Rise of the Red Engineers: The Cultural Revolution and the Origins of China's New Class

摘要

In November 2012, Xi Jinping, an engineer educated at Tsinghua University, became General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee and China's top leader. He was preceded in this role by Hu Jintao, another Tsinghua-trained engineer, who himself succeeded another engineer, Jiang Zemin. Before Li Keqiang, an economist, became the current premier, his most recent predecessors were Wen Jiabao, a geologist, and Zhu Rongji, and Li Peng, both engineers. In the Politburo Standing Committee of both the 16th and 17th Central Committees, eight out of nine members were engineers. Anyone who wants to understand how the top ranks of CCP leadership became dominated by engineers, and in particular by Tsinghua engineering graduates, should read Joel Andreas's excellent book, Rise of the Red Engineers.