{"id":26735,"date":"2021-03-11T22:48:39","date_gmt":"2021-03-11T14:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/?p=26735"},"modified":"2021-04-01T01:29:30","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T17:29:30","slug":"china-the-unreal-world-of-xi-jinping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2021\/03\/11\/26735\/","title":{"rendered":"China: The unreal world of Xi Jinping"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese regime\u2019s propaganda goes into overdrive as Xi positions himself for unprecedented third term<\/strong>
<\/p>\n

This article is from Socialist Alternative, the political magazine of the Socialist Party (ISA) in Ireland. By Vincent Kolo, chinaworker.info<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

There is a huge and widening gap between reality and how the Chinese dictatorship presents reality. With the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party (CCP) approaching in July and China\u2019s dictator Xi Jinping needing an endless run of \u201cvictories\u201d to secure his position in advance of next year\u2019s regime reshuffle, the state\u2019s propaganda machine has gone into overdrive.<\/p>\n

Likewise, the grotesque personality cult that has been built around Xi has reached new heights (or depths). In February, the People\u2019s Daily mentioned Xi\u2019s name 139 times in one article celebrating China\u2019s \u201ccomplete victory\u201d in eradicating poverty. As we shall show, Xi\u2019s anti-poverty campaign is yet another triumph of propaganda over reality. The extreme prickliness of Xi\u2019s regime is revealed by the latest topic to be banned by internet\u00a0censors: the Chinese character for \u201cemerald\u201d began to spread as a form of protest by Chinese netizens because it can also be read as \u201cXi dies twice\u201d.<\/p>\n

Xi faces multiple challenges at home and abroad. It is an unprecedented and possibly existential crisis for his regime and the CCP-state. This is shown by a number of new policies and pronouncements relating to \u201ccurbing financial risks\u201d (China\u2019s debt levels now exceed Japan\u2019s at their highest point), fast-tracking the creation of a \u201cfully modern military\u201d\u00a0by\u00a0the year 2027 (to counter US pressure which will certainly continue under Biden), and also Xi\u2019s overly complicated \u201cdual circulation strategy\u201d which aims to boost China\u2019s consumer spending as a way to offset de-globalization and anti-China protectionist policies.<\/p>\n

20th CCP Congress<\/strong><\/p>\n

Xi is\u00a0also facing challenges from within the party-state. The key issue is next year\u2019s 20th CCP Congress and Xi\u2019s aim to break with traditional power limits and extend his rule for a third term \u2013 and beyond \u2013 as both CCP general secretary and president.\u00a0His\u00a0plan is to be ruler for life. During his first term, 2012-2017, Xi partly succeeded in quelling top-level factional power struggles by waging China\u2019s biggest ever anti-corruption sweep. Actually this was a cover for a factionally targeted purge to eliminate his enemies and consolidate unprecedented power in Xi\u2019s hands. As we explained the character of the Chinese regime morphed from \u201cone-party dictatorship\u201d into \u201cone-man dictatorship\u201d.<\/p>\n

But CCP infighting has flared up again as a result of the crisis in society and in international relations. Today,\u00a0this\u00a0power struggle is the most severe since the period before and immediately after the 1989 Beijing massacre. While on present trends Xi will likely succeed in extending his rule, growing discontent and factional manoeuvring in the upper reaches of the party-state could force him into making compromises. The period after the 2022 Congress could see a different alignment of forces and greater intra-CCP instability. Ultimately, conflicts within the ruling class reflect\u00a0social\u00a0processes\u00a0and the\u00a0rising tide of working class discontent.<\/p>\n

The lines of division inside the party-state are not clearly defined or settled, they are not ultimately about political ideas but about power: the CCP\u2019s top ranks are an assemblage of capitalist oligarchs controlling vast business empires. Within these layers there is a growing pessimism that pretty much everything is going wrong.<\/p>\n

