How Xi Jinping’s obsession with security derailed China’s rise

Have you noticed all the doom-and-gloom news stories about China lately?

Headlines like “Xi’s Age of Stagnation,” “The Chinese century is already over,” and “China’s Stalling Economy Puts the World on Notice” are appearing regularly. The prevailing vibe not too long ago was one of a rising China inexorably destined for global dominance—so what’s going on?

One explanation, of course, is that the facts changed, so people changed their minds. The destructive effects of Beijing’s draconian pandemic policies coupled with the knock-on effects of its draconian one-child policy, and amplified by its growing debt problem, have altered China’s development trajectory in ways that are slowing the country’s growth and will soon send it into decline. And all this long before it achieved Xi Jinping’s “China dream” of global greatness.

There’s definitely something to that account. There’s little doubt that the constellation of factors most commonly offered in the recent spate of doomsday articles have played a role in bending the arc of China’s rise. But many of those factors have been on prominent display for those with eyes to see for many years. So while the “facts changed so we changed our minds” brigade is not entirely wrong, neither is it entirely right.

Read at The Hill

Author

Andrew
Latham

Non-Resident Fellow

Defense Priorities