
China's Xi gives up air miles for more time at home
Xi traveled to 10 countries across four overseas trips in 2024, and five nations over three trips in the first half of this year, compared with his average of visiting about 14 countries a year between 2013 and 2019, and a 20-nation peak he set in 2014. Since resuming foreign travel in 2022 after a 32-month pause during the Covid pandemic, he has yet to match the peripatetic pace he set during his first two terms in power.
Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan disembarked from a plane in Bali, Indonesia, in 2022.
This month, Xi skipped an annual summit of the Brics bloc of emerging nations after participating in the past 12 meetings—the second time in two years that he missed a major international gathering where he had been a fixture. Both times he sent Premier Li Qiang, one of Xi's top lieutenants, to represent Beijing.
Meanwhile, a China-European Union summit originally set to take place in Brussels this year was moved to Beijing after Chinese officials signaled to EU counterparts that Xi had no plans to visit Europe this year, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Xi is scheduled to meet EU leaders in Beijing on Thursday when they visit for the summit.
Chinese officials haven't explained why Xi chose not to travel for these events, or commented on his reduced foreign visits. China's Foreign Ministry didn't respond to a request for comment.
Some analysts say Xi, 72, may be dialing back his travels to devolve some of the many responsibilities he wields as leader, particularly as he grows older and approaches the end of his third five-year term as Communist Party chief in 2027.
'Xi is increasingly willing to delegate the operational bits of foreign policy to his trusted interlocutors," said Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University who studies China's diplomacy. Xi may be doing so to better manage his energy, given his age, and to prioritize domestic issues as Beijing grapples with persistent economic headwinds such as weak consumer demand, according to Loh.
'China is certainly not taking its eyes off foreign policy," Loh said. 'But it seems to me that Xi is now content with exercising broad strategic direction and while selectively choosing his trips abroad."
Since taking power in 2012, Xi has used his foreign excursions to expand China's economic and political reach around the globe—and stamp his mark as a world leader. These trips have often come with promises of infrastructure investment and deeper trade ties, aimed at positioning Beijing as a benign partner and strategic counterweight to Washington.
More recently, China is also trying to capitalize on what many see as a U.S. retreat from global leadership, marked by President Trump's moves to cut foreign aid, sideline multilateral institutions and impose tariffs on adversaries and allies alike. Xi has sought to cast China as a responsible power and a source of stability, using a mix of political, economic and soft-power tools to reshape global narratives in Beijing's favor.
To that end, Xi has stayed active on the diplomatic circuit—as a host. China lifted its Covid border controls in late 2022, and foreign leaders have been traveling there at a frequency similar to prepandemic levels.
In 2023, Xi hosted at least 74 visits by foreign heads of state and government, as well as de facto leaders, according to a Wall Street Journal review of Chinese Foreign Ministry disclosures. The count, which includes repeat visits by some leaders, rose to 84 last year, compared with the average of about 76 trips that Xi hosted annually between 2013 and 2019.
Xi has welcomed leaders from more than a dozen countries so far this year, including Australia's prime minister, who visited Beijing this month. Xi is expected to host more foreign counterparts visiting China later this year to attend diplomatic summits and a military parade.
Xi's lieutenants have picked up the slack in foreign travel. Li, during his first full year as premier in 2024, journeyed abroad at a pace similar to that set by his predecessor, Li Keqiang, before the pandemic. Li Qiang traveled to 13 countries last year, matching the number that Li Keqiang visited in his most prolific year in 2014.
Another frequent flier is Liu Jianchao, a veteran diplomat and chief of the Communist Party's International Department, which handles relations with foreign political parties and socialist states. A candidate for foreign minister, Liu has traveled more often than his predecessor did since getting the job in 2022, including trips to the U.S. and other Western democracies that past International Department chiefs generally hadn't visited.