Some anti-Xi factions are uneasy with his ultra-nationalistic and imperial \u2018wolf warrior\u2019 diplomacy used to strong-arm other governments as shown by disputes with Australia, Canada, India and Taiwan. This\u00a0section of the ruling class\u00a0would prefer a return to the more discreet and pragmatic \u201chide and bide\u201d foreign policy doctrine of Deng Xiaoping (\u201chide your capacities and bide your time\u201d) as a means to de-escalate global tensions especially with the US.<\/p>\n

Instead, like a frilled lizard puffing up its neck, Xi\u2019s regime exaggerates its economic strength and global capabilities, partly as\u00a0a\u00a0tool of diplomacy, but more importantly still to reinforce the aura of Han nationalist \u2018strongman\u2019 that Xi Jinping needs in order to continue ruling. China\u2019s aggressive foreign policy \u2013 over the disputed border with India, the escalation of military exercises in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the detention of two Canadian citizens in retaliation for\u00a0Huawei heiress\u00a0Meng Wanzhou\u2019s detention in Vancouver \u2013 these all serve a dual purpose: to pressure foreign governments\u00a0but also\u00a0to feed the domestic propaganda machine.<\/p>\n

Doubling down on repression\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another source of unease is the relentless increase in repression. This has been the most striking feature of Xi\u2019s rule. The anti-Xi factions are hardly wishy-washy liberals. None of them would balk at ordering police to crackdown on street protests or workers\u2019 strikes. But Xi\u2019s brutal crackdowns in Hong Kong, Inner Mongolia and especially Xinjiang, and his \u2018default position\u2019 which is to double down whenever his hardline policies meet resistance,\u00a0these\u00a0are becoming increasingly counterproductive.<\/p>\n

\n

China under Xi has entered an \u201cexquisite totalitarian era\u201d that has surpassed the totalitarianism of Mao and even Hitler says Cai Xia<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is for at least four reasons. Firstly, vicious repression, which in Xinjiang\u2019s case has reached Orwellian levels, does not create \u201cstability\u201d which is the stated aim. Ultimately it is pushing China towards revolutionary explosions and sections of the CCP hierarchy fear this. Hong Kong\u2019s mass democracy protests in 2019 gave a foretaste, on a local scale, of where China could be heading. Secondly, this gives Biden and other Western rulers ammunition with which to sway global public opinion and hide their Cold War strategies against China behind a narrative of \u201chuman rights\u201d and \u201cdemocracy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, the tyranny of Xi\u2019s regime has taken on a different character even compared with the past, because it is also directed internally into monitoring and policing the CCP elite. Cai Xia, a former professor at the CCP\u2019s prestigious Central Party School (the incubator for future top officials), says China under Xi has entered an \u201cexquisite totalitarian era\u201d that has surpassed the totalitarianism of Mao and even Hitler<\/a>. \u201cThe use of advanced technology. Strict surveillance enabled by big data. He can precisely monitor everyone. He can put you under 24\/7 close surveillance,\u201d she told Radio Free Asia (5 October 2020).<\/p>\n

Cai, who defected to the US in 2020, is close to some of the CCP\u2019s princelings \u2013 China\u2019s \u201cred nobility\u201d \u2013 which forms the core of the capitalist class. This layer initially supported Xi, himself a princeling, but has become increasingly disaffected. Cai claims that Xi\u2019s ruling faction, called the \u201cZhejiang faction\u201d after the eastern province where many of its members built their careers, enjoys hard-core support from only around ten percent of the CCP\u2019s officialdom at middle and higher level. The majority are unwilling to openly oppose Xi at this stage but their \u201csupport\u201d is passive she says. While her account of the internal balance of forces may be exaggerated for factional purposes, other important developments confirm the existence of widespread but muted \u2013 we could even say \u201cpassive aggressive\u201d \u2013 dissent at various levels of the party-state.<\/p>\n

