The fading power of Xi Jinping

Telegraph

06-07-2025

For dictators down the ages, nothing matters more than projecting an image of absolute and unchallenged power. The chance to stride the world stage at a glittering international summit is not to be missed.
Yet Xi Jinping, the president of China, will spurn that opportunity on Sunday when he fails to arrive at a summit of Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in Rio de Janeiro – the first time in his 12 years as paramount leader.
This announcement, along with other recent developments, has triggered speculation that Xi could be in political trouble or even that his long supremacy over China may be under threat.
In a system built on secrecy, no one outside a tiny circle knows what is really happening behind the walls of Zhongnanhai, the closely guarded enclave near the Forbidden City in Beijing where Xi and his most senior colleagues have offices and state residences.
Winston Churchill once likened power struggles in the Kremlin to 'a bulldog fight under a rug', adding: 'An outsider only hears the growling and when he sees the bones fly out from beneath, it is obvious who won.'
So can we hear any growls from Zhongnanhai or see any bones hurled from beneath Chinese rugs? What conclusions about Xi's political standing might we draw from recent events?
Aside from his non-attendance at Brics, we know the following for certain. Xi made no public appearances for 14 consecutive days between May 21 and June 5. A new Revolutionary Memorial Hall in Shaanxi province will not – contrary to expectations – be named after Xi Zhongxun, his late father, who also held high office in the Communist Party.
Having reigned for longer than any Chinese leader since Jiang Zemin, Xi turned 72 on June 15. And last month saw the purging of an admiral called Miao Hua from the Central Military Commission – the apex of China's high command.
Just as Cold War Kremlinologists would analyse the precise line-up of Politburo members at the May Day parade, so China-watchers are poring over these new facts.
Thus far, the most respected do not discern any clear sign that Xi is in trouble. 'I see no evidence that he is losing power and I have not seen or heard any credible evidence of a move against him,' says Michael Sheridan, the author of The Red Emperor, a biography of Xi.
But just because no growls are audible outside Zhongnanhai, it does not follow that the bulldogs within must be quiescent. 'Against all this,' says Sheridan candidly, 'is the big caveat that we just don't know.'
China's slowdown
China's leadership and people certainly have good reasons to question Xi's judgment. Whether or not Covid-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology – and this explanation of its origins is at least as plausible as any other – his response to the pandemic was consistently disastrous with tragic consequences for China and the world.
The doctors who first raised the alarm about a new virus in December 2019 were arrested, in line with the worst tradition of how authoritarian states respond to crises.
When every hour counted, Xi said nothing in public about the gathering peril until Jan 20 2020, even though he had given an internal speech about the new virus 13 days earlier on Jan 7. Thanks to his vacillation and instinctive secrecy, the world lost a precious chance to nip the danger in the bud.
Once the pandemic was causing havoc, Xi's draconian 'zero Covid' policy brought China's economy to its knees, causing such suffering that rare street protests forced him to reverse course. Suddenly, in December 2022, Chinese policy leapt from eradicating Covid to living with it.
In the meantime, Xi's regime had neglected to inoculate millions of vulnerable elderly people and China's vaccines were, in any case, less effective than those developed in the West.
In July 2022, only 51 per cent of Chinese over 80 had received one Covid vaccination, compared with 93 per cent in Japan.
Just how many Chinese people died of Covid will never be known because Xi's regime will not release the true figure, but the pandemic killed more than seven million worldwide.
As well as costing countless lives, Xi's brutally inept response brought China's economic juggernaut to a shuddering halt – and it has never fully restarted.
During his first full year in power, 2013, China's economy grew at 7.8 per cent, already the lowest figure since the turn of the century. Since then, he has presided over a steady slowdown.
Xi will be lucky if China hits the target growth rate of 5 per cent this year. Many economists suspect that the official numbers are heavily massaged, with the real figure being nearer to 3 per cent or less.
That is still well above the big Western economies, with the US recording 2 per cent growth in the first quarter. But for Xi, China's economic performance is too weak for comfort.
Five years ago he promised to double the size of the economy by 2035, both in absolute terms and per capita. Unless growth accelerates, he is on course to fail.
'If they don't get close to that, then I think it would be impossible for the Chinese leadership to stay so easily in control of everybody and everything,' says Lord O'Neill, the economist who coined the term 'Bric' in 2001 to describe what were then the four biggest challengers to the Western order: Brazil, Russia, India and China.
The boom that allowed China to become the world's second largest economy was based on investment and exports. Today, economists agree that this model has run its course.
Excess investment is leading to huge overcapacity, cut-throat competition and deflation. Meanwhile China's exports are threatened by Donald Trump's protectionism and the world's unwillingness to buy all of its huge surplus production.
