Book Review, Thomas Larkin on China: na origem da dominação ocidental: guerras do ópio e colônia britânica de Hong Kong, by Richard J. Grace

 Book Review: 

H-Diplo Review Essay 622

Thomas M. Larkin. The China Firm: American Elites and the Making of British Colonial Society. Columbia University Press, 2024. ISBN: 9780231210676 (paperback).

25 March 2025 | PDF: https://hdiplo.org/to/E622 | X: @HDiplo | BlueSky: @h-diplo.bsky.social

Editor: Diane Labrosse 
Commissioning Editor: Kevin Grimm 
Production Editor: Christopher Ball
Pre-Production Copy Editor: Masami Kimura 

Review by Richard J. Grace, Providence College

At the conclusion the First Opium War, in 1842, the Celestial Empire ceded the island of Hong Kong to Great Britain. Prior to the war, British merchants at Canton (Guangzhou) had complained vociferously to their home government that the Chinese authorities had declined diplomatic relations with Britain but imposed regulations that affected the business of foreign merchants. To escape from that uncomfortable situation, British merchants sought an entrepot of their own, separate from Chinese interdictions as in the case of the opium trade. When Commissioner Lin Zexu seized the foreign opium stocks in 1839, the Scottish merchant William Jardine sent a “paper of hints” to Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston, suggesting that the British naval squadron then in Chinese waters seize a suitable island and initiate a negotiation on such terms as: “You take my opium—I take your islands in return—we are therefore Quits, — & thenceforth if you please let us live in friendly Communion and good fellowship.”[1]

When the Treaty of Nanking was agreed to in 1842, Hong Kong was the island that was ceded to Britain; by that time, it was already in British possession, as British naval forces had taken control of the island in 1841. Almost immediately, British firms had begun setting up their operations there and much of the foreign trade of Canton relocated to the new British colony. The Hong merchants, who had been the required conduit of foreign trade at Canton, quickly recognized that “the island-entrepot meant the end of Canton as they knew it.”[2] American firms followed the initial British establishments at Hong Kong, and they became participants in an evolving China trade that took shape differently from the pre-war commerce. The most prominent American firms in the China trade at Canton prior to the Opium War were Russell & Co., Wetmore & Co., Olyphant & Co., and Augustine Heard & Co.

Thomas Larkin’s monograph is the story of Augustine Heard & Co., which was established by Massachusetts people in 1840 and which was declared bankrupt by 1878. The book concentrates much of its attention on four nephews of Augustine Heard, Sr., the founding father of the company. John Heard, Augustine Heard, Jr., Albert Farley Heard, and George Farley Heard were the directors of the Heard business in its heyday.

For most of its life, Augustine Heard & Co. was at home in Hong Kong, though it had offices in some of the treaty ports, most prominently Shanghai. Accordingly, Larkin’s book devotes much of its attention to the way in which the American firm adapted to the circumstances of commerce and society as established by British firms on the island. The book takes in business history, cultural history, personal biographies, and transnational commercial developments. It is a valuable addition to the growing stock of studies of the mercantile history of East Asia during a period when China was in decline. It is written more for scholars than for general readership, in part because of its style of composition, with a vocabulary that employs terms which are more commonly used in other disciplines. In short, the text is sometimes thick, requiring multiple readings for some sentences. However, that does not subvert the value of the author’s research and organization.

The chapters deal with many interesting facets of the firm’s headquarters in Hong Kong, including, for example, the racial dimension of the relationship between these American businessmen and their Chinese personnel who had a great deal to do with the smooth operations of the business and the domicile (under one roof). As the household served commercial affairs and personal accommodation, the operation of the company headquarters had to satisfy a great number of functions, including transactions and entertaining.

One of the most important elements of the book, one which Larkin handles deftly, is the rapport (or lack thereof) between American merchants in China and their English counterparts. The business practices and social practices were established by the British firms there, and the Americans largely conformed and took advantage of the British model. There was some tension or jealousy evident in the way that Americans regarded the more firmly established British firms and the “elite society” that Larkin describes in his presentation of the merchants from different homelands and their ways of life. 

The book gives some attention to women on the scene in China and in Boston, but mostly the four Heard brothers are the primary figures in this history (with the exception of Mary Livingston, wife of Albert Heard). The social code of the China trade opposed marriages between American or British businessmen and Chinese women, but there were many instances where Western traders held long-lasting relationships with “protected women” and, upon leaving China, set up funds to provide for these women and their Eurasian children, as in the case of John Heard’s son, Richard Howard Heard (178-85).

Although the title of the book refers to the Heard “firm,” the text is as much about the lives of the company’s administrators as it is about business operations. Close observation of company management (cargoes, bills of trade, banking transactions, taxes, bankruptcy settlements, consignment sources, pay for employees, etc.) would have been welcome, at the risk of nitty-gritty, but important, detail. 

The man who gave his name to the firm, Augustine Heard, Sr., a sea captain from Ipswich, Massachusetts, does not occupy a prominent role in Larkin’s account of the firm. The founders who were active in China were Joseph Coolidge (formerly of Russell & Co.) and George Dixwell. They assisted British firms in carrying on a clandestine trade during the period of the Opium War. After the Thirteen Factories (where foreign trade was conducted at Canton) were razed to the ground during the British and French assault on the city at the start of the Second Opium War in December 1856, the operations of Heard & Co. were re-established at Hong Kong, which became the headquarters of the firm for the remainder of its existence. The four brothers (John, Augustine Jr., Albert, and George) ran the firm by turns, but not with even management strategies. Accordingly, Augustine Heard & Co. was not a model of business stability. Larkin’s primary documentary collection is the Heard Family Business Records at the Baker Library, Harvard Business School.

One theme that runs through the book examines the relationship between American merchants in China and the British firms which were on home ground in the new colony. The business practices and social practices were established by British firms there, and the Americans largely conformed and took advantage of the British dominance. To some degree, the neutral status of American trade during the Opium War allowed British firms to keep their businesses alive by trans-shipping their cargoes into China on American ships. But there was a quiet tension between the two national groups after the war that was intensified by the sympathies of some British citizens (in China and in England) for the Confederate side in the American Civil War. Larkin handles this tension smoothly, acknowledging it, but not exaggerating it. Sometimes the fusion of local Chinese ways and British practices, as in the emergence of the “tiffin” as a substitute for the English afternoon tea, reduced such tensions between the English and the Americans. Moreover, the author describes a “sense of white cohesion” by which “the Americans and British found unity by identifying that which they both were not: Chinese” (75).

Larkin’s chapters have varying weight. For example, chapter 2, which deals with the properties that served as domicile and business headquarters, offers a great deal of insight into the somewhat confusing social circumstances of the American merchants. Chapter 3, which describes the roles of women in the colony, and the situations in which American and British merchants and families got together in social rounds, at clubs, and at the horse races, explains the odd functioning of social occasions and practices. Larkin’s work is very good in this field of social history. In contrast, the chapter which describes the Heard brothers’ fortunes after China is somewhat less effective because of the awkwardness of the text bouncing from one brother to another repeatedly.

Jacques Downs’s The Golden Ghetto is a good starting point for readers interested in American commerce in China in the first half of the nineteenth century.[3] The field of the old China trade and the post-1842 burgeoning of Western firms is a hot market these days, and those scholars who are interested in this province of East Asian History would do well to keep attention on the work of Paul van Dyke, John Carroll, Alain LePichon, Elizabeth Sinn, Phyllis Forbes Kerr, and Stacilee Ford.[4]

In his introduction, Larkin states that he has used this case study of Augustine Heard & Co. “to establish a more complete understanding of how Americans abroad interacted with nineteenth-century British colonialism and shaped Sino-foreign contact” (9). In that endeavor, he has been successful.