The clearest expression of this is the increasingly open power struggle between Xi and Li Keqiang, the premier. State media, controlled by Xi\u2019s faction, have even censored the premier\u2019s speeches \u2013 something\u00a0unseen\u00a0since the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. Since taking office alongside Xi in 2012, Li has kept a low profile. But in the past year he has become the mouthpiece of internal CCP dissent, dropping a number of media \u2018bombshells\u2019 that\u00a0constitute\u00a0indirect criticism of Xi\u2019s policies. This was the case at the end of last year\u2019s National People\u2019s Congress\u00a0in May\u00a0when Li announced to the media that 600 million Chinese, 43 percent of the population, earned no more than 150 US dollars per month<\/a>. This was a reality check and a sideswipe at the overblown poverty eradication campaign that bears Xi\u2019s official stamp.<\/p>\n

Cai Xia\u2019s testimony is\u00a0revealing. \u201cOther than Xi\u2019s clan, we all know we cannot keep going like this,\u201d she told RFA. Despite his growing unpopularity, Cai acknowledges that Xi Jinping cannot be removed by \u201cnormal\u201d means. \u201cMaybe an emergency of some sort or an unexpected accident could trigger explosive changes,\u201d is her conclusion.<\/p>\n

A fourth cause of ferment is that Xi\u2019s extreme police state measures have the effect of incapacitating the regime\u2019s ability to\u00a0predict\u00a0and deal with new crises. This was shown with devastating worldwide repercussions when the coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan. Despite a subsequent cover up, the truth is that during the crucial weeks leading up to 20 January 2020, Xi\u2019s regime was blindsided<\/a> by the party-state\u2019s obsession with secrecy and the actions of its security apparatus, which with brutal efficiency stamped on every attempt to sound the alarm.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s system is \u201csuperior\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Only the tragicomic pandemic responses of Western governments under the pressure of big business allowed Xi to shift attention and partially recover from the Wuhan episode. Wuhan was not an isolated example of government paralysis in the face of sudden crises. The eruption of million-plus demonstrations in Hong Kong beginning in June 2019, and the first trade war attacks of Trump\u2019s administration a year earlier, are two developments that were unforeseen by Xi\u2019s regime and were initially met with stunned inaction.<\/p>\n

A key theme of CCP propaganda is the \u201csuperiority\u201d of China\u2019s (totalitarian) political system as compared to \u201cWestern-style democracy\u201d. This is shown by the \u201cvictories\u201d over Covid-19, China\u2019s economic rebound in 2020, and the eradication of poverty, it claims. Similarly, China\u2019s \u201cvaccine diplomacy\u201d, shipping vast quantities of Chinese made vaccines to poorer countries, is used to upstage and shame the callous stance of Western imperialism. Clearly, the deep crisis of bourgeois democracy everywhere but especially in the US, with the emergence of an unstable and authoritarian figure like Trump, has gifted CCP propaganda.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, there is a reason why historically capitalism prefers parliamentary or \u201cdemocratic\u201d forms of government over military-police dictatorships. The downside for the capitalists is that in a bourgeois democracy the working class wins certain limited but crucial political rights: to form trade unions, political parties, its own media, and to use this democratic space to debate and clarify the ideas and struggle methods needed to fight capitalism. In a totalitarian capitalist society like China all of the above are brutally suppressed.<\/p>\n

The capitalists in general prefer a \u201cdemocratic\u201d system because this offers a more stable form of rule. A \u201cmultiparty system\u201d (in which all or almost all are capitalist parties) can act as a safety valve to release mass pressure. The institutions of parliamentary democracy, the press, the judiciary, contain \u201cchecks and balances\u201d to control the ruling group and prevent it from straying too far from the interests of capital.<\/p>\n