As China's leader, Xi has embarked on more than 50 international trips and visited more than 70 countries, far surpassing what his predecessors did. He has also hosted visiting world leaders more frequently than previous Chinese heads of state or recent U.S. presidents, according to data collated by Neil Thomas, a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.
The Covid pandemic kept Xi in China between 2020 and 2022. During that time, he mostly relied on phone calls and videoconferencing to engage with foreign counterparts. When he restarted international travel in late 2022, Xi first visited nearby countries in Asia before venturing further in subsequent trips.
Xi's evolving travel patterns drew attention in the fall of 2023, when he skipped a summit of the Group of 20 advanced and developing economies that India was hosting. He sent Premier Li instead.
Chinese officials didn't say why Xi missed an event where he had been a regular participant. China had typically been represented by its president at G-20 summits since the bloc began arranging leader-level meetings in 2008.
In early July, when Xi skipped the Brics summit, Li filled in at the meeting in Brazil, where Xi had gone just seven months earlier to attend a G-20 summit and conduct a state visit.
Diplomats and analysts say that Xi's decision to skip a Brics summit is notable given his efforts to boost the relevance of multilateral groupings where China holds greater sway, compared with institutions such as G-20, which Beijing has portrayed as too beholden to the U.S.
The Brics group—named after its early members of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—has presented itself as a multilateral counterweight to a U.S.-dominated world order.
'Physical stamina is a precious political resource, and Xi knows it. As Xi grows older, he is carefully managing his travel to preserve his strength," said Thomas, the fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute. 'Skipping the Brics summit in Brazil likely had less to do with geopolitics and more with jet lag. A 48-hour round-trip for a two-day meeting just was not worth the physical toll."
Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Time of India
12 minutes ago
- Time of India
Trump deals bring some clarity for world's manufacturing base
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads After months of uncertainty, President Donald Trump 's latest tariff deals are providing clarity on the broad contours of a new trade landscape for the world's biggest manufacturing on Tuesday announced a deal with Japan that sets tariffs on the nation's imports at 15%, including for autos — by far the biggest component of the trade deficit between the countries.A separate agreement with the Philippines set a 19% rate, the same level as Indonesia agreed and a percentage point below Vietnam's 20% baseline level, signaling that the bulk of Southeast Asia is likely to get a similar rate.'We live in a new normal where 10% is the new zero and so 15% and 20% doesn't seem so bad if everyone else got it,' said Trinh Nguyen, senior economist for emerging Asia at Natixis. At a 15%-20% tariff level, it's still profitable for US companies to import from abroad rather than produce similar goods at home, she US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he'll meet his Chinese counterparts in Stockholm next week for their third round of talks aimed at extending a tariff truce and widening the discussions. That suggests a continuing stabilization in ties between the world's two largest economies after the US recently eased chip curbs and China resumed rare earths exports.'We're getting along with China very well,' Trump told reporters on Tuesday. 'We have a very good relationship.'Throw it all together and a level of predictability is finally emerging after six months of tariff threats that had at one point jacked up tariff levels to 145% on China and near 50% on some smaller Asian exporters. Investors cheered the moves, with Asian shares rising the most in a month and contracts for the S&P 500 up 0.2%. The Nikkei-225 index in Japan jumped 3.2%, with Toyota Motor Corp. and other carmakers leading the gains.'What's been interesting to me is that equity markets still have been fairly rosy about the changes,' Albert Park, chief economist at the Asian Development Bank, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. 