Red Széll

And you might think, well, you know, I know quite a lot about Xi Jinping, but this contextualises his rise to power.

And the book, by the way, sorry, is called The Red Emperor, Xi Jinping and His New China.

It points out that Xi Jinping's lifetime coincides with the emergence of China as a world superpower from being a bankrupt and very backward international pariah in the early 1950s.

And it charts how...

Xi Jinping, for all the fact that he is a determined and very loyal communist, also rose on the back of what Sheridan calls a red aristocracy, the sons and daughters of Chairman Mao's right-hand men.

Now, Xi's own father was one of Chairman Mao's top men.

leading right-hand men, who also, like so many of Mao's loyalists, fell foul of him and ended up being exiled, as did Xi himself when he was 13 years old.

And he paints a fascinating portrait of Mao.

what a teenage Xi Jinping was doing at the same time as another world leader

who we currently have on the other side of the Atlantic, was just hitting the New York party scene.

Here's a clip of Michael Sheridan talking about that very point.

And remember, you can find the whole episode by searching your favourite podcast provider for My Life in Books.

Absolutely.

He is both a creation of Red China, but also its leader who has helped mold

the China that we have now, which is the sort of techno state, techno security state, where super rich mafia-style families vie for supremacy among scandal and, well, all sorts.

I mean, some of the sex scandals that Michael Sheridan writes about are just...

Eye-raising.

And then you think, well, funnily enough, the same kind of thing was going on in New York at the same kind of time with Stormy Daniels, allegedly.

So, yeah, no, I mean, it is a fascinating portrait of a great world leader that also throws other world leaders into perspective as well.

And maybe...