Totalitarian regimes by contrast, especially in an era of economic crisis and heightened class tensions, tend towards blow up and collapse. No significant section of the CCP and Chinese capitalist class favour a shift to a bourgeois democratic model.\u00a0Capitalism was restored in China after the crushing of the Tiananmen Square mass democracy movement (with mass movements and strikes in more than 300 cities), but the regime of Deng Xiaoping consciously chose a path to capitalism that preserved significant state controls and rejected bourgeois democracy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The CCP\u2019s\u00a0liberal\u00a0elements at most advocate a modified dictatorship \u2013 \u201cpolitical reform\u201d \u2013 with less repression and fewer political and social controls. But there are surely protagonists in the ongoing CCP power struggle who envy the US ruling class,\u00a0which\u00a0by means of an election were able to deal with their \u201cTrump problem\u201d, while for\u00a0\u201cChina\u2019s Trump\u201d\u00a0this is not an option.<\/p>\n

100th anniversary<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 100th anniversary of the CCP will see a Niagara of nationalistic propaganda to drum home the message that without the CCP dictatorship, China is lost. But there is another side to the celebrations. They will be hi-jacked by Xi\u2019s faction as a weapon in the internal power struggle. The personality cult will reach new levels to cement Xi\u2019s status as the \u201cgreatest leader since Mao\u201d. This is designed to ensure there are no slips before next year\u2019s 20th Congress and Xi\u2019s coronation for a third term<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ideas that inspired the CCP\u2019s pioneers a century ago \u2013 class struggle, anti-capitalism, democracy, internationalism and the Russian Revolution \u2013 these are all subversive topics for today\u2019s rulers. They will be buried underneath nationalist themes like crushing \u201cTaiwan separatism\u201d, resisting \u201canti-China forces\u201d, and realising \u201cthe great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation\u201d.<\/p>\n

With the 20th Congress in mind, Xi cannot afford any serious setbacks in the coming twelve months \u2013 no new Hong Kong-style eruptions. After a campaign of pressure in the first weeks of Biden\u2019s term, over Taiwan, the South China Sea and the CCP\u2019s political strangulation of Hong Kong, Beijing may attempt to ease tensions by offering cooperation at least in some specific areas such as climate change. It can\u2019t be excluded that a limited process of d\u00e9tente may occur but it will be fragile and temporary. On the home front we can expect a succession of \u201cvictories\u201d to be celebrated, all of course engineered by Xi personally.<\/p>\n

\"\"
CCP’s first congress in July 1921.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This includes the economy. China has the distinction of being the only major economy to grow in 2020, albeit at the weakest rate since 1976. As is always the case some statistical manipulation has been used. Still, going by the official numbers,\u00a0China\u2019s economy grew by 2.3 percent last year while Germany\u2019s contracted by 5 percent and the US by 3.5 percent.<\/p>\n

This year, China\u2019s GDP is forecast to expand by 8 percent, with some even predicting 10 percent growth. While that would be eye-catching,\u00a0this year\u2019s\u00a0GDP data will be flattered by the low base effect from 2020. Taken over two years even growth of 8 percent in 2021 would amount to a compound rate of growth below 6 percent, a continued slowdown from 2019 (6.1 percent) in other words.<\/p>\n

K-shaped recovery<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moreover, China has experienced a K-shaped recovery. Those earning more than 300,000 yuan (around 48,400 US dollars) per year \u2013 barely 5 percent of the population \u2013 saw their wealth increase in 2020 according to the China Household Finance Survey. But at least two-thirds of the population saw their incomes fall in real terms. According to the National Bureau of Statistics real disposable income increased just 0.6 percent in the first three quarters of 2020 over the year before. This compares to a 6 percent increase in 2019.<\/p>\n

Household debt levels, after quadrupling in the past five years, increased to 62.2 percent of GDP in 2020. This compares to 76 percent in the US. Here, the rate of catch up is astonishing: In 2008, China\u2019s household debt-to-GDP ratio was 18 percent compared to 99 percent in the US. More than anything this is down\u00a0to the bubble in the Chinese property market, which is\u00a0among the most expensive in the world. Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing\u00a0have the\u00a0fourth, fifth and sixth most expensive\u00a0housing\u00a0in the world, according to China Daily. Hong Kong is first.<\/p>\n

