Strategic Studies Geopolitics

Inside Xi's China: A 2018 Field Note

Dipankar Sarkar
Dipankar Sarkar · · 5 min read

This is a field note from the Takshashila Institution’s Special Credit Course on Inside Xi’s China, August–September 2018. The course was a focused one-month study of the People’s Republic of China under Xi Jinping — political economy, foreign policy, civil-military fusion, and the implications for India and the Indo-Pacific. I took the course as a Takshashila student and passed with distinction. This is what stuck with me eight years later.

The frame: Xi’s China is not a continuation of Hu’s China

The most useful frame the course gave me is that Xi’s China is structurally different from the Hu Jintao era that preceded it. Three shifts:

  1. From collective to personal leadership. Under Hu, decisions were made by the Politburo Standing Committee. Under Xi, decisions are made by Xi personally, with the Politburo ratifying. The leadership style is more like a CEO-chairman than a consensus manager.
  2. From “hide and bide” to “striving for achievement.” Deng Xiaoping’s famous “hide your strength, bide your time” has been replaced by a more assertive posture. The phrase now is “the east wind is rising” — China’s moment is now.
  3. From low to high ideology. Under Hu, ideology was a sideshow. Under Xi, ideology is back at the centre — Marxism-Leninism with Chinese characteristics, the “Chinese dream” of national rejuvenation, the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049.

Political economy: state capitalism with Chinese characteristics

The course’s most counter-intuitive lesson was that China’s economic model is not best described as “communist” or “state-capitalist” but as a Leninist party-state with a market economy. The Communist Party is not a regulator of the economy; the economy is a tool of the Party. This matters because:

  • Companies are not private actors. They are instruments of state policy. Jack Ma’s Ant Group IPO was halted in 2020 not because of securities law but because of a single speech by Xi. The business of business is politics.
  • The Party is everywhere. Every company above a certain size has a Party committee. The committee’s role is not ceremonial — it has decision-making authority. This is true of TikTok/ByteDance, Huawei, and every major tech company in China.
  • The financial system is a tool. Capital controls, currency management, and the state-owned banks are not separate from industrial policy — they are the mechanism by which the state directs capital to chosen sectors (semiconductors, EVs, biotech, AI, green energy).

Civil-military fusion: the war machine as one system

The most concerning lesson was on civil-military fusion (军民融合, MCF). The strategy is to make the Chinese military and the civilian economy a single system. This is not just procurement — it is the deliberate integration of commercial technology (AI, biotech, quantum, space) into the military.

  • AI in particular. The same facial recognition systems sold by Chinese companies to police departments are used in Xinjiang. The same AI chips developed for commercial applications are used in military systems. The “Belt and Road” infrastructure carries both civilian and military traffic.
  • Education. The National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) is a top-tier military university with deep ties to the commercial AI ecosystem. Many of the leading Chinese AI researchers have military affiliations.
  • Standards. China is pushing its own standards (5G, AI, blockchain) in international standards bodies as a way to embed its technology in the global infrastructure. The 5G story is the canonical example.

Implications for India

The course ended with a session on India. The framing was direct: India is the primary strategic counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific. The implications:

  • Economic decoupling is not optional. India will need to build self-reliance in semiconductors, AI, quantum, and biotech. The “make in India” and “China+1” strategies are not just industrial policy; they are strategic survival.
  • Defence modernisation is urgent. The military balance with China is shifting against India. The 2020 Galwan clash and the 2022 Tawang clash are not isolated incidents; they are part of a pattern of probing.
  • Alliances matter. India cannot defend the Indo-Pacific alone. The Quad (US, India, Japan, Australia), the I2U2 (India, Israel, UAE, US), and bilateral defence partnerships are not optional.
  • The Indian Ocean is the next theatre. The PRC’s string of pearls (Gwadar, Hambantota, Chittagong) is a strategic encirclement. India needs to maintain naval dominance in the Indian Ocean.

What I took away

The course shaped how I think about technology. The PRC’s industrial policy is a blueprint for what India needs to do in AI, semiconductors, and biotech. The “hide and bide” → “striving for achievement” transition explains the technology transfer battles of the last decade. The civil-military fusion explains the dual-use nature of Chinese AI.

I came out of the course with a framework that I still use: read every Chinese technology move as a strategic move, and every Indian technology move as a counter-move. The Indo-Pacific technology stack is the next battleground. India is positioning itself to compete.

— Dipankar Sarkar Takshashila Institution alumnus (Strategic Studies, Inside Xi’s China)

This is a 2026 reflection on a 2018 course. The original course materials are property of The Takshashila Institution. The views here are my own.