The Book the West Refuses to Read

I checked: there is not a single thoughtful independent review - not even on Amazon, or Goodreads - of the latest volume of Xi Jinping’s book “The Governance of China,” even though it was already published exactly a year ago by Foreign Languages Press in English.

No matter where you stand on China, you’ve got to admit that’s pretty crazy: the sitting president of the world’s rising superpower publishes a book explaining exactly what he’s doing and why, and we don’t even care to look. If there ever was a fact that illustrates just how willfully ignorant we are about China, this is it.

All the more because we then go spew the usual clichés around how secretive and impenetrable the Chinese system is: the book is on Amazon for $21 for crying out loud!

Anyhow, this felt so wrong that I figured I’d fix it. I bought the book, read it attentively and wrote what I hope you’ll agree is a thoughtful review of it.