Richard McGregor, in The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers, has grabbed the bull by the horns. Looking past the superficial, at times misleading reports and statistics, McGregor goes directly to the heart of the issue.

His is a vivid narrative, sprinkled with humour and insightful analysis, of how the party has imprinted itself on almost every aspect of life in China, and how it has maintained its stranglehold on power.

The book's greatest strength stems from the author's membership of a unique group of 'scholar-journalists' - people who have knowledge and insight but also know how to spin a yarn.

As a veteran journalist with rich experience of China, McGregor balances exposition of a heavy and intellectually demanding subject with anecdotes, lively quotes and word portraits of amazing characters, such as maverick 'Mr Idiot Seeds', Nian Guangjiu, or arrogant, reckless former Shanghai party boss Chen Liangyu.

The language is concise and forceful. McGregor digs deep and brings the reader his findings in plain, everyday language.

He has lived and worked for a lengthy period in China. As an outsider, he is able to approach the huge issue of China's rise objectively and his perspective is fresh but well grounded in the facts he gleans from daily interaction with the people.

His outsider status is an advantage. In China, people are more ready to tell foreign journalists things they would not say to Chinese reporters, given they face less likelihood of reprisals. McGregor transforms his on-the-ground experience into clear-headed analysis backed by careful research. All these make The Party an engrossing read.

Central to his argument is that most people outside China have overlooked the role played by the Communist Party in the country's political, social and economic lives.

Part of the reason is the optimism felt generally worldwide borne of the collapse of Marxism after the cold war and the perceived rapid evolution of the Chinese Communist Party. To a certain extent, China has shed many of the salient attributes of a communist state. Apart from a few die-hards, most Chinese disregard orthodox Marxism. Even officials pay little more than lip service to it. China's market economy is firmly established and in many aspects, the country resembles more an authoritarian capitalist state such as South Korea or Taiwan in the 1970s and 80s.

This has led to the optimistic view outside China that the country will inevitably move to 'our side of history'. True, today it is still a one-party state which heavy-handedly regulates the society it rules, but eventually changes will surely arrive, says this school of thought.

McGregor tells us that such determinism is simple and dangerous. The Communist Party so far has surprised its doomsayers with its great tenacity and ability to adapt. Far from being a dying mammoth, it has evolved into a different beast that is hard to define.

McGregor details how the party has not only learned to play the capitalist game but to turn its rules upside-down.

It has produced a unique business model that defies easy classification. Many big firms today are outwardly 'private and independent' and listed overseas. Yet in reality, no noteworthy business in China can survive without the party, which monopolises political power and the vast material resources and web of connections without which no business can hope to prosper.

Observers have said that the emerging class of entrepreneurs could become a force for change and topple the party. Watch closely: the two are so interconnected it is almost impossible to set them apart.

The party is built on Lenin's Bolshevik model - which stresses central leadership, iron discipline and secrecy. Despite the changing times, McGregor convincingly argues, all these features remain intact. On the surface, China is run like other countries, by the government through its ministries. In reality, all real decisions are made by the party's inner circle - the Politburo - and numerous small working groups under it.

As time has rendered obsolete much of its Marxist underpinnings, the Communist Party has reinvented itself, substituting old communist doctrine with nationalist rhetoric, McGregor points out.

Today, the party sells itself within China as the force which will restore the nation to its rightful place in history and its sole guardian against anarchy and chaos.

Combining the coercion of its massive, multi-tiered security apparatus with the softer persuasion of an improved economy which benefits more of the population, China's Communist Party will probably survive far longer than some observers would like to believe.