Cadre Country: How China became the Chinese Communist Party

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Award-winning historian John Fitzgerald focuses on the stories the Communist Party tells about itself, exploring how China works as an authoritarian state, and revealing Beijing’s monumental propaganda productions as a fragile edifice built on questionable assumptions. John Fitzgerald is an historian of China and the Chinese diaspora. He headed the Asia-Pacific Centre for Social Investment and Philanthropy at Swinburne University after serving five years as China Representative of The Ford Foundation in Beijing (2008-13). From 2015 to 2017 he served as President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. His recent books include Cadre Country: How China became the Chinese Communist Party (2022), Taking the Low Road: China’s Influence in Australia’s States and Territories (edited, 2022), and Chinese Diaspora Charity and the Cantonese Pacific, 1850–1949 (edited with Hon-ming Yip, 2020).

It takes decades of patient observation, experience and study of China to produce a book like this. Cadre Country is a must read for specialists and the general public.’ – Anita Chan, Australian National UniversityProfessor John Fitzgerald will talk about his recent book Cadre Country, which places the spotlight on the nation’s 40 million cadres - the managers and government officials employed by the ruling Communist Party to protect its great enterprise - and shows they constitute a powerful interest group that associates its interests with those of the country. Dong Wang is distinguished professor of history and director of the Wellington Koo Institute for Modern China in World History at Shanghai University (since 2016), a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. In October 2022, at the 20 th Communist Party Congress, China’s President Xi Jinping cemented his power to win a third term of leadership and become the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. To understand the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), its political organisation, and how it has maintained its grip on power, China historian John Fitzgerald’s 2022 book Cadre Country is a great place to start. Essentially, the Party has been able to justify itself as the key driver of prosperity, improved social service delivery, and stability. This framing has resonated with enough Chinese ‘outsiders’, who have seen improvements in their quality of life compared to previous generations. Such ‘lived experience’ helps to justify the Party’s claim that change now is too risky. However, China’s poor economic growth in 2022, in part because of the CCP’s approach to COVID-19, may pose a significant challenge to Xi’s legitimacy.

Since the founding of the Communist Party in China just over a century ago, there is much the country has achieved. But who does the heavy lifting in China? And who walks away with the spoils? Cadre Country places the spotlight on the nation's 40 million cadres - the managers and government officials employed by the ruling Communist Party to protect its great enterprise. This group has captured the culture and wealth of China, excluding the voices of the common citizens of this powerful and diverse country.China’s communist party regards itself as engaged in a global information war. In his new book, Cadre Country, historian John Fitzgerald probes some of the key stories the party tells to advance its cause. In this talk, he focuses on one story that resonates in China and internationally, China’s ‘Century of Humiliation.’ Where does this term come from, when it is deployed, and why?

Though Fitzgerald does not raise this question, I came away from the book wondering if it is even meaningful to call China a sovereign nation. Its 1.4 billion people are not the foundation of sovereignty in the eyes of the Party. Rather, it is the fact they were conquered and remain subservient across an extended history which has granted the legitimacy of rule for the Party-State to remain in control. When 'China' goes into the world, especially under Xi Jinping, the explicit core interests sought are the interests, preservation and welfare of the Party-State. Not the People-State.

Delivery with Standard Australia Post usually happens within 2-10 business days from time of dispatch. Please be aware that the delivery time frame may vary according to the area of delivery and due to various reasons, the delivery may take longer than the original estimated timeframe. Fitzgerald aims to bring an up-to-date account into the public sphere regarding the on-the-ground realities of China and the CCP’s rule, in comparison to work that often stays within insular academic and elite debates. This work forms part of Fitzgerald’s ongoing criticism of the pragmatic approach that Australian elites have taken in promoting deep engagement with China to develop economic opportunities while ignoring the more authoritarian, nationalistic, and ideological path of Xi’s China.