October 21: Assessing Xi’s intentions

In which, Xi Jinping’s rhetoric cloaks deeper challenges for China, Putin shifts his strategy to “total war” in Ukraine, and Western leaders demonstrate an absurd lack of connection to the electorate.

Changing of the guard at Downing Street

There's no way that a British prime minister can outlast the British monarch, but Liz Truss couldn't even outlast her predecessor Boris Johnson at 10 Downing Street. This week, after six tumultuous weeks in office, Great Britain's newest prime minister was forced into resignation by her own party after the disastrous rollout of an economic plan that saw the British pound crater. The Tory party now moves to yet another round of competition and intra-party elections to choose a new leader and prime minister. The immediate cause for Truss’ ill-fated tenure is the general instability in Great Britain and economic instability globally (more on that later), but some observers have also noted that it's generally been a rough go for British prime ministers ever since Brexit. 

Assessing China’s intentions

The Chinese Communist Party Congress opened up this last weekend with a long speech from soon-to-be third term president Xi Jinping. The speech was what you would typically expect from a strongman seeking to solidify his role and be the longest serving Chinese leader: Lots of self-congratulatory references to economic growth, fighting Covid, and standing up to the United States over Taiwan. However, that's not exactly reality. 

Insisting on a “zero Covid” policy even as that same policy continues to batter your own economy does not exactly indicate a political leader with an accurate read on the current circumstances. Western leaders, of course, paid close attention to President Xi’s threats against Taiwan, but even here it's hard to interpret. It could either be a situation of Xi breathing threats and blowing smoke just to keep enemies off balance, or it could indicate a serious desire to forcibly reunite China and Taiwan in the near future. This is where a lack of publicly available expert level analysis of the inner workings of China's political system and the status of dissidents within the Chinese Communist Party makes it hard to interpret Xi’s posturing.