'I'm not sure they've priced in fully all of the effects that are likely to occur from the disruption of higher tariff rates.'Back in April, Trump hit the pause button on the steepest levies after a rare combination of weakening US stocks, bonds and the dollar showed investors were unnerved by his protectionist salvos. That bought time for policymakers from Tokyo, Manila and across the globe to negotiate more palatable the latest deals bring some relief, key questions remain. The Trump administration is still considering a range of sectoral tariffs on goods like semiconductors and pharmaceuticals that will be critical for Asian economies including Taiwan and India — both of which have yet to announce tariff agreements with the Korea is also more exposed to sectoral tariffs, even though the Japan deal provides a potential template for new President Lee Jae Trump moves quickly on talks with countries accounting for the bulk of the US trade deficit, he has said he may hit around 150 smaller countries with a blanket rate of between 10% and 15%.With some certainty on tariff levels now emerging, businesses with complex supply chains across Asia and still reliant of the US consumer can start to game out how they'll shift operations to minimize the hit to like the first trade war in 2018, the latest tariff announcements are likely to spur companies to increasingly shift production outside of China. The average tariff rate on the world's second-largest economy remains the highest in the region, and continued White House pressure on the nation's technology and trade ambitions means companies may find more stability and industry groups have been flagging for months that uncertainty is worse than tariffs for investment. The manufacturing sector across the ASEAN region saw the most notable weakening since August 2021, according to S&P PMI, led by a sharper decrease in new orders, major job cuts and weaker purchasing front-loading of shipments from Asia to the US to get ahead of the incoming levies will likely slow once the new rates kick in. While there's relief that tariff rates for Southeast Asian economies and 15% for Japan are lower than some of Trump's earlier threats, the reality is that they're far higher than they were before he took latest deals 'continue the trend of tariff rates gravitating towards the 15-20% range that President Trump recently indicated to be his preferred level for the blanket rate instead of 10% currently,' Barclays Plc analysts including Brian Tan wrote in a note. That skews risks to GDP growth forecasts for Asia 'to the downside,' they US consumers who have so far been spared the tariff ticket shock, economists warn there's likely to be some pass through in the months ahead. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists now expect the US baseline 'reciprocal' tariff rate will rise from 10% to 15% — an outcome that threatens to fuel inflation and weigh on economic Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has argued he wants to see where tariffs land and how they filter through the economy before cutting interest rates — much to the annoyance of now, the US president is hailing a win on trade, and investors seem overall relieved.'I just signed the largest trade deal in history — I think maybe the largest deal in history — with Japan,' Trump said at an event at the White House on Tuesday after announcing the deal on social media. 'It's a great deal for everybody.'


The Print
12 minutes ago
- The Print
China's Brahmaputra dam is also a military asset. It raises alarm for India
In contemporary geopolitics, infrastructure has become a strategic language of its own, one that Beijing is speaking fluently. Beyond the spectacle of scale, the Chinese online discourse quickly turned the project into a symbol of strategic ascendancy. India, the downstream neighbour, is cast as anxious and reactive . China, in contrast, is portrayed as visionary and unyielding—a master of its geography and architect of a new regional order. Chinese Premier Li Qiang, on 19 July, presided over the groundbreaking of what is set to become the world's largest hydropower dam , on the so-called 'Yarlung Zangbo', as China refers to the Brahmaputra River. Within hours, Chinese online platforms erupted in celebration. A Weibo hashtag marking the occasion—#Construction begins on lower Yarlung Zangbo Hydropower Project—amassed over 73 million views. Engineering feat or strategic signal? The Medog Hydropower Station is projected to cost $167 billion and boasts a planned capacity of 70 to 81 million kilowatts, roughly triple that of the Three Gorges Dam. Once completed, it is expected to generate 300 billion kilowatt-hours annually. The project will take a decade to build, but its signalling to the region, especially India, is immediate. Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a daily Chinese tabloid, criticised Western media for focusing on India's ecological and geopolitical concerns while ignoring what he called an 'engineering miracle'. For Hu, the dam is not just about electricity; it is also a declaration of China's ability to tame the Himalayas and reshape geography. One Chinese commentator claimed that India's objections stem not from technical concerns, but from its deeply entrenched 'security-first' mindset. New Delhi, the commentator argued, has long prioritised control over collaboration, building its own dams while accusing others of weaponising water. 'India's alarmism,' another wrote, 'comes from its own guilty conscience.' China's dual narrative Officially, Beijing is presenting the dam as a developmental initiative, aimed at energy security, poverty alleviation, regional integration, and transforming Nyingchi into the 'Little Sichuan' or 'Jiangnan of Tibet.' Talk of water weaponisation is being brushed aside as paranoia. Commentators invoke 'non-zero-sum' logic and portray China as a responsible upstream actor. But unofficial voices tell a different story. 