'If you're a small country, you can rely on exports for a long time to drive growth all the way up to high income levels, as we've seen happen elsewhere in Asia,' says Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China at Capital Economics.
'But if you're a very large economy like China then you start to dominate more and more of global trade. That engenders pushback at the global level, and it becomes harder and harder for the global economy to absorb more of your exports.'
If Xi is going to revive China's economy, he will have to build a new growth model based on domestic consumption, meaning that everything will depend on persuading his people to spend more.
But a property crash has reduced the value of the most important asset of most Chinese families. The consumer confidence index slumped by a third after the property bubble burst in 2021, and has flatlined ever since. Youth unemployment is 15 per cent, five points higher than when Xi came to power.
'I always used to think, in the first 25 years I followed China, that among their really good skills was knowing how to respond and when to respond,' says Lord O'Neill. 'But there's no two ways about it: since 2016-17, exacerbated by Covid and Trump, they've lost it a bit on that, for my liking. And I can't fully rationalise how and why.'
The long overdue reckoning for China's economy is now beginning. So far, Xi's response has been to invest 300 billion RMB (£31 billion) in a scheme to allow households to trade in their old kitchen appliances for new models. This has succeeded in propping up retail sales, but overall confidence remains weak.
Getting consumers to spend is the exact opposite of what the Communist Party has previously encouraged. 'They spent a generation training people to work and sacrifice creature comforts,' says Kevin O'Marah, co-founder of a supply-chain research firm, Zero100. 'And they're trying to turn the wheel and get people to want 'McMansions' or want new appliances.'
Xi's other intractable problem is that even if he succeeds in rebalancing the economy towards consumption, the outcome could be lower growth in the short term.
'It smells like people [in the leadership] are petrified,' says Lord O'Neill. 'And/or they think that if they pull the plug on juicing up physical infrastructure, or giving yet more temporary support for parts of the property sector, then yes, it could boost consumption as a share of GDP, but it would mean GDP growth of 2.5 per cent as opposed to 5 per cent.'
Already, China's economy has been growing at roughly the same pace as the world economy since 2020, meaning that China's share of global GDP – the best measure of relative national power – is now flatlining. By this telling indicator, China is no longer a rising country.
Another vital trend will also weigh on future economic growth: China's population is declining and ageing, allowing India to become the world's most populous country.
All this means that China may never overtake America as the world's biggest economy. For now, the US remains 50 per cent ahead at market exchange rates and China under Xi's leadership is no longer closing the gap.
Not every expert is pessimistic about Xi's ability to solve the economy's structural problems. 'They do realise that consumption is vitally important for China now, and this is why we're seeing a lot of the policies being shifted from supply-side policies to demand-side policies. But this is going to take time,' says Keyu Jin, of the London School of Economics.
'If you look at the robotic industries, the EV [electric vehicle] industry, the new-energy investors, those things are doing quite well.'
As he grapples with all these problems, the leader is feeling the heat. 'Xi Jinping is under a tonne of political pressure,' says O'Marah from Zero100. 'There's a lot of cultural dissatisfaction in China with the future that people's children are going to inherit. He's got to find a way to basically re-energise economic growth, give the people something to care about.'
Along the way, China's neighbours have reacted against Xi's belligerent diplomacy by doing exactly what he does not want and strengthening their ties with the United States. China's 'nine-dash line' on the nautical map, laying claim to almost all of the South China Sea, threatens every nation in a giant arc from the Philippines in the east to Indonesia in the south and Vietnam in the west.
In 2020, Chinese troops pressed so far forwards across their disputed Himalayan frontier with India that the two sides came to blows. Meanwhile, Xi's relentless pressure on Taiwan has helped to make hawkishness on China one of the few points of bipartisan agreement in Washington.
The outcome is that India has drawn closer to America through the Quad, a newly important group which also includes Japan and Australia. In 2023 the Philippines allowed US forces to use another four bases in the country, including one in the northern province of Cagayan, close to Taiwan.
By his own incompetence, Xi has made it easier for America to strengthen its military position in East Asia, the very reverse of China's objective.
Signs of discontent?
Given Xi's record of policy errors and misjudgments, any unexpected events are likely to cause speculation about his future. But it must be said that innocent explanations can be found for recent developments.
Vladimir Putin will also be skipping the Brics summit, largely because indicted war criminals like him struggle to travel without being arrested. Xi might have decided that it was hardly worth going all the way to Brazil if there was no chance of meeting his chief ally in the struggle against America and the West.
