China: what are the challenges of President Xi Jinping’s third term?

Xi Jinping, who won a third term as president of China until 2028 on Friday, will face four major challenges: the economy, tensions with the United States, the Taiwan issue and human rights.

economic downturn

The economic downturn will no doubt be a central theme. The world’s second largest economy, long accustomed to high growth rates, showed only 3% GDP growth in 2022 due to sanitary restrictions due to the anti-COVID policy and the real estate crisis.

By 2023, the government has set a target of “about 5%”, one of the lowest levels in decades.

Solution Xi Jinping surrounding himself exclusively with believers for a third term raises fears that he will support the ideology at the cost of growth.

If he hoped to make consumption the new engine of the economy, he has not yet succeeded. With regard to his concept of “common welfare”, which is to reduce the difference in wealth between the population, Xi Jinping seems more reserved about it in recent months.

Tensions with the US

Bilateral relations with Washington have soured in recent years due to technological and commercial competition, human rights, and even the question of the origins of COVID-19.

A visit by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken scheduled for February was postponed at the last minute after the Biden administration shot down a Chinese balloon that Washington said Beijing was using for espionage purposes. China rejected.

Since then, diplomatic tensions have continued to escalate. On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Qin Gang warned of the risk of “conflict and confrontation” if Washington does not change course.

Own Xi Jinping issued an unusually direct criticism of the US authorities, accusing them of drawing Western countries into a “policy of containment, encirclement and repression against China”.

Taiwan

With your new mandate Xi Jinping may decide that it is time for Beijing to seize the island of Taiwan, which is run by a democratic government, and that China claims part of its territory.

In recent years, this issue has become increasingly sensitive. In August, Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited Taiwan. furious, China he responded with the largest military maneuvers around the island in its history.

In October, the Communist Party for the first time included in its constitution its opposition to the independence of the island’s territory.

Any Chinese invasion of Taiwan would disrupt global supply chains: the island is the world’s leading producer of semiconductors, components needed for a host of electronic devices.

Military intervention would anger the Western countries, would isolate China and bring Beijing and Washington closer to a direct armed confrontation.

China announced on Sunday a 7.2% increase in its defense budget, the highest increase since 2019.

However, China’s military spending is still around 2% of GDP, lower than the US.

Human rights

Since coming to power Xi Jinping at the end of 2012, civil society has almost completely disappeared, the opposition has been strangled, and dozens of activists are in prison.

The Chinese authorities are accused of having interned at least a million people in “camps” in Xinjiang (northwest), mostly from the Uyghur Muslim minority.

Several Western studies also refer to “forced labor” in Xinjiang and speak of “genocide” from sterilizations and abortions presented as “forced”.

China He denies all these allegations.

The UN report refers to possible “crimes against humanity” in the region, but does not use the term “genocide” as in the United States.

The human rights situation is unlikely to improve during the third term of the presidency. Xi Jinpingwhose power seems unbreakable in the face of international pressure.

(According to AFP)

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Fernando Carvallo selects information and shares his vision of national and international news. subscribe to our mailing list