Xi Prepares His Future, and China’s

This week marks the opening of the 20^th Chinese Communist National Party Congress (NPC) which is held every five years. This is the second NPC since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. He will once again occupy center stage when he is officially chosen to serve a third term as Party General Secretary. It won’t be all festivities for Xi, though, as the Chinese economy and the country’s foreign policy are facing serious obstacles. Some of those are due to poor decisions made by Xi himself.

Economic self-sufficiency emerged as a major policy objective under Xi. In recent years he has attempted to move China further away from its connections to the US economy with mixed results. Chinese domestic economic growth, while still ahead of the more mature western economies, must deal with an expanding middle class that is finding it harder to locate good paying jobs and housing. One recent report out of Washington said that “Beijing’s planners have also allowed a housing bubble to grow, which is at risk of bursting.” Xi must keep social unrest low to retain power.

China has become more integrated with the world economy under his leadership although in many ways it counters his own economic policy. To secure power over the last decade Xi purged rivals and created campaigns to reinforce loyalties both to the Party and to him. The 170-plus purges extended into the military strengthening Xi’s hold on the armed forces. He redefined traditional security threats to include any foreign military presence on China’s border, and “non-traditional threats, like public uproar on Weibo,” according to one analyst. Chinese national insecurity institutionalizes paranoia within the CCP and encourages local cadres to act with paranoia rather than pragmatism.

Taiwan policy remains another thorn in Xi’s side, one that he intends to remedy during his tenure in office. His approach to Taipei is more coercive than in past decades, with military analysts this week suggesting there will be an escalation of incidents with Taiwan in the coming months after the close of the NPC. According to one analyst, “Informed by the events in Hong Kong, Xi instead envisions a two-system solution for Taiwan, under which Taipei would be subordinate to Beijing and guaranteed no political or military freedoms.”

The NPC this week may address Xi’s lack of progress on Taiwan, among other challenges to his rule. The scale of Xi’s ambitions and his vision for a Chinese global-led order is greater than his understanding of the Chinese economy. His Covid policy has resulted in economic stagnation that is expected to negatively impact the domestic economy for a long time. High youth unemployment, the escalating cost of housing, and rising discontent across the country also may cause him to flounder in the coming years.

These challenges together raise the risk of confrontation with democratic states. James Palmer, writing in Foreign Policy, says that “There is no question of who is in charge, and it would be very unlikely for that to change after the 20th Party Congress. For the moment, it’s Xi forever, with his image plastered all over China’s daily propaganda. The question is who falls beneath him and whether they have any real power to push their own agendas, especially when it comes to fixing an increasingly shaky economy.” A South China Morning Post article this week claims that Xi Jinping has learned a key lesson from Putin’s failing war in Ukraine, “A strong country must have a strong army.” As China readies to hand Xi an unprecedented third term as General Party Secretary, the world may be witnessing a new opening salvo in Asian conflict that could reverberate in the West. The Financial Times says that “Ten years is always enough. Even a first-rate leader decays after that long in office. One with unchallengeable power tends to decay more quickly. Surrounded by people he has chosen and protective of the legacy he has created, the despot will become increasingly isolated and defensive, even paranoid.” With Xi’s partner in Moscow failing to win the war in Ukraine, and problems at home, Xi’s historic third term in office may prove more volatile than expected.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Department

Quick Analysis

NATO’s Growing Challenges

Gen. Christopher Cavoli, supreme allied commander Europe and the head of U.S. European Command has warned of growing threats facing NATO. “There is a lot of work to be done, and there are big challenges looming — some of them are right in our face, right now,” he warned at the Aspen Security Forum. He is not alone in his concern. the Germany-based Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom notes that “The beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine … marked a deep break … Questions concerning Europe‘s self-image as a voluntary alliance of nation states, its ability to defend itself and the protection though NATO as well as the values for which it stands are further tested by refugees coming to Europe from Ukraine. The democracies of the European Union are vulnerable and their reaction to Putin’s war are carefully watched. Authoritarian states, such as China, predict Europe’s decline and emphasize their own superiority over the ‘Western systems.’” The most interesting fact General Cavoli emphasized was that, in addition to the renewed danger from expansionist Russia, is the growing threat from China. The German Marshall Fund describes the problem.. “Russia and China continue to deepen their partnership, mounting a common challenge to the West. They can advance their strategic objectives better together, undermining perceived Western domination of the global order and impacting Europe’s future security. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has de facto upended the post-Cold War security architecture in Europe and is a direct, existential threat to European security. Beijing plays an important role for Russia’s war efforts, regardless of China’s status as Europe’s largest trading partner or its desire to hedge on Europe to win its geostrategic competition with the United States. “ NATO has continued to concentrate on the potential threat from Beijing. . It developed its concern against the backdrop of China’s designation as a “long-term strategic competitor.” Both the Trump and Biden administrations have sought to expand transatlantic cooperation on China, motivated by the belief that greater European support to US policies is key to effectively addressing the economic, political and strategic challenges associated with China’s growth. While Washington has put much emphasis on discussing with the EU and individual European countries how best to tackle the geo-economic, technological and diplomatic challenges associated with China’s rise and behaviour, NATO has also become an increasingly important partof transatlantic cooperation on China. Some Chinese military threats to Europe are conventional. China and Russia have engaged in joint maneuvers in the Mediterranean, and the Chinese naval presence in the Middle East has grown. Others are of a different variety. The Atlantic Council says that some Chinese threats to European security are merely insidious. For example, China undermines Europe’s military capabilities by stealing defense-related intellectual property and sharing it with its own military and defense industry as China develops new weapons and capabilities. Similarly, Chinese investment in European infrastructure—especially shipping terminals, utilities, and telecommunications networks—provides an excellent platform for intelligence-gathering on NATO military operations. In a worst-case scenario, China could weaponize its ownership or operation of infrastructure in Europe to frustrate, limit, or prevent US or allied use. In other cases, the Chinese threat to Europe manifests in the form of outright attacks. Chinese cyberattacks on European government, industry, military, academic, and civil institutions—including, reportedly, on hospitals during the pandemic—are relentless and massive. In 2014, NATO declared that cyberattacks could trigger the invocation of Article 5, the Alliance’s mutual-defense clause. Increasingly, the links between Russia, China, and now Iran as well, are a source of deep concern to Europe, the United States, and other nations.