Last week we discussed how authoritarian or populist leaders are on the rise in various parts of the world. A possible precursor to this phenomenon has been the emergence of Chinese President Xi Jinping. In 2018 Xi changed the country’s constitution to allow the President to remain in power for life, instead of stepping down after 10 years like his predecessors Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin. Last October, he was elected leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for the third time in a row, something his predecessors did not dare to do.
When elected leader, Xi changed the composition of the Politburo and of its Standing Committee, replenishing it with party members loyal to him who would not challenge his views or, most importantly, his policies. This move was clearly intended as a method of consolidating power in his hands.
This was happening at the same time that China was forging its “limitless cooperation” – i.e. strategic alliance – with Russia, another state whose leader, Vladimir Putin, had also changed the constitution to allow himself to remain in power potentially until 2036. Russia was conducting its unjustified invasion of Ukraine, with China supporting (perhaps reluctantly) the “special military operation”, possibly in order to establish a precedent in case of a future invasion of Taiwan.
Just when all the power seemed consolidated in Xi’s hands, the inevitable happened: protests emerged against the ruthlessness of the Xi-mandated Zero-Covid Policy (as we discussed in our preview columns). These protests, for the first time, were not simply against local leaders, as has happened in the past. They were also against the CCP, and its leader as well.
Xi’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, a former Chinese ambassador in Washington, may be the expression of this potential rethinking of the overt confrontation of China with the West. If there were to be a rapprochement between the US and China, potentially sealed at the APEC meeting in San Francisco this coming November, when Xi is expected to visit the US, it would be welcome news.
The Politburo has since allowed cities to ease the Covid restrictions, in a move that was intended to be a soft, and less visible, U-turn in policy. Official data from China now admit there have been 60,000 deaths as a result of the re-opening of the economy and the consequent re-spreading of the virus, at a time when China still has not vaccinated large part of the population. Many countries introduced restrictions for Chinese travellers, against which the Chinese government threatened “retaliation” – without considering the severe and unilateral quarantine measures the government itself has been imposing on foreign travellers for the last two years.
Meanwhile, the FT reported that doubts have emerged about China’s “limitless cooperation” with Russia. In a previous column, we have already talked about the first cracks emerging. But now it seems that irritation is mounting in Beijing on the way Putin is conducting Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, which is causing severe damage to the global economy, including for China, which depends on foreign growth for its exports. Additionally, it seems that on the famous meeting between Xi and Putin on 4th February 2022, Putin hid his invasion plans from Xi, only saying Russia “would not rule out taking whatever measures possible if eastern Ukrainian separatists attack Russian territory and cause humanitarian disasters.”
Our fear however is that any such rapprochement may be merely a tactical move, to ease the tension on Xi’s leadership and on the global economy. The broader context of Cold War II seems to us to still be intact, and likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future.