'India, which tries to control Pakistan with water cuts, now fears China might do the same,' one commentator quipped. Victor Gao, vice president of the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, was even more blunt: 'If India uses rivers as leverage against Pakistan, it should be prepared for reciprocity.' These comparisons are not new. Over a decade ago, Ye Hailin, director of Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, argued that if India expects restraint from China as an upstream power, it should accept the same standard when Pakistan, downstream of India, makes similar demands. A more recent commentary on Baidu put it less diplomatically: 'Just a month ago, before the official exchange of fire between India and Pakistan, India took the initiative, cutting off water at will, then releasing it, showing little regard for the lives of Pakistani civilians. Faced with a neighbour like India, we [China] must abandon any moral restraint. We should move at our own pace, neither seeking to dominate nor to appease. Stand firm, when necessary, fight when required. Otherwise, we risk being the ones who suffer.' Also read: India's 'triple anxiety'—What Chinese media sees in Jaishankar's Beijing visit Water, border, and politics of control On Chinese social media, the discussion turned openly strategic. One user noted a road built inside the dam tunnels, ostensibly for maintenance, that leads directly to Arunachal Pradesh. 'In peacetime, it is for power,' the user wrote. 'In wartime? I do not need to spell it out.' This is infrastructure envisioned not just as an economic backbone, but as a military asset, both shield and sword. This strategic undertone also helps explain Beijing's long-standing refusal to enter a hydrological data-sharing agreement with India. As Hu Suisheng, senior fellow at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, once noted, such cooperation would implicitly acknowledge India's border position—especially over Arunachal Pradesh, which China disputes. Despite the rhetoric of regional uplift and mutual benefit, India's concerns have been routinely dismissed by the Chinese official narrative and online discourse. There has been no consultation, only unilateral action over a transboundary river system that feeds millions downstream. Beneath China's rhetoric of development flows a deeper current, shaped by quiet force and strategic intent. This is not merely the redirection of water but the rewriting of the regional order through determination and power. For New Delhi, this dam raises alarm. For Beijing, this is advantageous on multiple fronts. Cooperation may be the language used, but the headwaters of the Brahmaputra speak of dominance and unilateral action, not dialogue or mutual benefit. Sana Hashmi is a fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation. She tweets @sanahashmi1. Views are personal. (Edited by Ratan Priya)


Indian Express
12 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Far beyond Harvard, conservative efforts to reshape higher education are gaining steam
Ken Beckley never went to Harvard, but he has been wearing a crimson Harvard cap in a show of solidarity. As he sees it, the Trump administration's attacks on the school echo a case of government overreach at his alma mater, Indiana University. Beckley, a former head of the school's alumni association, rallied fellow graduates this spring in an unsuccessful effort to stop Governor Mike Braun, a Republican, from removing three alumni-elected members from Indiana University's Board of Trustees and handpicking their replacements. No government effort to influence a university — private or public—has gotten more attention than the clash at Harvard, where the Trump administration has frozen billions of dollars in federal funding as it seeks a series of policy changes. But far beyond the Ivy League, Republican officials are targeting public universities in several states with efforts seeking similar ends. 'What's happened nationally is now affecting Indiana,' said Beckley, who bought Harvard caps in bulk and passes them out to friends. Officials in conservative states took aim at higher education before President Donald Trump began his second term, driven in part by the belief that colleges are out of touch — too liberal and loading up students with too much debt. The first efforts focused on critical race theory, an academic framework centred on the idea that racism is embedded in the nation's institutions, and then on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Since Trump took office, officials in states including Indiana, Florida, Ohio, Texas, Iowa and Idaho increasingly have focused on university governance — rules for who picks university presidents and boards and how much control they exert over curricula and faculty tenure. As at Harvard, which Trump has decried as overly influenced by liberal thinking, those state officials have sought to reduce the power of faculty members and students. 