Identifying the key elements shaping a leader’s foreign and domestic behavior is tricky. This is especially so in the case of China’s Xi Jinping. Are early childhood and adolescent experiences key in explaining Xi’s increasingly assertive domestic and foreign policy stance? Policy objectives? Or, naked personal power interests? Has the mix of considerations changed over time as Xi has moved from trying to survive as a subordinate, to competing for supreme power as a rising party member, to maintaining and enhancing power once achieved? Professor Wang Chi’s masterful Xi Jinping, China, and the United States cautions analysts never to underestimate the role of self-interest.

David M. Lampton, The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

Xi Jinping, China, and the United States is a uniquely comprehensive and meticulously documented biography of the world’s most powerful national leader, China’s Xi Jinping. Drawing on a remarkable range of foreign reporting and analysis, Dr. Wang has brought together in one volume real-time interpretations of Xi’s formation as a youth, rise in the Party, political machinations, foreign policies, and relationships with U.S. Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden. This is required reading for students of contemporary China and its foreign relations.

Chas W. Freeman, Chargé d'Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing (1981-1984)