 

Richard J. Grace is an emeritus Professor of History at Providence College in Rhode Island. He holds a PhD in History from Fordham University and has twice been a visiting fellow at St. Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. His fields of special interest are British and American history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His study of nineteenth-century China traders, Opium and Empire: The Lives and Careers of William Jardine and James Matheson, was published in 2014 by McGill-Queens University Press. He is currently completing an analysis of the various types of costs of World War II for Great Britain. He is the author of articles and reviews in numerous academic journals.

 

---

[1] Memorandum from William Jardine to Lord Palmerston, 5 December 1839, Palmerston Papers, University of Southampton, MS 62 PP/ MM/ CH /5.

[2] Jacques Downs, The Golden Ghetto: The American Commercial Community at Canton and the Shaping of American China Policy, 1784–1844 (Lehigh University Press, 1997), 325.

[3] Downs, The Golden Ghetto.

[4] Regarding Chinese migration via Hong Kong, see Elizabeth Sinn, “In-between Place: A New Paradigm for Hong Kong Studies,” in Elizabeth Sinn, Siulun Wong, and Wing-hoi Chan, eds.,Rethinking Hong Kong: New Paradigms, New Perspectives (University of Hong Kong Centre of Asian Studies, 2009). Regarding the field, see Paul Van Dyke, Americans and Macao: Trade, Smuggling, and Diplomacy on the South China Coast (Hong Kong University Press, 2012); John Carroll, Canton Days: British Life and Death in China (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020); Alain Le Pichon, Aux origins de Hong Kong: Aspects de la civilisation commerciale a Canton – Le fonds de commerce de Jardine, Matheson & Co., 1827–1839 (L’Harmattan, 1998); Elizabeth Sinn and Christopher Muss, eds., Meeting Place: Encounters across Cultures in Hong Kong, 1841–1984 (Hong Kong University Press, 2017).

Book review: o fim do colonialismo - Martin Thomas: The End of Empires and a World Remade: A Global History of Decolonization; review by Eva-Maria Muschik

