Book review: Exposing the real motives of Xi Jinping's 'globalisation' rant

How successful has Xi been in his prodigious effort to turn China into a major world power and replace the US as the leader not of an alliance but of a "community of common destiny"?

Revolution has been a favourite word for book titles, especially for those about China. Elizabeth Economy’s The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State, perhaps unintentionally, is different from the rest. Despite the title, the book presents a very convincing portrait of a counter-revolution mounted by President Xi. In domestic and foreign policy, Xi has overturned Deng Xiaoping’s reforms that Economy calls the Second Revolution after that of Mao Zedong. Within weeks of becoming general secretary of the Communist Party in November 2012, Xi left no doubt of the direction in which he wanted to take China —