Xi Jinping’s brand of economic policy is less and less convincing to Western companies. Politicians are waking up, too.
President Xi Jinping wants to project China as a powerful trade partner — or dangerous adversary — to virtually any country hoping to be successful in the 21st century.
“The rise of the East, and the decline of the West” is his motto. As Chinese growth rocketed and Western politicians fretted over how to respond, it became a national catchphrase, too.
But among the Chinese people — and increasingly in the chancelleries and boardrooms of Europe — a different story is beginning to be told: Beijing’s march toward global economic domination may not be invincible after all.
China managed only weak GDP growth after belatedly liberating itself from pandemic restrictions. The property market is in crisis and youth unemployment has risen to hazardous levels, with one estimate putting it at 50 percent. Private entrepreneurs increasingly live in fear of what the state will do to their businesses and consumers have stopped spending the way they did in the pre-COVID good times.