H-Diplo Review Essay 621: Muschik on Thomas, _The End of Empires and a World Remade_ christopher ball H-Diplo Review Essay 621 Martin Thomas. The End of Empires and a World Remade: A Global History of Decolonization. Princeton University Press, 2024. ISBN: 9780691190921. 20 March 2025 | PDF: https://hdiplo.org/to/E621 | X: @HDiplo | BlueSky: @h-diplo.bsky.social   Editor: Diane Labrosse  Commissioning Editors: Carleigh Cartmell and Seth Offenbach Production Editor: Christopher Ball Pre-Production Copy Editor: Masami Kimura Review by Eva-Maria Muschik, University of Vienna Martin Thomas’s The End of Empires is a rich book. Drawing on a wide range of English-language scholarship and a broad base of European archival materials, Thomas puts the issue of violence front and center and reminds us that twentieth-century decolonization was a globally connected process, but not strictly speaking a post-1945 phenomenon. In his understanding, it is also not a finished process. The emphasis throughout the book is on politics, especially individual conflicts, but also transnational networking and international law, economic matters, and the sociology of violence. Readers interested in learning more about the people, ideas, and culture that animated the global history of decolonization may need to turn elsewhere.  Thomas describes decolonization as not a single event, but a “process of ending empire and breaking with colonialism” (2). More specifically, his book is concerned with the end of twentieth-century oceanic empires mostly after 1945. “The story of these collapses,” he writes, “is the history of decolonization” (16). With this focus of the book, as opposed to, say, the break-up of European land empires during and after World War I or empires in the Americas in the preceding centuries, Thomas follows Jan C. Jansen and Jürgen Osterhammel’s argument: that the twentieth-century breakdown of oceanic empires was the most consequential “wave” of decolonization, for it resulted in the “disappearance of empire as a political form” and the “end of racial hierarchy as a widely accepted political ideology and structuring principle of world order” (16).[1] For Thomas, decolonization “stands alongside the twentieth century’s world wars, the Cold War, and the longer arc of globalization as one of the four great determinants of geopolitical change in living memory” (16). Indeed, he argues, it represents the “biggest reconfiguration of world politics ever seen” (7). Thomas maintains that “decolonization was one globally connected process” and that “we cannot understand decolonization’s global impact by examining individual empires or single colonial histories,” with the caveat added later that “decolonization unfolded globally but contingently” (3, 40). Hence, the global history angle. There are, of course, many discussions about what global history actually means.[2] For Thomas, it seems, global history is not primarily concerned with de-centering European perspectives on a given subject.[3](Somewhat indicative of this stance, the book opens and closes with the perspective of British politician Barbara Castle.) Rather, Thomas defines the approach of global history as “rejecting the nation-state as the analytical starting point and focusing instead on…entanglements of peoples, ideas, and discriminations” (15, my emphasis). As chapter 2 lays out, Thomas is moreover concerned with convergence or “globalization,” which he understands to be “the acceleration of global integration” (27). He suggests that “we need to locate decolonization both chronologically and in relation to” this process (26) and attempts to “unscramble conflicting perspectives on which of these processes—either decolonization or globalization—accelerated or even catalyzed the other” (27).[4] He concludes somewhat defeatedly, however:  Assessing the impact of globalization on the end of empires is difficult in the absence of consensus over which vectors—economic output and trade flows, cultural connections and migratory patterns, or shifts in transregional power—best express its impact (44).  Without weighing in on the matter himself, Thomas cautions against understanding globalization as a one-way traffic (from Europe to the rest of the world) and underestimating the extent to which decolonization reorganized the world (45). He does not explicitly discuss globalization in the rest of the book, but returns to aspects which are associated with it, e.g. economic integration, in the chapters that follow.  According to Thomas, the book seeks, first, to explain “what brought down European overseas empires”—that is, the causes of decolonization, and in particular the global factors that either accelerated or slowed down the process (4, 335)—and, second, to “work out how much changed when [foreign colonial rulers] left or were compelled to go” (3)—that is, the global impact of decolonization. This is arguably a mammoth task.  With regard to the second question of impact, Thomas’ main argument seems to be—as the title indicates—that the world was remade as empire was undone. But he argues that decolonization remains unfinished first, because of unequal power relations rooted in colonial-era hierarchies; second, because of enduring patterns of colonial thought, speech, and behavior; and third, because of lasting economic inequalities rooted in empire (349). Overall, the book is less concerned with what the “world remade” looked like, than with “paths of empire destruction.”  In answer to his first question about causes, or “factors that triggered colonial collapse,” Thomas presents a somewhat eclectic bucket list that includes issues of political economy, anticolonial opposition and rights claims, the two World Wars, territorial partitions, pro- and anti-colonial violence, and the vulnerability of colonial civilians (5). Thomas concedes that the list could be longer and could include, for example, questions of identity and culture, gender and ethnicity, ideology and ethics, geopolitics, international organization, and the global Cold War, and that it is the historian’s task to distinguish between major and minor factors among all of the above. Yet Thomas does not explicitly reveal where he comes down on this question, nor how this sets his book apart from existing literature on the topic.[5] To me, Thomas’s list of causal factors is confusing rather than clarifying. Some of them cannot be neatly separated from one another. For example, “issues of global political economy,” as Thomas discusses in the book, resulted to a large extent from the “transformative aftereffects of two world wars” (5). It is also unclear how partitions were a cause rather than an effect of the end of empire. Is it the case that we cannot determine causal factors for the global process of decolonization as such, but have to look at individual processes of decolonization after all to determine the relative weight of factors?  The organization of the book departs from that of comparative titles:[6] The introductory part I, “Globalizing Decolonization,” Thomas explains, deals with “ideas and concepts” (4) of both scholars and historical actors: chapter 1 discusses the term “decolonization,” chapter 2 focuses on the relationship between globalization and decolonization (thus going beyond “ideas and concepts”), and chapter 3 presents “alternatives” (4) to decolonization, as in historical alternatives to national sovereignty claims, including, for example, empire citizenship reform, pooled sovereignty polities (federations, regional associations), and global governance mechanisms. The much longer part II, “Paths of Empire Destruction,” proceeds roughly chronologically from the impact of World War One (chapter 4) to that of World War Two (chapter 7), with a mix of more thematic and geographically focused chapters in between and after: chapters 5, 12, and 13 deal with the economic effects of the wars and with interwar and postwar political decisions. In a very welcome addition to the more familiar focus in the literature on development, Thomas discusses global trade, debt, and monetary arrangements here. He also engages the burgeoning scholarship on the push for a New International Economic Order.[7] Chapters 6 and 14 focus on key sites, concerns, and moments of transnational anti-colonial networking and activism, from interwar Communist internationalism, to the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung in 1955, the founding of the Non-Alignment Movement in Belgrade in 1961, and the Tri-Continental Conference in Havana in 1966. Other important milestones and organizations in this regard, such as the 1900 Pan-African Congress, the League against Imperialism, and the Group of 77, are discussed in chapters 4 and 13. The remaining chapters, in one way or another, discuss the violence of decolonization. Chapter 8 deals with post-World War Two conflicts in South East Asia. Chapter 9 discusses partitions. Chapter 10 focuses on decolonization wars of the 1950s and 1960s in Kenya, Vietnam, and Algeria, which, as Thomas underlines, imperial powers tried to hide from public attention. Chapter 11 shines the spotlight on the civilians who bore the brunt of decolonization violence. The concluding chapter 15 discusses “endgames” of empire in the Portuguese and Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Ocean island territories.  To my mind, the guiding questions or focus are not always comprehensibly explained in the chapter introductions. Many topics and events surface in various chapters, and the chapter conclusions often bring in new aspects and actors rather than summarizing the main points made. Much prior contextual knowledge regarding historical actors and events is required of the reader. Compared to other titles on this topic, Thomas’s book is thus not an easy introductory read, even if it is certainly a worthwhile, thought-provoking one.[8] A real strength of the book is that, in line with his own earlier research plus other recent publications on imperial history more generally,[9] Thomas convincingly reveals that a panoply of violence is central to the history of decolonization, from psychological to physiological, from economical to ecological, from military to civilian. This is a story of mass displacement, forced labor and migration, hunger, disease, and ecological devastation related to both imperial economic exploitation and mismanagement as well as war efforts, which fueled both resistance against empire and rising tensions among the various groups within colonial societies. Chapter 7, which focuses on World War Two, serves as something of a hinge chapter for Thomas’s second major intervention: “The logic of the Second World War as decolonization’s catalytic agent is flawed because the disintegrative process had begun decades earlier,” Thomas writes, and the preceding chapters serve his point. But his argument is also forward-looking: Decolonization “would play out for decades more” (124). Building on Robert Gerwarth’s work on World War I,[10] Thomas’s “proposition is that wartime cataclysm did not—indeed, could not—‘cause’ decolonization after 1945 because there was no clear division between war and postwar.” Notions of “empires at peace” or “peacetime colonialism” are thus misleading (125). As he writes, “the war itself persisted, mutating into other violent anti-colonial struggles” (132). The chapters that follow amply prove his point that the transition-of-power narrative sanitizes the history of decolonization, which “was anything but transitory or clean” (171). Throughout the book, Thomas raises and discusses several important questions that are related to the extent to which international law, humanitarian actors, and international organizations served to shape (if not mitigate) decolonization violence and vice versa and what role anti-colonial violence played in bringing down empire. A key section comes in chapter 13, where Thomas rejects the narrative of a “managed” decolonization in the sense of a process being set in motion and directed by imperial authorities (263). Empire was brought down by its opponents, Thomas notes. But he also allows for a correlation between European economic decline and retrenchment overseas (263). Frederick Cooper has argued that by the late 1950s, imperial authorities began to consider the developmental colonialism of the post-1945 period too expensive to maintain.[11]Thomas’s account adds to this analysis the fact that decolonization violence also “punched big deficits into imperial balance sheets,” whether they are “measured in money or reputation” (266). This is also where factors such as transnational activism, global public fora like the ones affiliated with the United Nations, and international law, come in. Because of this mix of factors, Thomas suggests, “finding partners to show the way out [became] more advantageous than trying to stay in” from the metropolitan perspective (267).[12] Because Thomas’s narrative is largely concerned with the “paths of empire destruction,” I was left wondering about the impact or legacies of the violence of decolonization in the post-independence era in terms of authoritarian regimes, civil wars, social and economic disruptions, foreign interventionism, etc. This question is especially pertinent in view of the unfinished “decolonial” pursuit of achieving economic sovereignty and prosperity, be it through national projects, federal or regional arrangements, or changing the institutions of global governance. Thomas’s book thus raises several crucial questions about the global history of decolonization that—building on his important work—may be further tackled down the line.   Eva-Maria Muschik is a historian and Assistant Professor in the Department of Development Studies at the University of Vienna. She is the author of Building States: The United Nations, Development, and Decolonization, 1945–1965 (Columbia University Press, 2022), the special issue introduction “Towards a Global History of International Organizations and Decolonization,” published in the Journal of Global History in 2022, and co-editor of the forthcoming volume International Organizations and the Cold War: Competition, Cooperation and Convergence(Bloomsbury, 2025).   [1] Jan Jansen and Jürgen Osterhammel, Decolonization: A Short History (Princeton University Press, 2017), 1. [2] For a most recent discussion, see Stefanie Gänger and Jürgen Osterhammel, eds., Rethinking Global History(Cambridge University Press, 2024). [3] For a contrasting understanding of global history, see, for example, Sebastian Conrad, What Is Global History?(Princeton University Press, 2016), 67. [4] An engagement with another book that is co-authored by Jürgen Osterhammel might have been insightful here: Jürgen Osterhammel and Niels P. Petersson, Globalization: A Short History (Princeton University Press, 2021), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400824328.　 [5] See, for example,Muriel Evelyn Chamberlain, Decolonization: The Fall of the European Empires (Blackwell, 2004); Prasenjit Duara, ed., Decolonization: Perspectives from Now and Then (Rewriting Histories) (Routledge, 2004); Dietmar Rothermund, The Routledge Companion to Decolonization (Routledge, 2006); Martin Shipway, Decolonization and Its Impact: A Comparative Approach to the End of the Colonial Empires (Blackwell, 2008) as well as recent introductory books cited in footnote 9. [6] See footnotes 6 and 9. [7] Giuliano Garavini, After Empires: European Integration, Decolonization, and the Challenge from the Global South 1957–1986 (Oxford University Press, 2012); Nils Gilman, “The New International Economic Order: A Re-Introduction,” Humanity: An International Journal for Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 6:1 (2015): 1-16; Christopher Dietrich, “Oil Power and Economic Theologies: The United States and the Third World in the Wake of the Energy Crisis,” Diplomatic History 40:3 (2016): 500-529; Jonas Kreienbaum, Das Öl und der Kampf um eine Neue Weltwirtschaftsordnung – Die Bedeutung der Ölkrisen der 1970er Jahre für die Nord-Süd-Beziehungen (De Gruyter, 2022); Michael Franczak, Global Inequality and American Foreign Policy in the 1970s (Cornell University Press, 2022). [8] Dane Kennedy, Decolonization: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2016); Jansen and Osterhammel, Decolonization. [9] See, for example, Martin Thomas, Violence and Colonial Order: Police, Workers and Protest in the European Colonial Empires, 1918–1940 (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Thomas, Fight or Flight: Britain, France, and the Roads from Empire (Oxford University Press, 2014); Thomas and Gareth Curless, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Late Colonial Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies (Oxford University Press, 2023); Caroline Elkins, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (The Bodley Head, 2022); Lauren Benton, They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence (Princeton University Press, 2024).  [10] Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End: 1917–1923 (Allen Lane, 2016). [11] Frederick Cooper, “Writing the History of Development,” Journal of Modern European History 8:1 (2010): 5-23, here 15. [12] For a similar argument on the interwar period, see Susan Pedersen, “Getting out of Iraq—in 1932: The League of Nations and the Road to Normative Statehood,” The American Historical Review 115:4 (2010): 975-1000, here 975.

