Presenting the official party line for China's development in the 21st century, the collection is an authoritative source on Xi Jinping Thought.

[10]: 22 The first two volumes of Governance of China were formally presented to western audiences at the London Book Fair upon their release,[1][11] and both volumes have been translated into other major languages, including English, Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Uyghur, Tibetan, Kazakh, Korean, Kyrgyz, Mongolian, Polish, Standard Zhuang, and so forth.

[19][20] Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, writing in Foreign Policy, however, called it a "…mix of stilted Communist Party argot, pleasant-sounding generalizations, and 'Father Knows Best'-style advice to the world".

[21] It received limited praise in other areas of Western society, however, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly having read the book and ordering copies for his company's employees (though Zuckerberg's interest in the book has been interpreted as a vested interest—Facebook is blocked in China, and if the block were lifted the potential result would be a dramatic increase in Facebook's userbase).

[18][24] A 2021 report published by Reuters, claimed that Amazon sided with the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party and stopped allowing any customer reviews for the book on the Chinese version of the website, citing "two people familiar with the incident".