Cadre Country How China became the Chinese Communist Party

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. 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. Cadre Country is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the workings of the Chinese Communist Party and the limits of its achievements.

John Fitzgerald is the author of Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia, awarded the Ernest Scott Prize of the Australian Historical Association, and Awakening China, awarded the Joseph Levenson Prize of the US Association for Asian Studies.

9. Table of Contents: Introduction 1. Insiders, outsiders, cadres 2. Who owns China? 3. Eat up, lift up 4. Four little tigers 5. Migrant labour 6. Law and planning 7. Leninism and meritocracy 8. China’s national imaginary 9. Party history, family history 10. War of resistance or anti-fascist war 11. Century of humiliation 12. Degeneration and regeneration 13. Managing a patch 14. Capitalism without capitalists 15. Original intentions Conclusion