'They've realised that they can take a bit of a step further, that they can advance their policy priorities through those levers they have through the state university system,' said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow who studies higher education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. In Indiana, Braun said he picked new trustees who will guide the school 'back in the right direction.' They include an anti-abortion attorney and a former ESPN host who was disciplined because she criticised the company's policy requiring employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Braun's administration has ramped up scrutiny of hiring practices at colleges statewide. Indiana's attorney general, Todd Rokita, has sent letters to the University of Notre Dame, Butler University and DePauw University questioning the legality of their DEI programs. Butler, a private, liberal arts school in Indianapolis, was founded by an abolitionist in the decade leading up to the Civil War and admitted women and students of colour from the start. 'I hope that Butler will uphold the standards they were founded on,' said Edyn Curry, president of Butler's Black Student Union. In Florida, the state university system board in June rejected longtime academic Santa Ono for the presidency at the University of Florida, despite a unanimous vote of approval by the school's own Board of Trustees. The unprecedented reversal followed criticism from conservatives about Ono's past support for DEI programs. That followed the conservative makeover of New College of Florida, a small liberal arts school once known as the state's most progressive. After Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a group of conservatives to its governing board, many faculty left, including Amy Reid, who now manages a team focused on higher education at the free-expression group PEN America. 'When our students started organising at New College, one of their slogans was Your Campus is Next,'' said Reid, who saw the gender studies program she directed defunded and then cut. 'So no, we're not surprised when you see other states redefining what can be in a general education class, because we've seen it happen already.' The changes at several public universities are proceeding without battles of the kind seen at Harvard. In a standoff seen widely as a test of private universities' independence, Harvard has filed lawsuits against the administration's moves to cut its federal funding and block its ability to host international students. In Iowa, new DEI restrictions are taking effect in July for community colleges. And the board that governs the state's three public universities is weighing doing something similar to Idaho, where a new law imposes restrictions on requiring students to take DEI-related courses to meet graduation requirements. Historically, the Iowa board has been focused on big-picture issues like setting tuition rates and approving degree programs. Now, there's a perceived sense that faculty should not be solely responsible for academic matters and that the trustees should play a more active role, said Joseph Yockey, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law and the former president of Iowa's faculty senate. 'What we started to see more recently is trustees losing confidence,' Yockey said. A new law in Ohio bans DEI programs at public colleges and universities and also strips faculty of certain collective bargaining rights and tenure protections. There are few guardrails limiting how far oversight boards can change public institutions, said Isabel McMullen, a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin who researches higher education. 'For a board that really does want to wreak havoc on an institution and overthrow a bunch of different programs, I think if a board is interested in doing that, I don't really see what's stopping them aside from students and faculty really organising against it,' McMullen said. The initiatives on state and federal levels have led to widespread concerns about an erosion of colleges' independence from politics, said Isaac Kamola, director of the Centre for the Defence of Academic Freedom at the American Association of University Professors. 'They have to not only face an attack from the state legislature, but also from the federal government as well,' said Kamola, who is also a professor of political science at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a pair of bills in June that impose new limits on student protests and give gubernatorial-appointed boards that oversee the state's universities new powers to control the curriculum and eliminate degree programs. Cameron Samuels, executive director of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, an advocacy group, said politicians in the state are taking control of universities to dictate what is acceptable. 'When someone controls the dissemination of ideas, that is a really dangerous sign for the future of democracy,' Samuels said. The 21-year-old who is transgender and nonbinary went to college in Massachusetts and got into Harvard for graduate school, but as the Trump administration began targeting the institution, he instead chose to return to his home state and attend the University of Texas in Austin. 'I at least knew what to expect,' he said