Xi faces fire at home and abroad?
Recent surveys of global public opinion ( of course by Western Media ) and the interpretation of such surveys , find largely negative views of China’s influence in international affairs, including in some middle-income countries outside the West.
In Asia, the United States has steadily cobbled a web of alliances and partnerships with China’s neighbours, ties being strengthened directly out of concern for China’s increasingly aggressive behaviour.
Now it is being reported by the Western Media that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s policies have left the country with very few friends and he is now facing fire at home as well as abroad.
The current slow down in Chinese economy is giving a hard time to the Chinese population at large and as well as to the Chinese President. As it is , the country’s population is shrinking and also aging , this is reducing the work force. At the same time, the youth unemployment had reached to such a high level that data regarding it has not been published by the government. In fact it has suspended publishing the relevant data this summer.
In 2008, the Communist Party of Chinac “ elected “ Xi to become the head of the country as he was leading the nation into the path of making it one of the economic engines . However the current situation is just showing a different picture. One that can be seen in the macroeconomic data as well as the waning optimism of a younger generation that knew only the boom times.
China has still not recovered from the severe slow down that the nation had to face during the pandemic’s draconian lockdowns, and now the overheated real estate sector is making the situation even worse, as per The Washington Post.
Xi’s ever-tightening authoritarian grip over virtually all facets of life in China is arguably making the situation worse. “The government’s pursuit of total control has set the country on a path of slower growth and created multiplying pockets of dissatisfaction,” wrote Ian Johnson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a long time China watcher.
China’s policy is also impacting its ties with foreign nations. Recently, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visited China and warned that the prevailing uncertainty, stoked also by the tough actions taken by the Chinese government against foreign businesses, is making China “un-investable” in the eyes of U.S. investors.
“China needs to recognize that they can no longer rely on the sheer mass of their market to attract that type of foreign investment,” The Washington Post reported while quoting Naomi Wilson, vice president of policy, Asia and global trade of the Information Technology Industry Council.
“Even among Chinese companies, there have been efforts to relocate outside of China,” she added.
Chinese officials resent the implication that their state — rather than what they see as the overweening US hegemon — represents a threat to stability and order. But Beijing can’t seem to help itself, The Washington Post reported.
