What happened to the promise of giddy 2013 China? Could it be forever Xi is the ‘wrong man for the moment’?

By Chris Taylor | Radio Free Asia

Radio Free Asia looks at a China some are calling a “pariah state” under Xi Jinping’s one-man dictatorship and what the future may hold for a leader who once symbolized a resurgence of economic reform and a certain political easing.

Nearly one year into his third term, critics are wondering if Xi is the ‘wrong man for the moment’ as the country’s former dazzle as an economic juggernaut falters in the face of open aggression on the world stage and crackdowns within its own walls to maintain political stability.

For critics, the easy target of blame is the party chief himself, notes Radio Free Asia (RFA) – “after all, [Xi has] awarded himself such mind-boggling, wide-ranging power, why even look for another target of blame?”

Some point to the country’s private enterprises, the main source of China’s growth and now a source of threat to the CCP’s rule.

Australian-based political analyst and former Chinese diplomat Han Yang observes: “the Communist Party is a Leninist organization which doesn’t tolerate any power not of its own. The private enterprises have grown so big to the point that their aspirations will be a source of challenge to the leadership of the Party, and Xi can’t allow that.”

Carnegie Endowment economist Michael Pettis argues Xi inherited “a highly indebted structural mess that perhaps could have been corrected in 2007 under Hu Jintao, but Xi is dealing with rising imbalances and unsustainable increases in debt, both of which were the very consequences of the excessively high growth rates of the past 10-15 years.”

RFA flags the ‘inflection points’ over time that have led to the China of today, beginning with the leak of Document Number Nine in the summer of 2013. A document circulated amongst senior Party officials in 2012 that set out in explicit terms a reverse direction for China’s political and intellectual opening to the world.

Other inflection points include February 2018 when the Central Committee proposed removing the two term limit on “president” and November 2020, when Ant Group’s IPO was suspended and Jack Ma was sent into early retirement.

The concern, says RFA, is further “inflection points” and how much longer Xi can offer “Xi Jinping thought” and ever-greater centralized control as solutions to China’s challenges.

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