On October 1, 2014 (China’s National Day), the Foreign Languages Press published The Governance of China, a compilation of 79 speeches, conversations, and instructions by PRC president and CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping covering the period from November 15, 2012, to June 13, 2014. Compiled by the State Council Information Office of China, the CCCPC Party Literature Research Office, and China International Publishing Group, the 500-plus-page volume is organized into 18 sections, covering Xi’s thoughts on a wide range of topics relating to Chinese governance, from domestic development concepts and policies (such as Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, the Chinese Dream, the rule of law, and economic reform), to ecology, national defense, the campaign against corruption, and a range of principles and policies guiding China’s growing involvement in world affairs.

With the volume appearing only two years after Xi took office, and given the absence of a similar compilation of speeches by Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao during their regimes, the question naturally arises as to why such a book was issued, and why it appeared so soon in the Xi era. Its brief introduction states that the book was published in response to “rising international interest” and “to enhance the rest of the world’s understanding of the Chinese government’s philosophy and its domestic and foreign policies.”