2022 will be a big year for Xi Jinping — but he must fix China’s economic slide
When showing off China’s economic achievements and using them to denigrate democracy, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often has claimed that “Democracy cannot be eaten.” Chinese leader Xi Jinping recently portrayed China’s political system under his rule as a “whole process people’s democracy” — more democratic, the CCP asserted, than any other democracy in the world. But many in China, perhaps including Xi himself, have come to realize that Xi’s whole process people’s democracy cannot be eaten, either.
It’s true that China rivals the United States for the world’s largest economy — even overtaking the U.S. in terms of gross domestic product adjusted for purchasing power. But China’s problems, festering in the CCP, threaten to put the country’s economy off-kilter and that could affect Xi’s goal of indefinite rule just as he is about to start his third term in office.
This month, the political…
