Explanations for Beijing’s refusal to work on deep-seated problems include denial, ignorance and ideology.
Already a subscriber?China’s economy is performing dreadfully. The post-pandemic bounce was far smaller and briefer than the Chinese government had anticipated. Despite recording a respectable, if diminished, official growth rate of 5.2 per cent in 2023,Some indicators showed modest improvement in the first few months of 2024, butAlong with the economic slowdown has come a collapse in confidence in China’s trajectory, both at home and abroad.
Some in China believe President Xi Jinping is willing to sacrifice the economy for the sake of nationalism and CCP dominance.There were four views that commonly came up on why Xi and other top leaders haven’t taken a different approach, which we might dub “the Four Nos” in Chinese political style. The second idea, “He doesn’t know what to do”, is based on the premise that Xi and other top leaders are well informed but they are facing a variety of problems that are not easy to fix. The list is long – the real estate crisis, ballooning local government debt, the plummeting fertility rate, rising inequality, disaffection in Hong Kong, and expanding tensions with the West and most of China’s neighbours – and solutions are far from simple.
This was by far the least popular option among Chinese interlocuters, but those who held it believed it passionately. Their core impression was that Xi appears willing to sacrifice the economy for the sake of nationalism and CCP dominance. In fact, their view may be that given the loss of reliable access to Western technology, markets, and finance, China has no choice but to prioritise developing domestic technologies and gaining as much leverage over global supply chains as possible.
Others who landed on this choice have the opposite reaction. They, in fact, agree with the Chinese leadership’s approach and believe critics are neoliberal ideologues instinctively opposed to an activist state and unfairly dismiss major signs of technological progress. Perhaps not surprisingly, some – though far from all – in this latter camp whom I heard from work in government-based research organisations.
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