Even worse, Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister and a key geopolitical rival, will be in Rio de Janeiro where he will attract perhaps too much attention. 'Xi, as the Red Emperor, does not want to be overshadowed,' notes Michael Sheridan.
As for the supposed snub to the leader's late father, the truth is that Xi Zhongxun already has a giant memorial in Shaanxi, which Sheridan describes as 'grander than the tombs of the Ming Emperors'. Whether yet another monument will honour the name of the elder Xi may not matter very much.
Xi's 14-day absence, meanwhile, has happened several times before. He may have health problems – he was certainly a heavy drinker in his youth – but his mother is still alive and she is nearly 100.
Turning to Admiral Miao Hua, he is only the latest in a long line of victims of Xi's ruthless campaign against official corruption: seven other members of the Central Military Commission have also been purged.
Kerry Brown, another British sinologist and former diplomat, points to vital warning lights that are not flashing. 'Are there any central leaders saying slightly discordant things?' he asks. 'Are there any provincial leaders who are sort of acting in a more autonomous way? Are there military leaders who are [making] overt statements, which are different from the government?'
It appears not.
Dr Dylan Loh, a China expert at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, says that another danger signal would be Xi disappearing from the state media. 'One of the first few indications of him losing power would be very low – or significantly reduced – mentions of him and features of him in the main Chinese newspapers,' he says.
Once again, that light is not blinking. Xi featured on the front page of the People's Daily, the regime's main propaganda organ, 157 times between April and June, only marginally less than his 177 appearances during the same period last year, according to the China Media Project, a US-based research group.
But throughout Xi's long rule, the metaphorical bulldogs really have chewed up a good many bones. In 2023 alone, two defence ministers, Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, were purged while the foreign minister, Qin Gang, disappeared within months of his appointment.
The fate of this English-speaking career diplomat, once ambassador in Washington and first secretary at China's embassy in London, remains unknown.
While the two defence ministers were accused of corruption, Qin's mistake was never disclosed. But Xi's ruthless action against his subordinates briefly revealed the intense combat raging beneath the Chinese rug.
Yao Cheng, a former lieutenant-colonel in the People's Liberation Army who defected to the US in 2016, says that Xi's performative campaign against elite corruption has stirred great resentment.
'His arrests of the 'corrupt' are selective – he never truly targets the corrupt. It's all about purging his rivals, which has upset many,' he says.
'The PLA has wanted Xi to step down, but this is not what Xi wants. Once a national leader loses power in the military, they are vulnerable and Xi is now vulnerable.'
These are striking words, but Yao was never in the PLA's senior ranks and he defected nearly 10 years ago. How much can he really know about the current situation in China?
What next?
The Communist Party Congress, where the country's leadership and policy direction will be decided, is due in 2027. This occasion will be a key indicator of the future trajectory of China and the strength of Xi's grip on power.
It was during the 2018 Congress that the party removed a two-term limit on the appointment of the general secretary to allow Xi to prolong his supremacy indefinitely. Inconveniently, he owes his continued dominance to the fact that he engineered the rewriting of party rules to serve personal ambition.
'Xi shouldn't have been re-elected in the first place,' points out Yao. 'The CCP's rule was clear: you get to be elected as general secretary for two terms in a row, so Xi's third term is not legal.'
China-watchers tend to agree that Xi's usurpation of the rules and his ruthless purges have stirred resentment among the elite. 'He's transformed China in ways that make the common people very pleased but the elite Communist party members less happy,' says Drew Thompson, a former China director at the Pentagon. 'There must be a high degree of animosity going into the next party Congress.'
If there is going to be an internal putsch, experts believe that Xi's critics would strike during the Congress in 2027, although they would probably refrain from stripping him of all three of his official positions at once. Xi currently serves as president of the People's Republic of China, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and chairman of the Central Military Commission, allowing him to dominate the state, party and armed forces respectively.
One possibility is that Xi might keep his position at the apex of the military high command while a new figure becomes president – the least significant of the three roles – or even general secretary.
For now, all this is speculation and there is no indication of Xi advancing any particular bulldog as a favoured successor. So far, nothing suggests that he has come to grips with the eternal dilemma of all ageing autocrats as they contemplate their own mortality.
'If you identify a successor too early, this successor may pre-emptively challenge your power or he may become a target for others to take down,' says Loh. 'But if you leave it too late, the successor may not have a chance to build his base and get legitimacy.'
Loh adds: 'I would imagine that the next party Congress will be the time to give an indication of who the anointed one is, but until then it will be very fluid.'
The stakes for Xi could hardly be higher. If he fails to revive the economy, build a new growth model and confront the US with greater skill, the bulldogs may start growling – and it could be his bones that fly out from beneath the rug.