Book review: Efeito Xi Jinping por Ashley Esarey e Rongbin Han (eds.), review by Olivia Cheung (H-Net Reviews)

Cheung on Esarey and Han, 'The Xi Jinping Effect' [Review]

H-Net Reviews

Esarey, Ashley; Han, Rongbin, eds..  The Xi Jinping Effect

 University of Washington Press, 2024. 304 pp. $32.00 (paper), ISBN 9780295752815.

Reviewed by Olivia Cheung (King's College London)
Published on H-Diplo (March, 2025)
Commissioned by Seth Offenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York)

Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=61434

Xi Jinping is known for his authoritarian rule, foreign policy ambitions, and confrontational stance toward the United States. Shortly after taking power in late 2012, Xi articulated the goal of achieving “the China Dream of national rejuvenation” by mid-century.[1] To reach this, he has focused on reinvigorating the Chinese Communist Party on the basis of centralizing powers in his hands. He has disregarded conventions, launching an unprecedentedly intense rectification-cum-anticorruption drive; elevating his “thought” as the state ideology; restructuring the party, military, and state; abolishing term limits in 2018; taking a third term in 2022; and ending the “hide and bide” foreign policy. Politically, Xi appears invisible, but does his power translate to effective governance? Even under former Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s totalitarian rule, resistance and subversion persisted. As a Chinese saying goes, “From the top comes policies; from the bottom, coping strategies.” To govern as effectively as he holds power, Xi must overcome not only resistance and inertia, but also deep-seated structural factors and international forces beyond his control.

To what extent does Xi impact China’s governance and policies? The Xi Jinping Effect, edited by Ashley Esarey and Rongbin Han, examines this question. The book is divided into four parts, with the first three addressing the Xi effect on domestic affairs—internal party governance and ideological rectification (part 1), socioeconomic inequality (part 2), and mass surveillance and control (part 3). Part 4 considers Xi’s impact on Taiwan and China’s relations with Southeast Asia. While these areas are significant, it is unclear why they were chosen over others. Notably, Xi has invested in technological supremacy, party control in business, securitization, military-civilian fusion, rebooting “One Country, Two Systems” in Hong Kong, befriending the Global South, competing with the United States, and changing the global governance system in a more Sino-centric fashion. Would focusing on these areas yield a different assessment of the Xi effect?

If I were to study the Xi effect, I would use X’s strategic intentions as the starting point and anchor. Based on an analysis of Xi’s speeches and writings, I would identify the areas he is most and least determined to change, his benchmarks of success, time frame, and the trade-offs he is willing to make.[2] Thereafter, I would sort Xi’s policies into categories depending on the strength or outcome of the Xi effect as Xi intended them to be. I would then select several cases from each category for analysis with a view of producing findings that will have a good degree of generalizability. Putting Xi’s preferences and worldview, or Xi Jinping Thought, front and center implies taking Xi’s agency fully into account in appraising the Xi effect. Assessing the Xi effect by checking whether Xi Thought was faithfully implemented should allow us to probe more deeply into the nature and limits of Xi’s strongman rule, this being the very phenomenon that motivates a study of the Xi effect in the first place.

The book concludes that the Xi effect is highly uneven. It is found to be the main reason behind the “total surveillance” of society (chapter 6), especially the Xinjiang Uyghurs (chapter 7). It has shown to be robust in anticorruption in the party-state (chapter 1). Its impact on ideological governance in the party (chapter 2) and society (chapter 3) is sweeping. Furthermore, it has risen above all factors in shaping China’s Taiwan policy (chapter 8). In these areas, Xi has overturned long-standing post-Mao policies. It is nothing short of a “counter-reformation” (chapter 2) of the post-Mao or Dengist reform, one that will most likely endure as long as Xi is in power. The authors of these chapters, except chapters 7 (on Xinjiang) and 8 (on Taiwan), observe that the changes ushered in by Xi are not entirely new. They either built on or adapt existing trends or took a page from earlier periods. Deng Kai, David Demes, and Chih-Jou Jay Chen (chapter 7) point out that Xi’s “total surveillance” system was made possible by the preceding Hu Jintao regime’s decision to build a national population database (p. 154). Andrew Wedeman traces the origin of Xi’s anticorruption campaign to Mao’s times (chapter 1). Timothy Cheek observes ideological governance under Xi had roots in the Qing dynasty (chapter 2). Gerda Wielander demonstrates that Xi’s reaffirmation of “faith” in the party, though overtly political, strikes a chord with popular thinking at the social grassroots (chapter 3). Prior to Xi, many human right dissidents in China publicly proclaimed the importance of keeping faith. Like Xi, they also saw faith as a “spiritual and motivational force” to help them move forward (p. 73). Whereas they claimed inspiration from Christianity (pp. 73-74) to confront the authorities, Xi, an atheist, urged people to submit to the party out of faith in its moral righteousness.

In contrast to the above chapters, Martin King Whyte (chapter 4) and Alexia T. Chan (chapter 5) conclude that the Xi effect is slight, if not negligible, in improving socioeconomic inequality. Both present ample evidence of persistent and increasing urban-rural inequality under Xi. Their findings juxtapose to Xi’s declaration, in 2020, that the antipoverty campaign he started in 2015 had delivered a “miracle.” Xi claimed that the campaign had lifted seventy million rural Chinese out of “absolute poverty.”[3] Yet, the everyday poverty documented in chapters 4 and 5 shows that the success of the antipoverty campaign was short-lived. Whyte attributes the lack of a Xi effect in reducing inequality not to Xi’s weakness but his reluctance to take “bold” steps to combat inequality (p. 117). Chan goes further. She finds that the persistence of second-class citizenship under Xi is intentional and “serves state goals” (p. 146). Both further observe that structural factors have come into play. For example, Chan finds that the problem of “unfunded mandates” has persisted under Xi (p. 139), whereby the central government announced goals to improve the people’s livelihood without supporting cash-strapped local governments to translate these goals into actual policies. I would add that the massive increase in local government debt under Xi is another important structural factor, this being one that is inadvertently contributed by his other policies, notably the crackdown on the property sector and shadow banking.[4]

The middle point between a strong Xi effect and a weak Xi effect is found in China’s relations with Southeast Asia. Brantly Womack (chapter 9) shows that the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi’s signature foreign policy program, has strengthened connectivity between China and Southeast Asia, and with that, their asymmetric power balance to the advantage of China (p. 229). Yet Womack stresses that Southeast Asia is not only “concerned” about Xi’s arrogance but also “the possible side effects of China’s confrontation with the United States”—a prominent feature of Xi’s foreign policy (p. 229). Womack concluded that Southeast Asia’s reluctance to take a side between the United States and China is a more decisive factor than Xi’s personality, diplomacy, or aggressive actions in shaping their approach to China.

