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Xi: A Study in Power
Kerry Brown
Icon: 2022
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In the spring of 2022, China’s economy buckled under the lockdowns and other restrictions imposed on Shanghai, Beijing and other cities and ports as the authorities pursued rigorously the zero-Covid policy measures backed by General Secretary Xi Jinping. Stories circulated about divisions in the government between Xi and his supporters, and Premier Li Keqiang and others who were more concerned about the deleterious effects on the economy.

By June, the worst of the omicron wave was over, restrictions were gradually lifted, the economy was opening up again, and talk of a split in the government was dismissed as idle speculation as serious work resumed to prepare for the Twentieth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) later this year.

Powerful and ruthless as he seems to be, Xi remains an enigma. His first decade in power has by all accounts been remarkable, and he may have more decades ahead. His style of government and totalitarian rule, however, are almost certainly generating opposition, even if currently no one dares to show their hand. China’s economy, the basis for its ability to project power, is in trouble, Xi has lost China’s most important external relationship, namely the United States, and he has firmly, if not happily, stood shoulder to shoulder with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to seize the moment to challenge the United States and other liberal-leaning democracies, which they view as in terminal decline. China’s popularity in much of the world has never been lower.

• Tags: George Magnus, Issue 28, Kerry Brown, Xi Jinping