Even as growth in China falters, Xi Jinping appears confident that he has the right road map to take down Western rivals.
China’s economy has slowed down. Its population is declining and aging. Its rival, the United States, has pioneered artificial intelligence. Mr. Jay’s declaration several years ago that “the East is rising and the West is declining” — that his country was on the way forward while American power waned — now seems premature, if not prescient.
The problems are fueling talk abroad that China may peak before fully emerging as a superpower. But Mr. Xi seems reluctant to insist that his policies, particularly extensive party control and state-led industrial investment in new sectors such as electric vehicles and semiconductors, can secure China’s rise. happened
In a sign of that confidence, his government announced last week that China’s economy is expected to grow about 5 percent this year, the same pace as last year, according to official data. And Mr. Xi emphasized his ambitions for a new phase of industrial growth through innovation, acting as if the setbacks of the past year or two were a setback.
“Faced with a technological revolution and industrial change, we have to seize the opportunity,” he told delegates at China’s annual legislative session in Beijing, which was televised to praise him.
He later told another group at a legislative session that China was “winning the battle for critical core technologies” and told People’s Liberation Army officers to “develop strategic capabilities in the region,” which officials pointed out, artificially. Intelligence is included. , Cyber Operations and Space Technology.
Mr. Xi’s swiftness may be partly to show: Chinese leaders, like politicians anywhere, are reluctant to admit mistakes. And some officials have privately acknowledged that the economic downturn is dampening China’s ambitions, at least for now.
Ryan Haas, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution who visited China late last year, said he came away with a feeling that “the Chinese are still a little tougher than they were a year ago. The path of the economy will overtake the United States in the coming years – which is further pushed on the horizon.
However, Mr. X’s determination to stick to his long-term ambitions seems to be greater than the show. “Xi and his team still believe that time and momentum are on China’s side,” said Mr. Haas, a former director for China at the US National Security Council. “With Xi in power,” he added, it’s hard to imagine “any significant recalculation in the overall complexity that China has.”
Since taking power in 2012, Mr. Xi has tightened the Communist Party’s grip on Chinese society. He expanded state management of the economy, expanded the security apparatus to eliminate potential challenges to the party’s rule, and confronted Washington on technology, Taiwan, and other disputes.
For Mr. Xi’s critics, his centrist, hardline tendencies are part of China’s problems. He did not cause China’s dangerous dependence on the property market for growth, and he has worked to eliminate it. But many economists say he’s going to stifle too many hands, entrepreneurship and innovation. Critics say Mr. Xi has also unnecessarily antagonized Western governments, leading them to limit access to technology and strengthen security ties with Washington.
Since last year, the Chinese government has moved to ease these tensions. It has taken steps aimed at restoring confidence among private businesses. Mr. X has also tried to ease tensions with the United States and other countries.
Such moderate gestures point to what Mr. Xi described as the “tactical flexibility” he expects from Chinese officials in difficult times. But according to Mr. Shi, even if officials take the easy steps, they must stick to his long-term goals. He and his loyal subordinates have been defending their policies in speeches and editorials, suggesting that doubters are short-sighted. Chinese officials and scholars have also intensified their condemnation of Western analysts who have predicted that China is facing a period of decline.
Mr. Xi has stressed that economic and security priorities must work hand-in-hand even as China grapples with slow growth. Mr Xi also stipulates that investment in manufacturing and technology can lead to new “high-quality” development by boosting industries such as new clean energy and electric vehicles.
The Chinese leadership’s “mantra seems to be that we’re not going to grow as fast as we used to, but we’re going to gain more leverage over trading partners by controlling critical parts of the global economy,” Michael Beckley said. said , an associate professor at Tufts University, who has argued that China is a “silent power,” meaning a country whose economic rise has slowed but not stopped.
Some economists say China’s growth in these select industries will not be enough to pull through as consumer confidence declines, and developers and local governments are weighed down by debt. Much of China’s vast fortunes will rest on whether Mr. Xi’s bet on technology can pay off.
“They see technology as the solution to every problem — economic, environmental, demographic, social,” said Nadej Rowland, a researcher at the National Bureau of Asia Research who studies China’s strategic thinking. “If they can’t develop enough in this domain, it will be very difficult for them.”
Scholars in China and abroad who hope the country can take a more liberal path sometimes look to history for examples of when party leaders made bold changes to ease domestic and international tensions.
The last time China was stuck at such a painful crossroads was on June 4, 1989, after a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. The bloodshed prompted Western countries to impose sanctions on China, further exacerbating the economic shock. Within several years, however, Deng Xiaoping, China’s leader at the time, tried to restore relations with Washington and other capitals and implement market reforms that revived growth and lured back Western investors.
Now, however, China faces much more entrenched hostility than other major powers, Zhou Feng, a prominent foreign policy scholar at East China’s Nanjing University, said in an interview. For example, China’s growing exports of electric cars – which have benefited from extensive government subsidies – could reignite trade tensions, as the US, Japan and Europe fear job losses and industrial cuts.
Economic and diplomatic pressures are “presenting the biggest challenge for China” in decades, Professor Zhou said.
Still, Chinese leaders believe that, whatever their problems, their Western rivals will have to deal with a worsening, which will eventually humiliate and break them.
Recent reports from China’s ruling party, military and state security ministry agencies point to a sharp polarization in the United States ahead of the upcoming election. Regardless of who wins, Chinese analysts say, US power is likely to remain distracted by political turmoil.
Chinese scholars have also focused on fault lines in the Western bloc in relation to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Beijing’s relations with the US and European governments have soured over Mr Xi’s partnership with President Vladimir Putin. But as the war drags into its third year, the burden of support for Ukraine is fueling tensions and “fatigue” in the US and Europe.
“American foreign intervention cannot hold everything it is trying to hold,” Chen Xiangyang, a researcher at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing, which is under the Ministry of State Security, wrote last year. . “China can exploit contradictions and turn them to their advantage.”