Much has been written on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s remarkable consolidation of political power since he took office five years ago. But an equally important question for the international community to consider is how Xi views the world—and what that means for how China will approach it. Because of the opacity of the Chinese political system, this is hard to answer with real certainty. But clear patterns are beginning to emerge.
China has insisted that it will not succumb to US pressure to change its industrial policy nor offer major concessions on the bilateral trade deficit. A Chinese government official close to the high-level trade talks with America said that Washington should not set any preconditions for negotiations, adding that China had sufficient strength to fight to the end if a trade war broke out.
China is emerging as a disruptive force on the international stage. For thirty years, it was encouraged to join international institutions and subscribe to their norms. Now, having joined them, it seeks, like most major powers, to leverage its seat at the top table to support its national interests. But this is not even one iota surprising. As China’s military, economic, and financial power have grown, it has been patently obvious that Beijing would not accept all global institutions, rules, standards, and norms exactly as they are configured today.
A Chinese achievement in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has widely been reported in the media recently. Be it remotely controlled Tank to demonstration of Swarms of Autonomous UAVs during Air Show, China is building them fast and possibly in numbers while preparing for ‘Intelligized Warfare’.
China’s investment flows into the United States face a bleak outlook as a result of mounting bilateral economic conflicts and US attempts to limit access for Chinese capital, a new report warns. The US was working on stricter scrutiny to restrict access because of national security concerns, the Rhodium Group said in a report.
Xi’s confidence is not without grounds. In the past five years, the Chinese leadership has made notable progress on a number of its priorities. Its much-heralded anticorruption campaign has accelerated, with the number of officials disciplined for graft increasing from some 150,000 in 2012 to more than 400,000 in 2016. Air quality in many of China’s famously smoggy cities has improved measurably.
China’s ambitious plan to recreate the old Silk Road trading routes across Eurasia and Africa is facing a serious financing challenge, according to the country’s senior bankers and government researchers.
The prospect that President Xi Jinping could remain in power indefinitely has caused much consternation outside China. But within China, and among many serious observers, the elimination of the constitutional term limit on presidential incumbents has attracted a more positive, or at least nuanced, response.
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans on Tuesday to open up the Chinese economy, including lowering tariffs for autos and other products and enforcing the legal intellectual property of foreign firms. Xi’s comments come amid escalating trade tensions between China and the U.S. as the world’s two largest economies take turns announcing punitive trade measures against each other.
China is still not wedded to North Korea’s survival, and the countries’ “alliance” continues to be only in name. For Beijing, the ultimate goal of the meeting was not to patch up the relationship with Pyongyang but to shape the direction of upcoming U.S.–North Korean talks and to ensure that any outcome favours Chinese interests over those of the United States.
