China has intensified its game plan for global economic control with the crowning of Xi Jinping, 69, seeking to solidify the power grasp by lining up the Communist Party’s top leadership with staunch allies and longtime proteges.
- Xi is anticipated to exert tight control over and participate in all critical foreign policy decisions.
- Xi’s close allies have tightened his power grip and strengthened his grip on China’s future.
- Africa-China relations remain central to China’s plan for global economic control.
Xi Jinping gets another term.
Xi Jinping has been crowned the Chinese supreme leader for a record third term. The crowning of Xi Jinping, 69, seeks to solidify the power grasp and get global economic control by lining up the Communist Party’s top leadership with staunch allies and longtime proteges.
Xi’s close allies have tightened his power grip and strengthened his grip on China’s future. To levels not seen in decades, China’s direction falls in the hands of one man’s vision and ambition. Moreover, the new era has little room for recalibration or disunity at the Communist Party’s power axis.
According to Xi Jinping, China is closer than ever to realizing its national renaissance goal and recovering its rightful global status. However, according to Xi’s gloomy warning, the route ahead is fraught with strong winds, rough waves, and even hazardous storms. China’s long-serving supreme leader issued this dark warning at the beginning and closing of the ruling party’s Congress.
According to Xi Jinping, the mounting challenges result from a dismal and complicated global situation. Foreign measures to restrict and control China threaten to get out of hand at any moment. As per observers, Xi’s response to the grim outlook is to step up China’s robust defence of its national interests and security against any perceived threats.
Xi is anticipated to exert tight control over and participate in all critical foreign policy decisions. By stacking the top Chinese administration with loyalists, he will be able to govern better and wield influence, observes Bonny Lin, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). What Xi chooses to do – and how he goes to accomplish it – will have far-reaching consequences globally.
China-West relations amid global economic control tussle
Xi starts his third term in office in a very different environment from his first two. The links between China and the West have deteriorated considerably, with tensions over global economic control, trade and technology war, Taiwan, Covid-19, Beijing’s human rights record, and its unwillingness to criticize Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Xi’s working report, a five-year action plan released before Congress, highlighted severe changes in the international scene, including foreign measures to blackmail, confine, blockade, and apply maximum pressure on China – phrases often used by Chinese officials to condemn U.S. policies.
Xi believes China has entered a phase of difficulty rather than the potential on the global stage. Andrew Small, author of “No Limits: The Inside Story of China’s War with the West,” confirms.
Small observes that the perception that relations will deteriorate further has resulted in a China that is significantly openly engrossed in systemic antagonism with the West. This represents increased assertiveness, blatant ideologically hostile stances, efforts to establish counter-coalitions, and a stronger push to solidify China’s place in the developing economies.
These pressures are also expected to influence Beijing’s strong ties with Moscow. China has attempted to portray itself as a neutral party in the Ukrainian crisis. Nevertheless, it has failed to criticize Russia’s invasion and instead vilified the West for the situation. This trend is unlikely to change. Xi appears to have written off many consequences of China’s ties with the West, mainly Europe.
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Xi Jinping defines China-US interactions.
For the last 75 years, the United States has acted as the world’s self-appointed rule maker and enforcer. To avoid another global bloodbath to the size of Word War II, Washington endeavoured to create a world order based on shared standards, with international institutions to codify and enforce them. The strength of the American military was behind it all.
That order remains flawed, and various nations have abused it, including America. Still, it has kept big-power confrontations at bay while spreading economic prosperity and democratic values worldwide. However frayed, it is an order that the Biden administration is attempting to preserve.
However, the American monopoly on rulemaking and global economic control has been under its most serious threat since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. As China grows in power, it promotes its ideas about global governance, economic growth, and international relations. Indeed, China’s new leadership aspires to gain influence at institutions to inject these notions into global discourse while also contesting the established rules of the American international system with its expanding riches and military strength.
A confrontation between the United States and China over who sets the rules for technology and trade, climate change, and public health looms. It is fundamentally about the rules and doctrines that regulate how governments, businesses, and people interact globally.
Africa-China relations central to global economic control
Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) saw massive infrastructure projects rolled out throughout Africa during his almost ten years in office. At the inaugural Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) conducted under Xi Jinping’s presidency, China’s administration increased its financial pledges and persuaded more African states to endorse Beijing’s positions at the United Nations.
At the Communist Party Congress in Beijing, Xi received approval for a third term in power. The events during the meeting with Xi and other prominent leaders piqued the curiosity of African countries with a keen interest in Africa-China relations
“It matters a lot because relationships with Africa remain highly personalized. Thus, if the leader has a personal interest in Africa at any given time, depending on how that leader perceives the African continent, China and Africa will have stable and multifaceted relations,” Paul Nantulya, a China expert at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, observes.
China and Africa had a tight connection under Mao Zedong, the founder of Communist China. Notably, Beijing sponsored liberation movements on the continent. However, under his successor Deng Xiaoping, China prioritized engagement with the West and domestic changes above connections with Africa.
Xi Jinping has elevated the China-Africa friendship to its most significant level since Mao Zedong’s reign. With Xi getting a third five-year term and perhaps staying in power even longer, Africa-China relations will strengthen further. Thus, Africa will remain pivotal in China’s plans for global economic control.
