\"\u003cbr\u003e  —Jessica Chen Weiss, Johns Hopkins University \"A towering achievement and required reading for those interested in China. Through exhaustive research and forensic detail, Joseph Torigian tells the gripping story of the man whose son now leads China and the party he helped build. Fascinating, revealing, and easily one of the best books on China in years.\"\u003cbr\u003e  —Rush Doshi, Georgetown University \"Fascinating.... One of the easiest to read, most gripping doorstoppers I've ever had the pleasure of reading.\"—Jeremy Goldkorn, \u003ci\u003eChinaFile\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eChina's leader, Xi Jinping, is one of the most powerful individuals in the world—and one of the least understood. Much can be learned, however, about both Xi Jinping and the nature of the party he leads from the memory and legacy of his father, the revolutionary Xi Zhongxun (1913–2002). The elder Xi served the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for more than seven decades. He worked at the right hand of prominent leaders Zhou Enlai and Hu Yaobang. He helped build the Communist base area that saved Mao Zedong in 1935, and he initiated the Special Economic Zones that launched China into the reform era after Mao's death. He led the Party's United Front efforts toward Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Taiwanese. And though in 1989 he initially sought to avoid violence, he ultimately supported the Party's crackdown on the Tiananmen protesters.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Party's Interests Come First\u003c\/i\u003e is the first biography of Xi Zhongxun written in English. This biography is at once a sweeping story of the Chinese revolution and the first several decades of the People's Republic of China and a deeply personal story about making sense of one's own identity within a larger political context. Drawing on an array of new documents, interviews, diaries, and periodicals, Joseph Torigian vividly tells the life story of Xi Zhongxun, a man who spent his entire life struggling to balance his own feelings with the Party's demands. Through the eyes of Xi Jinping's father, Torigian reveals the extraordinary organizational, ideological, and coercive power of the CCP—and the terrible cost in human suffering that comes with it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eMap\u003cbr\u003e  1. The Party'\u003cbr\u003es Interests Come First\u003cbr\u003e  PART I THE PARTY'\u003cbr\u003eS \"FOOTHOLD\": The Shaanxi Years\u003cbr\u003e  2. The Young Wanderer\u003cbr\u003e  3. Who Saved Whom: The Rise of the Base Areas and the Arrival of Mao \u003cbr\u003e  4. The Yan'\u003cbr\u003ean Era\u003cbr\u003e  5. Love and Revolution\u003cbr\u003e  6. War on the Nationalists and the Peasants\u003cbr\u003e  PART II BUILDING THE NEW REGIME\u003cbr\u003e  7. King of the Northwest\u003cbr\u003e  8. Political Means, with Military Force as a Supplement: Ethnic Minorities in the Northwest \u003cbr\u003e  9. Ideology and Power Politics in the Beijing of the Early People'\u003cbr\u003es Republic\u003cbr\u003e  10. The Perils of Intimacy at Home and Abroad\u003cbr\u003e  11. \"Military Suppression Combined with Political Struggle\": The Radicalization of Ethnic and Religious Policy \u003cbr\u003e  12. Home Life in the Capital\u003cbr\u003e  PART III CATASTROPHE\u003cbr\u003e  13. The Great Leap Forward\u003cbr\u003e  14. Liu Zhidan\u003cbr\u003e  15. The Cultural Revolution\u003cbr\u003e  16. The Xi Family Slowly Rebuilds\u003cbr\u003e  PART IV THE PARTY'\u003cbr\u003eS \"LAUNCHPAD\": The Guangdong Years\u003cbr\u003e  17. Facing the Consequences of the Cultural Revolution\u003cbr\u003e  18. Blazing a Bloody Trail\u003cbr\u003e  19. Opening to the West\u003cbr\u003e  PART V TRYING TO SAVE THE REVOLUTION\u003cbr\u003e  20. A New Order at the Secretariat and the National People'\u003cbr\u003es Congress\u003cbr\u003e  21. Princeling Politics\u003cbr\u003e  22. The United Front Restored and Restrained\u003cbr\u003e  23. A New Era in Ethnic and Religious Affairs\u003cbr\u003e  24. \"Things Were Going So Well!\"\u003cbr\u003e  25. Xi and the Fate of Global Communism\u003cbr\u003e  PART VI CATASTROPHE AGAIN\u003cbr\u003e  26. \"It Is Necessary to Also Have a Spiritual Civilization!\"\u003cbr\u003e  27. The Deep Waters of Zhongnanhai\u003cbr\u003e  28. Tiananmen Square\u003cbr\u003e  29. The Final Years\u003cbr\u003e  30. Fathers and Sons\u003cbr\u003e  Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e  Abbreviations\u003cbr\u003e  Notes\u003cbr\u003e  Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e  Index\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Stanford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52520724627736,"sku":"9781503634756","price":34.29,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/the-partys-interests-come-first-the-life-of-xi-zhongxun-father-of-xi-jinping-hardback-9781503634756","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}