China's political and economic growth in the past three decades is one of astonishing, epochal dimensions. The country has undergone a remarkable transformation on a scale similar to the industrial revolution in the West. The most remarkable part of this transformation, however, has been largely left untold—the central role of the Chinese Communist Party. As an organization alone, the Party is a phenomenon of unique scale and power. With more than seventy-three million members, it does more than just rule a country. The Party not only has a grip on every aspect of government, from the largest, richest cities to the smallest far-flung villages in Tibet and Xinjiang, it also presides over all official religions, the media, the military and large state-owned businesses.

In The Party, to be published by Allen Lane in June, Richard McGregor delves deeply into China's inner sanctum as few have done before. As the world's only geo-political rival of the United States, the Party's decisions have a global impact, yet it remains a deeply secretive body, hostile to the law, unaccountable to anybody or anything other than its own internal tribunals, and primed to think the worst of the West.

Richard McGregor is the China bureau chief for the Financial Times. Since 1990, he has spent all but two years in north Asia, starting in Taiwan, and then in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Beijing, where he established offices for The Australian newspaper. He joined the FT in 2000 in Shanghai and was appointed China bureau chief in 2005. He has also contributed articles and reports to the BBC, the International Herald Tribune and the Far Eastern Economic Review.

Martin Jacques is a visiting senior fellow at LSE IDEAS and author of When China Rules the World: the rise of the middle kingdom and the end of the western world.

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