Every chapter in this book is highly informative on the latest developments of China under Xi. However, not all of them addresses the Xi effect explicitly or systematically. In some chapters, there is a lack of a focused examination of the Xi effect. Policy changes under Xi are taken as evidence of a Xi effect at work, almost at face value. Other chapters, notably chapter 9, make efforts to isolate Xi’s agency from other factors contributing to the policy outcome observed under Xi. The lack of a shared theoretical framework to examine the Xi effect is not particularly conducive to understanding the Xi effect. This brings me back to my earlier suggestion of using Xi Thought as a yardstick to appraise the Xi effect, one that is, from what I can see, feasible to be adopted by all chapters.

As discussed earlier, the book concludes that the Xi effect is highly uneven across policy issues. It would have been helpful if the book had also addressed the implications of this observation more deeply, beyond pointing out the tension between agency and structure. At a start, perhaps the following questions could be addressed. Has Xi’s success in implementing a system of total surveillance in society, which greatly raises the cost of the public expression of dissatisfaction, inadvertently reduced his commitment to take bold steps to improve the quality of living for China’s workers? Has the persistence of income inequality in China weakened Xi’s ideological governance? What are the common variables behind the strong Xi effect in anticorruption, ideological governance, social control, and China’s Taiwan policy?

Finally, it would have been invaluable had the authors reflected on whether the conclusions drawn in their studies can be extrapolated and why. In the book where this is done, it is often insightful. For example, in chapter 3, Wielander links Xi’s ideological governance—namely his strategy to “tighten control of all faith-based activity and to position the Party itself as an object of faith”—to China’s emergence as a “fundamentalist power” that challenges the “international order built on commonly shared values” (p. 71). This is a fascinating insight that speaks of the role of domestic factors in how China sees its place in the world. It contributes a more textured understanding to the role of domestic factors in Chinese foreign policy, a welcome variation to the dominant accounts, which focus heavily on international structural factors. This is only one of many examples of the usefulness of this volume in unraveling the complexities of Xi’s China.

As Xi is nearing the middle of his third five-year term, we are increasingly witnessing a distinct Xi effect on China’s relations with the rest of the world. Xi’s personal rapport with Putin, head-of-state diplomacy with world leaders, and the three global initiatives he introduced as a better alternative to the liberal international order are some examples.[5] To bring the analysis of the Xi effect up to date, it would be helpful to examine closely Xi’s tianxia worldview and his role in foreign policymaking. This could be one of the directions which the research program of the Xi effect may develop.

Notes

[1]. Jinping Xi, Xi Jinping tan zhiguo lizheng [Xi Jinping: The Governance of China] (Beijing: Waiwen chubanshe, 2014), 35-36.

[2]. Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung, The Political Thought of Xi Jinping (Oxford University Press, 2024).

[3]. Ibid., 102, 112-13.

[4]. Victor Shih and Jonathan Elkobi, Local Government Debt Dynamics in China: An Exploration Through the Lens of Local Government Debt and LGFV Debt, November 27, 2023, 21st Century China Center, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, https://china.ucsd.edu/_files/2023-report_shih_local-government-debt-dynamics-in-china.pdf.

[5]. These are the Global Development Initiative (2021), Global Security Initiative (2022), and Global Civilization Initiative (2023).

Olivia Cheung is a lecturer in politics at the Department of European and International Studies, King’s College London. Her research specialization is the domestic politics and foreign policy of China. Her latest major publications are The Political Thought of Xi Jinping (Oxford University Press, 2024), coauthored with Steve Tsang, and Factional-Ideological Conflicts in Chinese Politics: To the Left or to the Right?(Amsterdam University Press, 2023).

Citation: Olivia Cheung. Review of Esarey, Ashley; Han, Rongbin, eds.. The Xi Jinping Effect. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. March, 2025.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=61434

The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future, by Chun Han Wong - Book review by Benjamin Tze Ern Ho (H-Net Reviews)

H-Net Reviews

Wong, Chun Han. Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future. : Avid Reader Press, 2023. xvi + 395 pp. $20.99 (paper), ISBN 9781982185749.$30.00 (cloth), ISBN 9781982185732.

Reviewed by Benjamin Tze Ern Ho (Nanyang Technological University)
Published on H-Diplo (February, 2025)

Commissioned by Seth Offenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York)

Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=61176

Among contemporary China watchers, there is a view that President Xi Jinping—in more than a decade of ruling China—has refashioned and remodeled the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China’s political landscape into his own image. A case in point can be seen in the emphasis in recent years (particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic) on national security concerns instead of economic development, consequently affecting China’s relations with the rest of the world (particularly the West and the United States, which Beijing views as having designs on undermining its national security). Not surprising, scholars have attempted to divine what Xi’s worldview might be and how his thinking has shaped China’s foreign policy practices. Some notable works in recent years include Kerry Brown’s Xi Jinping: A Study in Power (2022), Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung’s The Political Thought of Xi Jinping (2023), and Kevin Rudd’s On Xi Jinping: How Xi's Marxist Nationalism Is Shaping China and the World (2024).

While these widely acclaimed books have provided good clues and insights into the thought forms and political world that Xi inhabits, their analyses tend to focus on specific aspects of Xi, such as his personality (Brown and Rudd) and his political ideas (Tsang and Cheung). Chun Han Wong’s Party of One moves the needle on the study of Xi in a decisive manner, in this case, attempting to connect Xi’s ability to effect real changes in China’s sociopolitical space through his executive power vis-à-vis the CCP. Among Chinese scholars, there is an acknowledgment that the CCP is not monolithically defined and that there exists a variety of views, factions, and ideological positions within the party. That said, I argue that under Xi, these factions are rendered powerless or irrelevant unless they happen to square with his own personal views. To evidence this, Wong uses his years of experience as a Wall Street Journal reporter who honed his craft in China. He provides us with a multilayered and multi-textured portrayal of Xi and illustrates how the CCP and China have been thoroughly “Xi-nicized” as Xi has stamped his influence not only within the party but also on the broader Chinese society.

To make sense of Chinese politics these days, one way is to recognize that the CCP sits on top of Chinese society and Xi sits on top of the CCP. By marrying Marxist-Leninist principles of control with a veneer of Chinese traditional thought (taken from the repertoire of Confucian and Legalist ideas), Xi has managed to exert and extend his control of the party and society in ways unimaginable since Mao Zedong—thus making him the paramount leader of modern China today. This is where Wong’s investigation and analysis in writing this book helps his work stand out from other comparable works. By telling the stories of the ordinary Chinese and Chinese officials, Wong is able to weave a compelling narrative of how Xi’s leadership has been decisive in spreading the widespread changes we see today in Chinese society. The common Chinese saying “Heaven is high and the emperor is far away” is sometimes used to lend credence to the belief that many local officials often disregard the wishes of the central authorities in Beijing, especially if these instructions run up against their own local priorities. Reading the Party of One, one comes away with a slightly different take in that “heaven may be high, but the emperor is not far away.” In other words, Xi’s influence is total and his political tentacles and reach go very far. As Wong observes in his analysis of how the party has exacted control over its own cadres (wherever they may be), “the leadership keeps tabs on elite party families through informants within their staff—scrutiny that dissuades many princelings and retired elders from criticizing Xi” (p. 73).

