December 2016
Xi Jinping's China
China is heading into a year in which politics will be paramount. At the 19th Communist Party Congress in the autumn of 2017, Xi Jinping will consolidate his grip on power, and could well lay the groundwork for staying in office beyond 2022, when his second term ends. In the short run, economic policy will be subjugated to Xi’s need to have a stable run-up to his big political show. This means that the government will do everything it can to support economic growth, and to kick tough structural reforms down the road. In the long run, Xi’s power play raises hard questions about whether the Party can stay flexible enough to successfully govern an ever more dynamic society, or if it is driving itself into an authoritarian dead end. This issue of China Economic Quarterly assesses these political risks and lays out scenarios for China’s political future.
Also in this issue:
- Chen Long writes that China is still on track to produce 6% GDP growth in the run-up to the 2017 party congress
- Clay Chandler suggests there will only be one winner In the global robot war
- Matthew Forney explores how Beijing has poured massive subsidies to build a self-sustaining electric-vehicle market – to no avail
- Rosealea Yao looks at what happens when the irresistible force of the 2016 property rally hits the immovable object of peak housing demand