Tuesday, April 28, 2015

X is for Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping competes heavily in the competition for "favorite piece of fiction that is based on truth". I have been shocked many times in the course of writing my fiction as research has discovered something completely unexpected that blends right in to the plot of either River and Ranch or New Grass Growing.

First of all Xi Jinping is pretty much the top dog in Chinese government. Let's call him the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the President of the People's Republic of China, and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, all of which are his titles. Imagine the name tag he must have. At time he seems like a pretty decent guy, working hard to rein in corruption and introducing selected tenets of Western culture. On the other hand, he has also taken several steps to strengthen the Central Party leadership. He's a divided man. From what I can read of him though, he seems like a decent man with a near impossible job of maintaining control and order throughout China, growing the economy, and evolving China's place in the global economy.

Xi Jinping was an exchange student in Muscatine, Iowa during his university years. This was the surprise discovery that is one more of those "truth is stranger than fiction" moments that occurred for me while researching.

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