The focus on the mark Xi has made on the party is the strongest and most compelling aspect of the book. All eight chapters are single-mindedly focused on one outcome of Xi’s rule: the party. As I have observed elsewhere, Xi’s derivation of power and influence is intrinsically linked to his preeminence and position in the party.[1] To use a J. K. Rowling analogy from the Harry Potter books, Xi and the party have made “horcruxes” of one another.[2] Without the party with which to execute his wishes and commands, Xi would just be another Chinese citizen (out of the 1.3 billion citizens) or political official (with political ambitions but without the political platform to implement his ideas). Likewise, without a unifying figurehead in the person of Xi, the party would inevitably be consigned to factional struggles and internal competition, and in the worst case it would suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union some three and a half decades ago.

Xi has worked to ensure that party survival is contingent on the party being obedient—even subservient—to his wishes, while his ability to stay in power depends on his mastery of the party and his use of the party apparatus to achieve his own political goals. Unlike Mao who viewed himself as above the party, Xi’s fortunes are wholly linked to his place and position within the party. Wong thus tells the story of Xi’s power and influence within the party, from invoking anti-corruption measures (as of this writing, its defense minister Dong Jun is under investigation for corruption, suffering the same fate as his two predecessors), to writing the rules of governance, rejiggling the economy, and projecting its influence globally. While most of these observations and insights will not be new to seasoned Chinese watchers, Wong does an excellent job unpacking and putting on paper what has hitherto only been discussed or speculated about. His wide contacts of sources within China (intellectuals, dissidents, ordinary citizens) allow him to connect the dots in the Chinese political space and to conclude that “Xi’s efforts [in maintaining domestic stability] have yielded a nonpareil system of social control” (p. 92). By allowing his contacts to tell their stories where possible, Wong provides us with a kaleidoscope of narratives testifying to the overarching narrative: Xi’s words are law, what he says becomes policy.

Since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms and opening up in the late 1970s, China has prided itself on wanting to be open to the outside world so as to ensure economic growth. Even during the Tiananmen period of the late 1980s, where relations between China and the West witnessed a downturn, Beijing’s purge of liberal-minded colleagues was only short-lived as Deng himself embarked on his southern tour in 1992. This was followed by Jiang Zemin’s declaration that China aimed to build a socialist market economy, enshrining Deng’s path as official orthodoxy. All these have seemed to change under Xi; the party—not the market—reigns supreme. As Wong puts it, what is happening to China today is an economic “hybrid system that combines central planning with market mechanisms, where state and private enterprises act in concert to advance the party’s economic agenda” (p. 131, emphasis added). In other words, what is ultimately important to Xi is not economic efficiency (in which market forces play their role for better or worse) but the party’s benefits as a result of economic policies. The longevity of the party, not the health of the Chinese economy, is ultimately of key importance. A more vivid example would be the extended lockdown by Chinese government during the coronavirus pandemic in which Beijing did not open up almost a full year after many countries started to open their economies and to live with the virus as being endemic. As a result of the draconian measures taken during the pandemic, the Chinese economy tanked and Beijing today is still trying to recover from the economic damage.[3]

Given the above, one may think that Xi’s godlike status within Chinese society will be eternally secure or that there are no areas of weaknesses in Xi’s political armor. This is not the case, and this is where I think Wong’s portrayal of Xi—as being essentially unchallenged from both within and without—is not quite as clear-cut as the Party of One suggests based on my reading. To be fair, Wong in the conclusion makes the correct observation that “Xi’s China is brash but brittle, intrepid yet insecure” (p. 280); however, Wong does not go so far as to quite point out the chinks within the party, unlike other public intellectuals, like Singapore’s Bilahari Kausikan who talks about Xi as being a “single point of failure within the CCP system.”[4] In other words, by arrogating power to himself, Xi is creating a system that is ripe for disaster, especially when things turn sour. The lack of decentralized decision-making power means potential paralysis in decision-making. By second-guessing what Xi likes, rather than what he needs, Chinese officials and policymakers have little agency to “speak truth to power” and instead end up parroting official Chinese-speech. As evidenced by the coronavirus pandemic, Chinese officials in Wuhan were slow to act as they could not make any meaningful decisions until permission was given from the top in the early stages of the pandemic back in January 2020. Likewise, the recent purge of senior officials at the highest echelons of China’s political office, such as its former foreign minister Qin Gang and three defense ministers, suggests a level of incongruence between decision-makers at the top (including Xi) and the information they are given to make decisions (why weren’t these problems spotted and highlighted earlier?).

Seen this way, the problems within the Chinese political system should not be viewed in isolation and as having no bearing to the broader structure that has enabled the existence and even permissiveness of these problems. As William Shakespeare puts it in Hamlet, “there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” One would hope that in sitting at the apex of power in the Chinese political system, Xi’s philosophy of the world would be sufficiently enlightened to recognize that in his party of one, the buck stops with him.

Notes

[1]. Benjamin Ho, “Why Xi Jinping Cannot Back Down on Coronavirus,” National Interest, June 4, 2022.

[2]. In the Harry Potter books, a horcrux is an object in which a dark wizard or a witch had hidden a detached fragment of their soul in order to become immortal or invincible.

[3]. “China Posts Record Deficit in 2022 on Covid Zero, Property Slump,” Business Times, January 30, 2023, https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/international/china-posts-record-deficit-2022-covid-zero-property-slump; and Sun Yu and Yuan Yang, “Why China’s Economic Recovery from Coronavirus Is Widening the Wealth Gap,” Financial Times, August 18, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/e0e2940a-17cb-40ed-8d27-3722c9349a5d.

[4]. Bilahari Kausikan, “Address by Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan at the Third Atal Bihari Vajpayee Memorial Lecture,” Ministry of External Affiars, Government of India, Media Center, January 23, 2023, https://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/36142/Address_by_Ambassador_Bilahari_Kausikan_at_the_third_Atal_Bihari_Vajpayee_Memorial_Lecture_January_23_2023.

Benjamin Tze Ern Ho is an assistant professor in the China Programme, Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He specializes in the study of Chinese international relations and Asian comparative political order.

Citation: Benjamin Tze Ern Ho. Review of Wong, Chun Han. Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. February, 2025.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=61176

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Book review: Victor Gaetan, Diplomacia papal e do Vaticano - Anne Marie Cammisa (H-Diplo Review)

 

