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Xi's desperate roll of the dice
American Thinker
Time for some (cautious) optimism?
Wall Street and the big international corporations have suddenly awakened to the threat China poses. And no, it has nothing to do with the danger China poses to American national security, the massive theft of U.S. intellectual property, the release of the Wuhan virus on the world, or even its use of Uighur Muslims in forced labor. Rather, it has to do with the threat to Wall Street profits. This is what had George Soros criticizing BlackRock's recent investments in China and the Wall Street Journal clutching its pearls. Here's the backdrop to the story.

As the WSJ put it, Xi is trying to forcibly get the country back to the vision of Mao Zedong, who saw capitalism as mere transition phase on the road to socialism. Accordingly, Xi's plans call for more government intervention in the economy. Since he has consolidated power, the Chinese president is putting the entire state apparatus behind making private companies serve the state. Also, private business and the wealthy are now being "encouraged" to donate more of their wealth and profits toward Xi's "common prosperity" goals. Alibaba alone has pledged the equivalent of $15.5 billion. And Western investments in China are not being ignored by Xi.
    For foreign businesses, the campaign likely means more turbulence ahead. Western companies always had to toe the party line in China, but they are increasingly asked to do more, including sharing personal user data and accepting party members as employees. They could be pressed to sacrifice more profits to help Beijing achieve its goals.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
...According to Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia, Xi feels compelled to act at this time by three forces: ideology, demographics, and decoupling. As for the first, Xi is much more ideologically driven than previous Chinese leaders, except for Chairman Mao, whom Xi wishes to imitate. Xi has told party members that China's hybrid model of capitalism mixed with socialism (communism) has passed its use-by date. It's time to go full socialist (fascist). Xi is a true believer.

Rudd says demographics figure large in Xi's thinking. The May 2021 census revealed that birth rates have fallen sharply, to 1.3, which is even lower than Japan's. Worse yet, China's demographic profile is upside-down — it has fewer and fewer young people with a rapidly aging population. Xi sees this as a major impediment to China's goal of becoming a major world power by the centenary of the founding of the People's Republic in 2049.

Rudd goes on the say Xi wants China to selectively decouple from the West and formally present itself as a strategic rival to America on the world stage. The Chinese president talks about this being a protracted struggle lasting to the mid-century. In his mind, Xi sees all this leading to a "dual circulation economy," where reliance on exports is diminished while Chinese consumer domestic demand becomes the main driver of economic growth.
Good. IMO, PLA is a lot less dangerous than destruction of Western industry by a a flood of cheap (because Chinese gov subsidized) goods.

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2021-09-28
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=613861