Forging The Future: Power & Politics In Xi's China

About the Book

Does anyone really understands China?

Less than one hundred years after the Cultural Revolution, China is, arguably, the most powerful state in the world. A nation once ravaged by war and poverty, the world's most populous country has blossomed to extents never before seen in history, its meteoric rise to global superpower status quite literally taking the world by storm. How did a nation that a century ago seemed on the brink of tearing itself apart emerge as the planet's second-largest economy, a booming blend of ancient culture and urban sprawl where communism and capitalism at once battle and blend under the stalwart fist of the CCP? And what does the future hold for those nations who must now share the stage with this force on the rise, walking the line of adversary and ally on military, economic and political fronts? In many ways, the future of China will dictate the future of the modern world, and how the rest of us respond to its continued growth will define whether that future will be one of cooperation, coexistence, or outright conflict. As China leads the charge into a new technological age, one where wars are fought with computer chips, empires are built in mines, and the dawn of artificial intelligence challenges the very nature of what being human means, that future seems closer than ever.

With striking clarity and poignant prose, Jamestown and its editor's Arran Hope and Peter Mattis carve their way to the heart of what makes China economic juggernaut so difficult to understand and harder to combat.

n this groundbreaking book the world's newest superpower, covering everything from the Chinese Communist Party's axis of power to the far reaches of the country's foreign ambition, the authors present a picture of China as it has never been seen before. In Forging The Future, we discover China from the inside out, an interconnected nation where economic goals, military might, and the life of the average citizen go hand in hand, driven by a universal doctrine of patriotism and power with its eyes always on the big picture: the singular goal of Comprehensive National Power. Tracing its emergence as a spearhead of science - from critical minerals to data chips, high speed trains to stealth bombers - they explore how China's technological ambition is about so much more than innovation, and how its continued tech dominance could shape the entire Earth.

About the Author :
Peter Mattis is President of The Jamestown Foundation, a position he began in Fall 2023. He returned to the foundation after having served as editor of China Brief from 2011 to 2013 and as a fellow in the China program from 2013 to 2018. Most recently, Mr. Mattis was Senior Fellow with the U.S. House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party on loan from the Special Competitive Studies Project where he served as Director for Intelligence. From 2019 to 2021, he served as the Senate-appointed staff director of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) where he was a part of the legislative team that passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, Tibetan Policy and Support Act, and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. He began his government career as a counterintelligence analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he earned exceptional performance awards for analytic leadership and community support. Mr. Mattis has written and spoken widely about the Chinese Government and Communist Party’s politics, foreign policy, internal security, intelligence, and political influence activities – including testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, House Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and the European Parliament. Mr. Mattis’ writing and commentary have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Diplomat, Sydney Morning Herald, Studies in Intelligence, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, War on the Rocks, and The National Interest. He also has been quoted in major media outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Washington Post, The Economist, BBC, The Guardian, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.Mattis is the author of Analyzing the Chinese Military: A Review Essay and Resource Guide on the People’s Liberation Army (2015) and co-author of Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer (2019)—both of which he wrote while a Jamestown fellow. He is a graduate of the University of Washington and Georgetown University. Arran Hope is the editor of China Brief at The Jamestown Foundation, where he also has responsibility for additional China-related publications and programming. His writings analyzing political developments in the People’s Republic of China have informed U.S. government reports and appear on university course syllabi. He has also appeared on panels at the Hudson Institute and testified in front of U.S. state senators. He edited the reference volume The People’s Liberation Army as Organization Volume 3.0 (2025).  Arran holds master’s degrees in Chinese studies from the University of Cambridge and Columbia University, where he focused on twentieth century Chinese political history. He has spent time studying and working in Beijing and Taipei, and is proficient in Mandarin Chinese, as well as in French and Japanese. Arran previously worked as a reporter for The China Project covering Chinese technology and business. His writing has appeared in The Diplomat and in print in the Italian magazine Formiche.