--- description: Xi Jinping is on the TIME 100 2017 list. John Kerry wrote about the President of China. title: Xi Jinping by John Kerry: TIME 100 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt179a8394fb0a0a10/6988c3440a4a2235979cdc19/time-100-2017-xi-jinping.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 19, 2017 # Xi Jinping by John Kerry  Photograph by Jason Alden—Bloomberg/Getty Images Fascinating, smart, forever the iconoclast breaking the mold, Xi Jinping has a confident determination to assert a new role for China on the world stage. The evidence is everywhere of late: from joining with the U.S. to gavel in a historic climate-change commitment many once dismissed as a pipe dream, to a coming-out speech in Davos that announced an aspiration to lead in the global order—something his predecessors dismissed as a burden belonging to other nations, always protecting instead China’s prerogative to develop at its own pace. Embracing a new role among nations will no doubt bring with it more challenging choices and realities. Those expectations can collide with a path China still guards—on human rights, on international law in the South China Sea or in the constructive role a motivated China could always play in resolving the provocations of a petulant Kim Jong Un next door. But there’s no mistaking the potential that one day we might look back and say that Xi’s time at the helm marked the inflection point for his country and his people. _Kerry is a former U.S. Secretary of State_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4736348/xi-jinping-3/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4736348/xi-jinping-3/"},"headline":"Xi Jinping","datePublished":"2017-04-19T17:31:02.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:22:01.068Z","description":"Xi Jinping is on the TIME 100 2017 list. John Kerry wrote about the President of China.","url":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4736348/xi-jinping-3/","keywords":["TIME 100"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt179a8394fb0a0a10/6988c3440a4a2235979cdc19/time-100-2017-xi-jinping.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt179a8394fb0a0a10/6988c3440a4a2235979cdc19/time-100-2017-xi-jinping.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4736348/xi-jinping-3/","name":"Xi Jinping"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"See All the TIME 100 Honorees in One Minute","description":"The TIME 100 honorees include actors, musicians, politicians, business leaders, activists and scientists, and together make a portrait of influence in 2017.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zZCdrcRA/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-04-20T10:30:45.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zZCdrcRA.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4736348/xi-jinping-3/","duration":"PT56S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4736348/xi-jinping-3/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```