China's leader, Xi Jinping, is one of the most powerful individuals in the world—and one of the least understood. Much can be learned, however, about both Xi Jinping and the nature of the party he leads from the memory and legacy of his father, the revolutionary Xi Zhongxun (1913–2002). The elder Xi served the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for more than seven decades. He worked at the right hand of prominent leaders Zhou Enlai and Hu Yaobang. He helped build the Communist base area that saved Mao Zedong in 1935, and he initiated the Special Economic Zones that launched China into the reform era after Mao's death. He led the Party's United Front efforts toward Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Taiwanese. And though in 1989 he initially sought to avoid violence, he ultimately supported the Party's crackdown on the Tiananmen protesters.

'The Party's Interests Come First' is the first biography of Xi Zhongxun written in English. This biography is at once a sweeping story of the Chinese revolution and the first several decades of the People's Republic of China and a deeply personal story about making sense of one's own identity within a larger political context. Drawing on an array of new documents, interviews, diaries, and periodicals, Joseph Torigian vividly tells the life story of Xi Zhongxun, a man who spent his entire life struggling to balance his own feelings with the Party's demands. Through the eyes of Xi Jinping's father, Torigian reveals the extraordinary organizational, ideological, and coercive power of the CCP—and the terrible cost in human suffering that comes with it.

Joseph Torigian, Associate Professor at the American University, Washington will be discussing ‘The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping’ at the Lau China Institute, King's College London Strand chaired by Nicola Leveringhaus, Senior Lecturer, Department of War Studies at King’s College London.

Hosted jointly with Young China Watchers.

This is an in-person event and will be recorded for those unable to attend.

Registration is required.

About the speakers

Joseph Torigian is an associate professor at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, and a Center Associate of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. Previously, he was a Visiting Fellow at the China in the World Program at Australian National University, a Stanton Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton-Harvard’s China and the World Program, a Postdoctoral (and Predoctoral) Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), a Predoctoral Fellow at George Washington University’s Institute for Security and Conflict Studies, an IREX scholar affiliated with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and a Fulbright Scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai. His first book, “Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao” was released with Yale University Press, and "The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping" was published by Stanford University Press in 2025.

Nicola Leveringhaus (MPhil, DPhil, Oxon) is Senior Lecturer in East Asian Security and International Relations in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. Dr Leveringhaus specialises in military and security developments in Northeast Asia, especially related to nuclear weapons and China. Previously, Dr Leveringhaus lectured at Sheffield University (2015-16) and was a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2012-15) and Stipendiary Lecturer in International Relations (Trinity College, 2014-15) at Oxford University. She has been a Senior Visiting Scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China and a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. Her second book China and Global Nuclear Order, from Estrangement to Active Engagement (Oxford University Press) was nominated for the 2017 ECPR Hedley Bull Prize.

Please contact lauchina@kcl.ac.uk if you have any questions or specific participatory requirements.

Book talk - 'The Party's Interests Come First' by Joseph Torigian