China’s Supremo

Posted: December 27th, 2016

By Gordon Chang

Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World. Chang lived and worked in China and Hong Kong for almost two decades, most recently in Shanghai, as counsel to the American law firm Paul Weiss and earlier in Hong Kong as partner in the international law firm Baker & McKenzie. He has given briefings at the National Intelligence Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the Pentagon, and appeared before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.

Since coming to power in 2012, China’s Xi Jinping has reforged the Chinese Communist Party with his anti-corruption campaign and his accumulation of titles. In a post-Mao system designed to distribute power, Xi’s reforms risk tying China’s success too closely to his own. Gordon Chang’s article, written for The Cipher Brief on September 4th, examines the architect of China’s most recent and expansive policies, Xi Jinping.

Like no leader since Mao, Xi Jinping has roiled China’s political system.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+