by Stefan Sigfried
Very few books have moved me deeply. "Xi Jinping: The Governance of China" is one of them. The rare gift this book gives you is this: it reorients you, handing us a new lens that awakens us to our capacity to create a society good for all and sharpens our sense of what humans can truly achieve.
Reading The Governance of China can feel overwhelming: it introduces a vast number of concepts that must be understood before the whole picture becomes clear. Yet as these ideas begin to connect, China's dramatic recent success starts to make sense -- a remarkably coherent and practical framework for governance and long-term development. I expected a collection of speeches but instead found a systematic, holistic vision of statecraft unlike anything I had encountered elsewhere.
My country, Sweden, never had formal five-year plans in the Chinese sense, yet post-war Social Democratic governments showed that deliberate long-term state planning could achieve results far beyond what markets alone deliver. The Million Program -- building one million homes in ten years on the principle that housing is both a civic right and an economic asset -- demonstrated how visionary planning could create broad prosperity.
But once welfare was achieved, it came to seem natural and self-evident. Leaders without memory of the great struggle that had created a good society, embraced privatization, deregulation, and faith in Adam Smith's invisible hand. They successfully promoted the view of the market not as a tool to serve society, but as a miraculous force in itself. Yet experience shows that good outcomes do not emerge automatically without clear direction and long-term vision. Since the deregulation wave of the 1990s, chronic housing shortages, price volatility, and growing unfairness have emerged -- reminding us why active planning matters.
China's leaders clearly share this understanding: ideology is an essential compass. It is precisely this clarity in the book The Governance of China that makes reading it such a refreshing experience. China is pursuing a form of prosperity that matters -- real, tangible improvements in people's lives -- rather than the financial speculation and elite capture that have increasingly defined the West.
The Governance of China truly excels with an extensive framework of practical theories. This thought is developed through frameworks such as the "Five-Sphere Integrated Plan" and the "Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy," and much more.
As an engineer, I see two foundational principles permeating the entire book. The first is the need to develop theories for understanding how a society should be regulated -- how its structures can be designed and its processes guided to function effectively. The second is the practical reality that without "seek(ing) truth from facts" and understanding the "power of truth" -- and thus obtaining accurate feedback -- a society cannot be governed effectively.
This aligns perfectly with my experience from my engineering and quality assurance work. This commitment to seeing reality as it actually is, really stands out. The Governance of China therefore points toward a brilliant future.
If we fail to understand that money is at best a shadow of reality, we will go astray -- something clearly visible in Western countries today, where money is put first and people second. The Governance of China offers a different vision. It consistently states "We must put the people first" and even explicitly warns against "money worship." The goal is to ensure that the gains of modernization are shared by all in a fair way.
The Governance of China addresses many concerns, not in the least the crucial fight against corruption. The Communist Party of China (CPC) describes the campaign as the most thorough kind of self-reform there is, and encourages people to speak the truth, offer frank criticism, and make constructive suggestions.
This is not just rhetoric in a book -- China has shown it acts on these ideas. It has built powerful tools to gather feedback from its citizens, and China is actively working to implement genuine democracy.
The Governance of China is filled with practical insights and tools that help explain what is behind China's success story and provide a blueprint for sustaining it through consistent application.
I really liked the down-to-earth and common-sense approach of the CPC Central Committee's Eight Rules on improving Party and government conduct that the Party established as part of the anti-corruption campaign. It is substance over form -- exactly what, in my experience as an engineer, delivers real efficiency.
However, ensuring consistent understanding and application of these principles across the entire population -- so that China can stay on this promising path in the years ahead -- remains a challenge.
China undoubtedly has stronger safeguards: a robust ideological foundation, five-year plans, and stable leadership.
The vision and the pathway the book lays out for China's development resonate profoundly with me, perhaps because I see in them a guide for the correct direction of human progress.
Editor's note: Stefan Sigfried is based in Stockholm, Sweden, and worked as a journalist and with modeling of complex systems, software testing, quality assurance, and programming, including military applications.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Xinhua News Agency.