Greetings Paulo Roberto Almeida, New items have been posted matching your subscriptions. Table of Contents H-Diplo: New posted content H-Diplo Review Essay 610: Cammisa on Gaetan, _God's Diplomats_ H-Diplo: New posted content H-Diplo Review Essay 610: Cammisa on Gaetan, _God's Diplomats_ christopher ball H-Diplo Review Essay 610 Victor Gaetan, God’s Diplomats: Pope Francis, Vatican Diplomacy and America’s Armageddon. Rowman & Littlefield, 2021. ISBN: 9781538150146. 22 January 2025 | PDF: https://hdiplo.org/to/E610 | X: @HDiplo | BlueSky: @h-diplo.bsky.social Editor: Diane Labrosse | Commissioning Editor: Daniel R. Hart | Production Editor: Christopher Ball Review by Anne Marie Cammisa, Georgetown University Victor Gaetan’s God’s Diplomats: Pope Francis, Vatican Diplomacy and America’s Armageddon, is an informative and highly readable book that takes a journey through diplomatic history, European history, and American diplomacy using the lens of Vatican diplomatic theory and strategies. Gaetan, a journalist who holds a PhD, sets out to answer the question of what “Washington fears about Pope Francis (Jorge Bergoglio), the first Jesuit pope, and Vatican Diplomacy” (1).[1] In doing so, he provides an intriguing history of the role of the Vatican (or more specifically, the Holy See) in preventing and ameliorating conflict. He does this through case studies involving several papacies, in particular that of Francis.[2] The short answer to the question of what Washington fears is the Vatican’s independence, and, from the US perspective, at least, the Holy See’s unpredictability. Gaetan’s extensive experience covering the Vatican, his important contacts and interviews, and his own professed Catholic faith contribute to a rich insider’s account of Vatican diplomacy. The book is worth reading for its thorough and thoughtful lifting of a veil over a somewhat hidden aspect of diplomacy, but it also has so much more to offer about that diplomacy. It does not claim to be a neutral work of scholarship. As Gaetan shows, the “unpredictability” of Vatican diplomacy has more to do with a worldview that runs counter to the worldview of the United States and other Western democracies than it does with any inconsistency on the part of Vatican diplomats. He argues that “God’s Diplomats” have different, though not necessarily competing, goals from those of other diplomatic actors. The Vatican’s goal of promoting the kingdom of God will necessitate different actions than the goal of promoting state or economic interests or power. Gaetan does not discuss the Holy See’s attempts to protect its own interest or power, but the examples he does provide show the Vatican’s unique approach to diplomacy.[3] Gaetan divides the book into two parts. Part 1 sets out to answer the question of what Washington fears about Vatican diplomacy. Gaetan answers this question by outlining the goals, tactics, methods, and resources of the Catholic Church in the realm of diplomacy. According to Gaetan, what the US wants in a pope is “a yes man. Francis is constitutionally unable to comply because he is a fearless truth-teller and the first pope to grow up in the global South” (13). Part 1 provides a history of Vatican diplomacy and case studies of such diplomacy under Francis as well as different popes.  Building on the framework set up in the first part, part 2 places Pope Francis’s policies in their diplomatic context and explicates his diplomacy as based on his distinct worldview. Gaetan argues that while Francis’s outlook is entirely consistent with the Vatican perspective, it is also colored by his experience as a Jesuit, a parish priest, a bishop, and an Argentinian who lived through the so-called “Dirty War.”[4] During the Dirty War, Gaetan describes Francis’ fearless leadership, his ability to combine his spiritual life with the defense and protection of potential victims. One student referred to Francis as “an eel” for his “ability to maneuver” in this dangerous environment (147). This part also includes in-depth case studies involving Pope Francis and Vatican relations with seven different conflict areas: Ukraine, Cuba, Kenya, Colombia, the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia), China, and South Sudan. The seven substantive chapters (each of which delves into one of those conflict areas) provide insight into Francis’s approach to diplomacy, which, Gaetan posits, is analogous to spreading the gospel. Part 1 offers a fascinating look at the Catholic Church as an especially important, and perhaps overlooked, actor in the diplomatic world. As such, it provides the background to and history of the Vatican’s approach to diplomacy and international relations (specifically pertaining to Europe). “The hallmarks of Francis’ diplomatic approach,” writes Gaetan, “are three: commitment to the centrality of personal encounters in problem-solving, respect for local perception, and patience” (11). These hallmarks, Gaetan argues, were shaped by Francis’s Jesuit education and pastoral experience, and are entirely consistent with the goals of Catholic diplomacy since the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Vatican II called for a greater engagement with the world outside of Europe and a willingness to engage with nontraditional audiences.[5] He suggests that the Catholic Church has been steadfast in its adhering to its principled diplomacy in leading the effort that brought peace to war-torn Mozambique in 1992 (39-42), in its key role in mediating the Cuban Missile Crisis (84-85), and in assisting the normalization of relations between the US and Cuba (181-182). This is particularly true, he notes, when situations turn dangerous. Archbishop Jose Sebastain Laboa was able to successfully prevent further bloodshed by convincing Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega to peacefully surrender to the US in a series of negotiations (15-20). Gaetan argues that Francis’s approach is derived from Catholic doctrine and tradition.  As Gaetan explains, “Vatican” diplomacy is a misnomer. Vatican City is the territory occupied by the Holy See, which is the government of the Catholic Church. It is the Holy See which appoints diplomats and directs policy. Gaetan also tells the interesting and complicated story of how the Catholic Church has remained the only world religion with the same rights as a state (93-116).[6] Holy See diplomats are priests who are appointed as bishops and are expected to have five important characteristics: collegiality (a commitment to collaborate with other diplomats), efficiency, discretion, deep knowledge, and dedication (20). They report to the Pope, who is “an absolute monarch” whose job is to imitate Christ and “love to the point of martyrdom” (28). The diplomats themselves, who are known as apostolic nuncios, also represent God. These job descriptions do not describe the mandates of most modern diplomats. As priests, papal nuncios cannot have families and can thus devote themselves entirely to their jobs. Their mission is to represent the Holy See, to mediate, to preserve the faith, and to evangelize (the “great commission”) (46). Though the Holy See has an economy and economic interests akin to any other nation, its unconventional nature means that tariffs and economic sanctions do not have the same diplomatic weight as they might in other states. In addition, the constituency of the Holy See is not a nation limited by geographic borders: the Vatican considers its “citizenry” to include all Catholics (and Christians) worldwide. For example, a country such as China cannot be considered an enemy, if only for the fact that there are Chinese Catholics (with bishops of two different provenances, 271-298).[7] As Pope Francis articulated in an interview with journalist Norah O’Donnell on 60 Minutes, one can hate a government and its policies, but one must never hate its people.[8] Vatican diplomacy under Francis, in Gaetan’s telling, regards each individual human being (including dictators such as Manuel Noriega of Panama) as being made in the image and likeness of God.[9] Gaetan describes the Catholic Church as a diplomatic actor that is respected by its peers for its moral suasion and the professionalism of its diplomats.[10] That professionalism, he argues, is honed in the “Pontifical Academy of Ecclesiastical Nobles,” or Accademia, which was established in 1701 after the Peace of Westphalia (18-19, 73-80). The school teaches languages, history, and Catholic ministry. In 2020, two new courses were added to the curriculum: one on the pathology of pedophilia, and another on the plight of migrants and their relationship to the Church (71). Instruction is based on the case-study method, and more recently, through a year of missionary work. The school’s focus on ministry and its preparation for the intensity of the diplomatic career are hallmarks of its preparation. The focus is always on the sacerdotal role of the papal diplomats. Pope John XXIII (Angelo Roncalli), who was himself known for diplomatic successes (and who is presented here as a foreshadowing of Pope Francis), is quoted as saying “The Church’s only diplomacy is that of the priesthood. This is the diplomacy that I have always practiced” (65). Francis, too, practices that same diplomacy, according to Gaetan: “both elected in their late 70s, the most fundamental similarity between Francis and John XXIII is this characteristic: Angelo Roncalli brought a pastoral spirit to diplomacy, then to Rome; Jorge Bergoglio, too, is a pastor first and foremost” (66).