Professor Steve Tsang recently returned to Gresham College, at the invitation of Christine, to deliver a sobering assessment of China’s trajectory under the undisputed command of Xi Jinping. While China remains a Leninist system where the Communist Party superintendents the government, Tsang argues that the nation has moved through three distinct "operating systems" since 1949. After the chaotic Maoist era (1.0) and the collective leadership of the Deng Xiaoping era (2.0), Xi has installed "Operating System 3.0," a model that reverts to a totalitarian strongman structure. This shift was facilitated by a massive anti-corruption drive, which Tsang describes as a "party ratification operation" designed to purify the ranks and purge any officials who do not offer absolute support to the "core" leader. By the 20th Party Congress in 2022, Xi had effectively removed the orderly succession processes established by Deng, securing a third term and ensuring that no potential successor could even be discussed.
At the heart of this new era is "Xi Jinping Thought," which has been elevated as the de facto state ideology. Unlike previous significations of Marxism, Xi presents his ideology as the ultimate development of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization and culture, weaving the party’s survival into the very fabric of national identity. Domestically, this manifests as a drive for absolute unity—"one country, one people, one party, one ideology, one leader"—where the definition of being Chinese has shifted from legal citizenship to a matter of blood and ethnicity. This mandate requires even those with Chinese ancestry living abroad to be "patriotic," while national minorities in regions like Xinjiang and Tibet are forced to conform to a Han-centric cultural identity to ensure they "think the right thought
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On the global stage, Xi’s vision involves forging a "common destiny for humankind" that positions China as the preeminent leader. Tsang notes that China is actively seeking to become the natural leader of the Global South by offering development assistance and Belt and Road loans without the "conditionalities" often imposed by Western democratic institutions. By advocating for the "democratization of international relations," Xi is challenging the Western-led liberal order, offering autocrats a charter to govern as they please as long as they support China's core interests. The ultimate goal of this strategy is the "China dream of national rejuvenation," often summarized by Tsang as a mission to "Make China Great Again" by restoring the nation to its perceived historical greatness as the world's most powerful and innovative center.
The defining benchmark for this rejuvenation is the unification with Taiwan. Tsang highlights that Taiwan remains the "single most important" territory in this vision, and its current independence is seen by Beijing as a result of American protection. From Xi's perspective, the resolution of the Taiwan issue is a geopolitical pivot; a successful forceful takeover would not only fulfill a "sacred" territorial mission but would fundamentally bankrupt the United States' Indo-Pacific strategy. Such an event would signal the collapse of American global dominance and the arrival of Chinese preeminence, fulfilling the direction of travel Xi has set for the mid-21st century. While this outcome is not inevitable, Tsang concludes that the current "Operating System 3.0" is built entirely to deliver this transformation.
To conceptualize this, one might view the Chinese state as a massive ocean liner that, for decades, was steered by a committee of navigators checking one another's maps; under Xi, the committee has been dismissed, and a single captain has locked the bridge doors, rewriting the ship's manual to ensure every engine and crew member serves his specific, unwavering course toward the horizon.
