Xi’s Failure
The management of U.S. trade relations was Xi’s responsibility. His failure in this regard was rooted in his strategy of portraying the Chinese military as a significant threat to the United States, in order to compensate for Chinese weakness in other areas. Chinese military strength isn’t insignificant, but the Chinese vastly overstated it. They believed this would compel the U.S. to back off, but such strategies have the reverse effect on the United States. It becomes intimidated, remembering prior instances when it underestimated its opponents. The result is that the U.S. tends to overestimate its opponents and, rather than seek accommodation, moves to dramatically increase its military power over enemies that are already no match. In space, at sea and elsewhere, the U.S. military overstated the Chinese threat. China found itself in an arms race its economy could not support, struggling to launch two aircraft carriers and hype them as a change in the balance of power.
The United States responded on multiple levels. It sailed aggressively in the South China Sea to demonstrate Chinese weakness. It developed deeper cooperation with Australia and Japan and even India and Vietnam to counter Chinese influence. It engaged in intense counterintelligence operations against Chinese nationals operating in the United States and raised hurdles to Chinese tech companies selling goods worldwide.
This was undoubtedly not what Xi expected. His goal was to position China as a massive Eurasian power, and yet, he found countries like Kazakhstan rejecting Chinese investment. He lost some of the control that China had previously enjoyed and left the Chinese economy weaker than it previously had been.
Then, the Hong Kong protests erupted. Initially, the central issue was a bill that would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be extradited to the mainland. China, of course, could put down the protests by force, but it hasn’t done so because it fears what a bloodbath would do to its fraying economic relations overseas. It clearly has sufficient intelligence on the demonstrators to be able to arrest leaders and disrupt the protests. But Xi has decided to let the demonstrations burn out. This was another miscalculation. The unrest has lasted far longer than many expected, and its main focus has shifted from an extradition bill to Hong Kong autonomy in general.
Now, there are severe questions about Xi’s competence. Certainly, many of the things that are going wrong on his watch could not be controlled or start far before he took office. But he was brought in as a virtual dictator to manage the country’s problems. Now, trade relations with the U.S. are in shambles, military initiatives have generated significant counters, showcase programs like BRI have evaporated, and Hong Kong is in revolt.
It is difficult to imagine that, given his performance, Xi’s position is as secure as it appears. Xi is enormously powerful still. He controls the People’s Liberation Army and the intelligence and security services. But in the end, the source of power in China is the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. He could pit his forces against it, but that would plunge China into chaos and leave Xi perhaps less powerful than before. I have no evidence of an anti-Xi revolt, since such evidence would not be visible. But it is inconceivable to me that within the Central Committee, which made him the most powerful leader since Deng Xiaoping, there are no factions that see Xi as a failure. China is not a democracy, but it has a power structure that created Xi. That power structure also has the ability, in my opinion, to unmake him.
For this notional faction, the goal is to reach an agreement with the U.S. on trade that is reasonably favorable to China, end the Hong Kong demonstrations, and stop following contradictory strategies like hyping up China’s military might while trying to sell high-tech equipment to countries wary of China. In other words, they want Xi to solve the country’s pressing problems and stop creating new ones through posturing and trying to make China appear to be what it isn’t: a global power.
Dictators must be focused on their country’s main issues, and from the beginning, Xi has been scattershot. In many ways, this diffusion reflects the China’s condition, with serious achievements, vast ambitions and limited resources. I do not know what Xi’s future holds, but I do wonder how it will impact China’s.
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