[11] Part 1 ends with five long-standing diplomatic rules of thumb 1) Avoid creating winners and losers; 2) Remain impartial in the face of conflict; 3) Refrain from partisan politics; 4) Pursue dialogue with everyone; 5) Show faith through charity. There are also the five “Bergoglian additions” (139-144) that create “a culture of encounter”: 6) Start processes that God can finish; 7) Initiate encounters with humility and respect; 8) Proceed through concrete steps and gestures; 9) Allow mutual respect to grow step by step; 10) Find common ground and build agreement from there (117-144). Apart from the stricture to let God finish processes, these diplomatic rules of thumb are not overtly religious, though certainly Francis, in Gaetan’s telling, roots them in a religious worldview. Part 2 moves on from the framework developed in part 1 and provides in-depth case studies to show Francis’s diplomatic theories in action. As such, any diplomat facing contention, crisis, and conflict would do well to follow these rules. Part 2 of God’s Diplomats then gives examples of diplomacy in action. Part 2 focuses on Francis’s diplomatic skills. Gaetan’s introduction to this part posits that Francis’s gifts are threefold (a very Jesuitical number): manager, missionary, and mystic. Gaetan uses the seven cases to illustrate those gifts. As a manager, Francis focuses on practicality. His Evangelii Gaudium outlines four guiding principles of his leadership theory and style: the whole is greater than its parts; reality is more important than ideas; unity prevails over conflict; and time is greater than space (128-134).[12] Recalling Gaetan’s supposition that the US is afraid of Francis’s unpredictability, these principles demonstrate that his approach is based on a particular worldview that is itself internally consistent, though not necessarily obvious to outside observers. For example, the first principle means that in Ukraine’s (or any other country’s) religious conflicts, Francis should not prioritize one group of Christians over another (the whole is greater than its parts). Francis’s experience in the Argentine “Dirty War” means that he despises ideology; in his opinion, reality is more important than ideas.[13] His astonishing gesture of kneeling in humility to kiss the feet of Sudanese leaders during peace talks between Sudan and Uganda illustrated his principle of unity prevailing over conflict (299-316). Each leader was Christian, though only one was Catholic, and the Pope’s gesture was interpreted by Africans as a symbol of God’s love and blessing over all people. President Salva Kiir later said, “I was shocked and trembled when His Holiness the Pope kissed our feet. It was a blessing and can be a curse if we play games with the lives of our people.”[14] The idea of time being greater than space is illustrated in the on-again, off-again agreement between the Church and Beijing over what entity has the right to select bishops. Though the agreement fell through in February 2018, the Pope allowed time to “ripen” the agreement, which was formalized, in the fall of that year, after 70 years of stalemate (271-298). There are other examples, each illustrating the unique gifts or theories of Pope Francis or of Vatican diplomacy. Though Gaetan calls Francis the “first pope truly independent of the twentieth century’s ideological battles” (12), God’s Diplomats is not exclusively a hagiography and is well-grounded in Gaetan’s reporting and research. It is an excellent and compelling read, full of depth. Gaetan provides example after example as to how Holy See diplomacy can be a refreshing and successful alternative to more secular modes of diplomacy. The inclusion of case studies of Vatican diplomacy that did not turn out so well, with a discussion of what principles or rules of thumb were neglected or overlooked, would strengthen the argument. A concluding chapter which summarizes the overall lessons of the book, and, in particular, showing how those lessons might be adopted by secular diplomats, would also be useful. Though the book’s subtitle is Pope Francis, Vatican Diplomacy and America’s Armageddon, Gaetan does not fully explain what he means by “American Armageddon.” But these are just minor quibbles. God’s Diplomats is a book well worth reading.   Anne Marie Cammisa is a teaching professor in the Department of Government and in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, and a research affiliate at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. She is the co-author with Paul Christopher Manuel of The Path of American Public Policy: Comparative Perspectives (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013) and Checks and Balances: How a Parliamentary System Could Change American Politics (Routledge, 1999),and the author of From Rhetoric to Reform: Welfare Policy in American Politics(Routledge, 1998) and Intergovernmental Lobbying: State and Local Governments in the Federal Arena (Bloomsbury, 1995).   [1] See Victor Gaetan, “The Pontiff, the President, and the Planet,” Foreign Affairs, 26 October 2021 and Gaetan, “Pope John Paul I’s Legacy Is Rediscovered,” National Catholic Register, 21 July 2024. God’s Diplomats is his first book. [2] See Pope Francis, Life: My Story Through History (Harper, 2024). [3] See Ken Hackett, The Vatican Code: American Diplomacy in the Time of Francis(Paulist Press, 2022); Anne Marie Cammisa, “The Pope and the United States: Faith as Dialogue,” in Alynna J. Lyon, Christine A. Gustafson, and Paul Christopher Manuel, eds., Pope Francis as a Global Actor(Springer, 2018), 143-168; Marshall J. Breger and Herbert R. Reginbogin, eds., The Vatican and Permanent Neutrality(Lexington, 2022); Peter Kent and John F, Pollard, eds., Papal Diplomacy in the Modern Age (Praeger, 1994). For recent issue-specific works see David Kertzer, The Pope Who Would Be King: The Exile of Pius IX and the Emergence of Modern Europe(Oxford University Press, 2018); Charles R. Gallagher, Vatican Secret Diplomacy: Joseph P. Hurley and Pope Pius XII (Yale University Press, 2008); Roman A. Melnyk, Vatican Diplomacy at the United Nations: A History of Catholic Global Engagement(Edwin Mellen Press, 2009). [4] See Antonius C. G. M. Robben, Political Violence and Trauma in Argentina (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). [5] Massimo Faggioli and Catherine E. Clifford, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II (Oxford University Press, 2023), 621-754. [6] See Lawrence C. Reardon and Clyde Wilcox, eds., The Catholic Church and the Nation-State: Comparative Perspectives(Georgetown University Press, 2006), and Thomas J. Reese, Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church (Harvard University Press, 1998). [7] In China, there are two bishops with different provenances; one officially Roman Catholic and the other appointed by the Communist Catholic Patriotic Association. See Philip Pullella, “Vatican, China Sign Landmark Accord on Appointing Bishops,” Reuters, 25 September 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/world/vatican-china-sign-landmark-accord-on-appointing-bishops-idUSKCN1M20ID/. [8] Norah O’Donnell, interview with Pope Francis, 60 Minutes, CBS, 19 May 2024. [9] The Catholic Church, particularly during the Cold War battle with Communism, struggled with its philosophy of “hate the sin, but love the sinner.” See Kertzer, Comrades and Christians Religions and Political Struggle in Communist Italy (Cambridge University Press, 1980); Patrick H. McNamara, A Catholic Cold War: Edmund A. Walsh, SJ and Politics of American Anticommunism (Fordham University Press, 2005). [10] Gaetan’s assertion is challenged most prominently by David Kertzer who contends the Vatican played an active role in the rise of fascism in Italy under Prime Minister Benito Mussolini (The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe (Random House, 2014)), and in ignoring the Holocaust (The Pope at War: The Secret History Of Pius XII, Mussolini, And Hitler(Random House, 2022)). [11] On Pope John XXIII, see Peter Hebblethwaite, Pope John XXIII, Shepherd of the Modern World (Doubleday, 1985); Pope John XXIII, Journal of a Soul(Doubleday, 1999); Thomas Cahill, Pope John XXIII (Viking, 2002); Greg Tobin, The Good Pope: The Making of a Saint and the Re-Making of the Church (Harper, 2012). [12] For a discussion of how Argentinian “Theology of the People” influenced the development of the four “Bergoglian principles,” see Juan Carlos Scannone, SJ, “Pope Francis and Theology of the People,” Theological Studies 77 (2016): 118-135. [13] Gustavo Morello, The Catholic Church and Argentina’s Dirty War (Oxford University Press, 2015); Cindy Wooden, “Pope Francis: ‘I Did What I Felt I Had to Do’ During Argentina’s Dirty War,” America, 9 May 2023, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/05/09/pope-speaks-painful-situation-jesuits-argentina-dirty-war-245254; Harold Maass, “Everything You Need to Know About Pope Francis and Argentina's Dirty War,” The Week, 8 January 2015, https://theweek.com/articles/466588/everything-need-know-about-pope-francis-argentinas-dirty-war; Nello Scavo, Bergoglio’s List: How a Young Francis Defied a Dictatorship and Saved Dozens of Lives (Saint Benedictine Press, 2014). [14] Brian Adeba,“4 Years Since the Pope’s ‘Shocking’ Kiss,’” Radio Tamazuj, 6 February 2023, https://www.radiotamazuj.org/en/news/article/4-years-since-the-popes-shocking-kiss-papal-visit-underscores-delays-in-peace-deal-and-suffering-in-south-sudan.