The Third Revolution

Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State

By: Elizabeth C. Economy

Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin

Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

In The Third Revolution, eminent China scholar Elizabeth C. Economy provides an incisive look at the transformative changes underway in China today.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has unleashed a powerful set of political and economic reforms: the centralization of power under Xi himself; the expansion of the Communist Party's role in Chinese political, social, and economic life; and the construction of a virtual wall of regulations to control more closely the exchange of ideas and capital between China and the outside world.

Beyond its borders, Beijing has recast itself as a great power, seeking to reclaim its past glory and to create a system of international norms that better serves its more ambitious geostrategic objectives. In so doing, the Chinese leadership is reversing the trends toward greater political and economic opening, as well as the low-profile foreign policy, that had been put in motion by Deng Xiaoping's "Second Revolution" 30 years earlier.

©2018 Elizabeth Economy (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Lots of Good Information

This is a good book to learn about Xi’s vision of China. Probably a must read if you want to understand China. It wasn’t a book that I couldn’t put down or even yearn to get back to reading...perhaps that is due to the narration, which she just did not capture my interest—at times sounding like an academic vice a good story-teller. Well-researched, lots of data, with sage advice and insights.

Well-researched, well-organized insights

Simply, this book does an excellent job looking in at the evolving Chinese perspective, both internal to mainland China culture, especially their leadership, and external with respect to their global relations and interactions. The narrator was able to speak in Chinese for the translation of a few quotes/slogans. I listen on 2x speed, so the narrator was not "dry" for me.

Informative but Needs More Balance

I like the fact that the author brings in a ton of information, with a ton of citations to back up her claims, but there were a few statements salt and peppered here and there that I noticed didn't come with citations. Particularly on the chapter of Chinanet; there were a lot of good sources talking about firewall and censorship, but not enough information on Xi's side of the story. Also the chapter on pollution, while there were a ton of statements backed with citations, I noticed some seemed more of an opinion, such as water leaks from pipes and the government using a large portion of water wasn't cited.

Good Book, unengaged Narration

A good analysis, but had to listen to because of the unengaged, and robotic sounding narration.

Thoughtful Book, Challenging Audiobook

Economy is thorough in discussing the various changes afloat in President Xi’s China. Drawing from Chinese and English source material as well as her decades of experience with China, she addresses typical US concerns about China but goes beyond the “mainstream media” perspective about the country.

While the book is an informative read about a changing China, the reading is at times incomprehensible. Perrin has clearly not been coached on basic Pinyin pronunciation, so some Chinese sayings or names are totally meaningless and completely mispronounced. I understand how difficult Chinese is and I would not expect the reader to master the four tones, but they at least need to have a general sense of how Pinyin consonants are pronounced (“X” is always pronounced like “SH” and not “Z”, “ZH” is pronounced similar to “J” and also not “Z”...). I am not being just a Mandarin snob about this— the reader fumbles through lists of names and slogans so much that I have given up hope of looking up these ideas in other sources. If this was my uncle reading a newspaper out loud I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but an audiobook should not waste the listener’s time with such sloppy pronunciation.

If anything this motivates me to buy the physical book!

In summary, five star book, one star reading.

Excellent Review of Xi's China

This book is a fascinating and broad overview of today's policies of China under Xi. It doesn't go into much depth over Xi's biography, nevertheless this book gave me an excellent perspective on all the issues Xi confronts as he pushes in new policy directions, as well as the reasoning behind the responses of other countries - whether it's a tilt toward cooperation with China, or away from it. The end of the book goes into greater depth regarding how American and other Western powers should protect their interests in the face of aggressive and anti-competitive moves by China, and how their relationship with China can be turned toward cooperation. The author's knowledge was vast, yet ably presented . I highly recommend this book to anybody curious about today's China and the political nuances that dwell below the surface. The reader's performance was excellent.

An Excellent Overview of Contemporary China

This is probably the single best volume available for understanding contemporary issues involving China, its policies, and policies of other states toward it.

Dry but nutritious

The writing style is dry and academic--or maybe think-tank style. However, the content is very solid and informative. Possibly the dry style prevents the book from taking on a polemical tone, as much of the import of the book as that Xi Jinping is imposing an ever-tighter straitjacket on China. The one bright spot might be his attack on pervasive corruption.

In terms of writing style one problem I had was the abundance of acronyms. It's hard to keep them all straight.

One perspective I would have enjoyed is a comparison with some of the political constraints imposed on US citizens, and academics in particular. In the US an academic must toe a politically correct line. It is sad that the term "politically correct" comes directly from Maoist practice. Many US academic and media thought-police are Maoist, whether they know it or not. But perhaps that's a topic for a different book.

In sum: If you have any interest in modern China and it's political system this is a worthy read.

Amazing Listen

An in-depth view of Chinese current events.

Focuses on China’s relationship with US.

Touches upon Xi’s ambitions.

Fantastic listen.

Incorrect Pronunciations of Chinese Names, Words, Characters

I had to repeatedly check the book for the actual Chinese characters and/or romanizations because of how badly some names were pronounced.

This sort of undermines the whole point of an audio book. If you want to do further reading and you aren’t familiar with Chinese or Chinese history, buy the text version, in addition or instead of this. Otherwise, you might end up hearing the surname “Zhu” as “Joe,” for example.