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For 40 years before Chinese President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, China was open to increasing market-oriented free trade and foreign investments in technology. After two 5-year terms as leader, Xi has become increasingly focused on isolationism and national security over economic policy. He claims that “hostile foreign forces” are determined to bring about the Chinese party’s collapse. And most recently, in a speech before the 20th Party Congress, Xi suggested China is speeding up plans to take over Taiwan, despite pressure from Biden to stay out of the territory. Straight Arrow News Contributor Peter Zeihan thinks Xi’s increasing isolationism could backfire.
Excerpted from Peter’s Oct. 18 “Zeihan on Geopolitics” newsletter:
No matter the official line that comes out of the Chinese Communist Party Congress, Xi Jinping is China’s president for life. Rather than bringing stability to a very uncertain future for China, Xi’s leadership is almost guaranteed to further exacerbate the pressures Beijing currently faces.
The polity we know as China today is composed of an amalgam of historically competing regions, with several regions often closer to invading/foreign powers (be they Mongol or European) than each other. These geographic and cultural differences persist today, even within the Han majority. But China’s problems under Xi are more a result of Xi’s leadership style and the method by which he consolidated power than any historic, geopolitical fissures that have persisted through Chinese history.
