The leader of China’s communist regime once remarked that he would not have been a communist had he been born anywhere else, according to a new book.
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping told the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he wouldn’t have joined the Communist Party if he’d been born in the United States, but would have been a member of the Democratic or Republican parties, according to Abe’s memoir, which was posthumously published in Japan this week.
Abe described Xi as a “fierce realist,” adding that the CCP leader had no interest in being part of a party that did not command real power.
“In other words, he didn’t see any point in a party that doesn’t wield political power,” the book quotes Abe as saying.
The memoir, “Abe Shinzo: Kaikoroku [Memoirs],” is composed of 18 interviews given to Yomiuri Shimbun senior columnist Goro Hashimoto and editorial chairman Hiroshi Oyama after Abe stepped down as Japan’s longest-serving prime minister in 2020, and is edited by Shigeru Kitamura, who served in multiple positions in Abe’s cabinet.
The memoir was intended to be published last year but was delayed due to its sensitive content and ultimately published this year with the approval of Abe’s wife, Akie.
It highlights his many interactions and opinions about numerous global leaders, from Xi to Russia’s Vladimir Putin to the United States’ Donald Trump.
In it, Abe also observed that Xi appeared to read primarily from prepared scripts and only gained the confidence to speak in a more ad hoc manner around 2018 amid heightened international tensions, which Abe took as a sign of China’s growing belief in its own authority.
Abe’s depictions of Xi help to contextualize an otherwise enigmatic figure, and dispels some of the mythologizing of Xi, who has adopted a zeal for Marxism, which often suggests he is a true believer in the cause.
While Xi is now infamous for his dogged proselytizing of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Abe’s interview suggests that the CCP leader would be willing to adopt just about any ideology so long as it allowed him to maintain control of the masses.
Notable to that end is Abe’s observation that the key to improving Japan-China relations is managing national security issues while promoting the further evolution of China’s state-directed economy into a freer, market-based economy, possibly demonstrating a hope of the former prime minister to see the people of China live freer, more prosperous lives.
