Xi Jinping, China's president, is the world's most powerful man | The Ec...

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Xi Jinping, China's president, is the world's most powerful man | The Economist
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The Economist
Published on Oct 17, 2017
Is Xi Jinping the worlds most powerful man? The world's balance of power is shifting. For the past five years president Xi Jinping, China's leader, has ruled with an iron fist and has been pursing a new model of great power relations.

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Xi Jinping rules the most populous country, home to 1.4 billion people. Mr Xi is the most powerful Chinese leader since chairman Mao. He has purged the communist party and much of the army, rooting out corruption, replacing potential rivals with allies, and chocking any sign of dissent.

China is the world's second largest economy and an engine of global growth. It is the biggest trade partner of many other countries and the second biggest of both America and the EU.

China is building powerful armed forces constructing artificial islands in the South China Sea that look like military bases. Its ships have conducted military drills in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas, and china has opened its first overseas naval base in Djibouti.

America still has the bigger economy and more military muscle but president Donald Trump is struggling at home and he scorns the values and alliances that strengthen America abroad.

As a result, Mr Xi can project himself as the champion of world order, taking the lead on globalisation and climate change. But Mr Xi also faces problems. Economic growth is slowing and inequality is rising. China's middle class wants better housing, education and health care, and more freedom.

For now Mr Xi may now have more clout than Mr Trump but his power relies on repression and this kind of power is fragile. one man-rule may be dangerous and unstable.

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Category
News & Politics
1,341 Comments
 Auggie Giuseppe
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Daniel TTY
Daniel TTY
1 year ago (edited)
People have been saying China's political system and economy are fragile and on the verge of collapsing for more than what..a decade for now? In fact, China's secret is its long history and deep cultural glue. The West don't have that. I would say it is more stable than most democracy in the West. It is also way more effective.
So, stop seeing China from the lens of the Western theories. In fact, revise your theories using China's rise as a new kind of data.

568


William Tan
William Tan
1 year ago
1997: China will collapse in recent years. 
2007: China will collapse in recent years. 
2017: China will collapse in recent years.

428


Mystic Dust
Mystic Dust
1 year ago (edited)
I think China's government is constantly changing. It is not communist, nor is it a dictatorship(it's closer to a hybrid between meritocracy/technocracy and authoritarianism), with hints of socialism. It is relatively stable, but also very flexible, perhaps drawing its roots from Confucianism(for social hierarchy and stability) and Taoism(for adapting to the changes of the outside world). It is not bogged down by lobbyist groups of corporate interests. It is extremely efficient, and almost always achieve its goals much like completing a checklist(sometimes surpassing the goals by a large margin), but is done at the expense of some human rights.

 But when given the choice of having freedom or being well-fed, many would probably choose the latter because what good is freedom when people lack SECURITY in their life. They need the security that comes with not needing to worry about their next meal and having a house to live in. The people are not interested in politics, as long as their government delivers the results, they will be satisfied. Because elections today look more and more like a popularity contest, with candidates often making empty promises to appeal to the people's emotions(which  creates bias in their decision making), and the corruption that leads to a rigged election, I would say China is not ready for elections, but also, it should not adopt it because it would not be a right fit for their politics-avoidant society.

What people don't know is how women's rights has improved drastically, with Chinese women wielding more power than other Asian women(yes, including South Korea and Japan). However, while domestic abuse against women has gone down in China, domestic abuse towards men has gone up, which is a very strange situation that needs to be resolved. It is troubling how there is no mention of this at all documenting the rapid progress in women's rights that grew almost as fast as the economy. Perhaps the media has become money-obsessed, choosing to focus solely on China's economic progress, but failing to mention the hidden progress in human rights. Nowadays, you would only hear people shout "China's economy is going to collapse!" or "China's political system will collapse!" and "China has the worst human rights record!" without digging deeper into what is actually happening, choosing instead to blindly follow all the negatives about China that the media focuses on. Because, generally, human rights develop alongside the economy and vice versa. Remember the smog in London in 1962 caused by industrialization? The Gilded Age(the late 19th century to the early 20th century) in the USA, where corporations neglect worker's rights?

Right now, China is caught in between these two time periods, and in a few more years, human rights will also start pouring in if their economy was to achieve a sustainable growth(which is what many nations wanted because they believe that China will eventually become a democracy when their economy becomes developed). However, it does not mean that China will have a democracy, but this does not mean that you can't have human rights under a government that is not a democracy. Sure, you won't have a vote, but I think everything else is much more important, given the fact that less than half of eligible voters actually voted in elections in the U.S. here. Because the Chinese government knows that if it doesn't start giving out human rights soon, it may not be able to stop a rebellion of over a billion people. The government is truly at the mercy of its people, and if it wants to continue to rule over the people and hold the Mandate of Heaven, it must show COMPETENCE. It does not matter if they're corrupt, as long as their actions produce positive results for the people,  they will be accepted by the people, which is how it always has been for the past 2,000 years.

403


hmn jstc
hmn jstc
1 year ago
我是印尼汉人，我看到我们的祖国越来越强大了，我真的很高兴，我们汉人也有5000年的历史，不曾侵犯外国或别族的领土，只有被外国侵犯过，我只希望全世界的汉族同胞可以团结，咱们的祖国越来越强大，让外国或外族人可以尊重咱们汉族就可以了，至于那些汉族看不起汉族的人，就让他们认贼作父好了，和外界抹黑，就别理他们就好

177


hmsiew
hmsiew
1 year ago
China's great achievement today is the result of one party rule, which the west doesn't want to admit.

283


Kazora Money
Kazora Money
1 year ago (edited)
LMAOOOO western media have been talking shit about China for decades but China still going strong. 8 years ago China overtook Germany as the 3rd largest economy in the world. 8 years ago they talk shit about China, they say it will crumple, they say it's nothing but a bubble that will eventually collapse. They keep talking shit. 8 years later, China is already the second largest economy in the world. Fake news like The Economist still talk shit. 8 years from now when China becomes the largest economy in the world. The Economist will STILL TALK SHIT ABOUT CHINA. And that my friends is why the entire of Europe and America is turning into a pile of shit.

63


dlysele
dlysele
1 year ago
Lol. Someone is salty. Trump became the president and cat got your tongue? So you have to turn on Xi, the one guy the Chinese likes rather than hate, like The opposite of Trump? Lol

69


大風起兮雲飛揚
大風起兮雲飛揚
1 year ago
USA NO 1,The United States is the best,就让西方沉浸在他们的幻想世界吧

19


Gauss Euler
Gauss Euler
1 year ago
... and this is how you make an american propaganda video demonizing china.

75


aperson22222
aperson22222
1 year ago
You call Xi the strongest Chinese ruler since Mao, then make the case . . . but the case you make really doesn't sound much different from the way Deng wielded power.

206


smling11
smling11
1 year ago (edited)
I love reading Economist over Times and Newsweek.  But when it comes to China, they somehow can't think and report rationally.  Full of bitter, hateful writings with some serious complex undertone.  What economist wants is not goodness or facts, but proof of the correctness of their own concept and believes.  But China is not, so they must be wrong and evil.

76


blackdogleg
blackdogleg
1 year ago
Repression? I guess no one at the economist has had a look at Police State USA .