As international interest in the series of volumes of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China continues to grow, Kazakh scholar Gulnar Shaimergenova has observed a widening curiosity about the ideas guiding China's development and its engagement with the world.
Shaimergenova, director of the China Studies Center in Kazakhstan, a think tank based in Astana, the nation's capital, has participated in translating the Kazakh language editions of the series. She said that the books form a coherent intellectual framework elaborating the continuity, resilience and sense of direction of China's development.
She described the series as a "road map of thinking" of Chinese modernization, as it allows readers to understand China's achievements, as well as the reasoning and priorities underpinning key decisions.
"The series turns China's development from an external 'phenomenon' into an understandable system of ideas that partners can engage with more confidently," she said.
At a time of global uncertainty, Shaimergenova said that readers around the world want to understand how China approaches development, what principles underpin its domestic and foreign policies, and what the country is doing, why it is doing it and where it is heading.
The series currently comprises five volumes. The first volume was published in September 2014, and the most recent volume, the fifth, was published in July 2025.
"The fifth volume stands out because it reflects a mature stage of implementation," said Shaimergenova. She added that the fifth volume emphasizes domestic priorities, such as high-quality development and enhancing people's well-being, and illustrates how the vision of building a community with a shared future for humanity has been transformed into policy proposals and diplomatic initiatives.
She described President Xi Jinping's leadership as combining strategic vision, a strong sense of responsibility and an emphasis on practical results.
The series of volumes shows that Xi approaches governance as a long-term undertaking, in which maintaining the consistency of direction is as important as choosing specific policy tools, she added.
"Successful governance is not only about setting ambitious goals. It's about building the institutional 'machinery' that can steadily turn those goals into reality. For Kazakhstan, the most relevant aspects of China's governance experience are not ready-made models, but certain principles and mechanisms," she said, adding that strategic planning, policy predictability, people-centered development and effective implementation were particularly relevant to the Central Asian nation's reform agenda.
Shaimergenova highlighted transportation corridors, cross-border logistics, industrial development and energy transition as areas where these principles could support bilateral cooperation.
She also pointed to digitalization and innovation-driven growth as areas in which China's experience offers practical value as Kazakhstan seeks to diversify its economy and develop knowledge-based industries.
"The real value of China's governance experience for Kazakhstan lies in how it can help us make our own long-term partnership projects more predictable, more people-centered and more result-oriented," she said.
