Is China's decline being forged by Xi Jinping right now? How does Xi survive that?
Xi Jinping was once seemingly a backer of private enterprise, but no more:
Xi, now the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, has launched a broadside against private business in China. Along with tightening regulations governing firms—mandating that companies have Communist Party committees, which can have significant input in their direction, for example—he is also targeting entrepreneurs themselves, as a collective and as individuals.
Will Xi kill the goose that lays the golden egg?
Experts such as Dexter Roberts, the author of The Myth of Chinese Capitalism, believe that the economic consequences of Xi’s move to limit private business could be severe. He sees slower growth, weakened innovation, and less competition all contributing to economic stagnation. Already, the lurch back to reliance on state-owned firms has affected productivity: The amount of capital needed to generate one unit of economic growth has nearly doubled since Xi took power.
This attack on entrepreneurs sets China back politically as well. Xi seems to have embraced Leninist logic essentially unchanged since the days of Mao: Only in times of crisis does the party loosen its grip, allowing more free enterprise and more freedom. It always does so reluctantly and then reverts to form.
China's economy may have crippling problems even without a war on private enterprise. Do read it all.
I'm primed to believe that China has problems. I have frequently contested the idea that America is "declining" although America will experience a relative decline as China rises. But that is different than saying American power is declining. I assume that China won't rise at their high rate forever. Even if China passes America by in raw power, I doubt China can hold the lead. Xi may just be accelerating that reversal of Chinese fortune.
Will that outcome of killing China's growing economy kill him, too? Either figuratively or literally?
The primacy of the Chinese Communist Party is job one and everything else is a distant second. How does Xi survive that economic crisis?
Emperor Xi believes he is the party. But if strengthening his control of China through the CCP has too much of a price tag for China, the rest of the party might strongly disagree with Xi.
