Xi Jinping has more clout than Donald Trump. The world should be wary

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 5:33 AM
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Xi Jinping has more clout than Donald Trump. The
world should be wary
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>


Xi Jinping has more clout than Donald Trump. The world should be wary
Do not expect Mr Xi to change China, or the world, for the better
Oct 14 2017
<
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21730144-do-not-expect-mr-xi-change-china-or-world-better-xi-jinping-has-more-clout
>

AMERICAN presidents have a habit of describing their Chinese counterparts
in terms of awe. A fawning Richard Nixon said to Mao Zedong that the
chairman’s writings had “changed the world”. To Jimmy Carter, Deng Xiaoping
was a string of flattering adjectives: “smart, tough, intelligent, frank,
courageous, personable, self-assured, friendly”. Bill Clinton described
China’s then president, Jiang Zemin, as a “visionary” and “a man of
extraordinary intellect”. Donald Trump is no less wowed. The Washington
Post quotes him as saying that China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, is
“probably the most powerful” China has had in a century.

Mr Trump may be right. And were it not political suicide for an American
president to say so, he might plausibly have added: “Xi Jinping is the
world’s most powerful leader.” To be sure, China’s economy is still second
in size to America’s and its army, though rapidly gaining muscle, pales in
comparison. But economic heft and military hardware are not everything. The
leader of the free world has a narrow, transactional approach to foreigners
and seems unable to enact his agenda at home. The United States is still
the world’s most powerful country, but its leader is weaker at home and
less effective abroad than any of his recent predecessors, not least
because he scorns the values and alliances that underpin American influence.

The president of the world’s largest authoritarian state, by contrast,
walks with swagger abroad. His grip on China is tighter than any leader’s
since Mao. And whereas Mao’s China was chaotic and miserably poor, Mr Xi’s
is a dominant engine of global growth. His clout will soon be on full
display. On October 18th China’s ruling Communist Party will convene a
five-yearly congress in Beijing (see Briefing). It will be the first one
presided over by Mr Xi. Its 2,300 delegates will sing his praises to the
skies. More sceptical observers might ask whether Mr Xi will use his
extraordinary power for good or ill.

World, take note

On his numerous foreign tours, Mr Xi presents himself as an apostle of
peace and friendship, a voice of reason in a confused and troubled world.
Mr Trump’s failings have made this much easier. At Davos in January Mr Xi
promised the global elite that he would be a champion of globalisation,
free trade and the Paris accord on climate change. Members of his audience
were delighted and relieved. At least, they thought, one great power was
willing to stand up for what was right, even if Mr Trump (then
president-elect) would not.

Mr Xi’s words are heeded partly because he has the world’s largest
stockpile of foreign currency to back them up. His “Belt and Road
Initiative” may be puzzlingly named, but its message is clear—hundreds of
billions of dollars of Chinese money are to be invested abroad in railways,
ports, power stations and other infrastructure that will help vast swathes
of the world to prosper. That is the kind of leadership America has not
shown since the post-war days of the Marshall Plan in western Europe (which
was considerably smaller).

Mr Xi is also projecting what for China is unprecedented military power
abroad. This year he opened the country’s first foreign military base, in
Djibouti. He has sent the Chinese navy on manoeuvres ever farther afield,
including in July on NATO’s doorstep in the Baltic Sea alongside Russia’s
fleet. China says it would never invade other countries to impose its will
(apart from Taiwan, which it does not consider a country). Its
base-building efforts are to support peacekeeping, anti-piracy and
humanitarian missions, it says. As for the artificial islands with
military-grade runways it is building in the South China Sea, these are
purely defensive.

Unlike Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, Mr Xi is not a global
troublemaker who seeks to subvert democracy and destabilise the West.
Still, he is too tolerant of troublemaking by his nuke-brandishing ally,
North Korea (see Schumpeter). And some of China’s military behaviour alarms
its neighbours, not only in South-East Asia but also in India and Japan.

[snip]

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