For the first time since 2009, not a single province increased the minimum wage\u00a0last year. All the indications are that this wage freeze will be extended in 2021. This explains why per-capita consumption, after adjusting for inflation, dropped 4 percent in 2020, the first such fall since 1969. The only sector to buck the trend was\u00a0the luxury goods market which grew by nearly 50 percent last year. Therefore, the GDP growth achieved in 2020 was not based on stronger consumption, which is the core objective of\u00a0Xi\u2019s \u201cdual circulation strategy\u201d, but rather on the very factors this so-called strategy was devised to avoid: higher debt levels, greater export dependency, and a housing bubble.<\/p>\n

Exports rose by 3.6 percent in 2020 based on\u00a0the\u00a0windfall effect created by the pandemic and successive lockdowns in other countries.\u00a0China became\u00a0the \u201cexporter of last resort\u201d. China\u2019s exports of Covid-19-critical medical products more than tripled in the first half of the year, from 18 billion to 55 billion US dollars. There was a similar surge in electronic exports and especially work-from-home products. These windfall gains are unlikely to be repeated.<\/p>\n

More worrying is the jump in already severe debt levels, with China\u2019s combined public sector, corporate and household debt reaching 280 percent of GDP in 2020, up from 255 percent of GDP in 2019, according to the People\u2019s Bank of China (central bank). This rises to about 295 percent of GDP when foreign debt (which the PBoC estimates to be 14.5 percent of GDP) is included.\u00a0It follows that\u00a0China\u2019s modest 2.3 percent growth was achieved by its biggest ever increase in debt. This is not sustainable. The strains in China\u2019s bond markets, with a string of defaults by some big state-owned enterprises<\/a>, points to the first serious cracks in the financial system.<\/p>\n

Growth of left ideas<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the super-rich however, most of whom are CCP members and are integrated into the power structures of the CCP-state, 2020 saw the \u201cfastest growth ever\u201d\u00a0according to the Shanghai-based Hurun list. China\u00a0minted 257 new billionaires during the course of the year, a rate of five new billionaires every week.<\/a> Their combined wealth rose by 60 percent to 4 trillion US dollars.<\/p>\n

China \u201cpulls away from the USA\u201d Hurun reported, with 1,058 billionaires to America\u2019s 696. The CCP\u2019s 100th anniversary will see Xi\u2019s regime performing political contortions to obscure\u00a0the reality that\u00a0the class character and politics of the 1920s Communists were the polar opposite of today\u2019s authoritarian capitalist oligarchy.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cA decade ago the most vocal ideology on China\u2019s internet was liberalism. Now the left is dominant. Just a few years ago Jack Ma was revered as \u2018Father Ma\u2019, now he\u2019s called a vampire and a bloodsucking capitalist\u201d says Liang, a Trotskyist.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The growing political radicalisation of Chinese youth, and most notably the explosive growth of \u201cpan-leftism\u201d and particularly \u201cMaoism\u201d is a troublesome potentially ruinous development for the CCP. Ironically, what we are seeing in China\u2019s case is not conventional Maoism;\u00a0rather\u00a0this has become a generic term for a multiplicity of leftist ideas.<\/p>\n

Many young Maoists in China support internationalism, feminism, LGBTQ and ethnic minority rights. These youth are deeply critical of and even oppose outright the CCP regime as a capitalist regime, although for obvious reasons such criticism is expressed in a guarded way. They have a diametrically opposite standpoint in other words to some Maoists internationally who slavishly support the Xi regime and its repressive policies in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and against workers\u2019 strikes.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Jack Ma: no longer popular.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cDuring the 2020 pandemic I noticed that young people in China are moving far to left,\u201d says Liang, a supporter of ISA in China. He says the growth of anti-establishment consciousness is\u00a0now\u00a0widespread in society, which includes but is not confined to Maoism. \u201cA decade ago the most vocal ideology on China\u2019s internet was liberalism. Now the left is dominant. Just a few years ago [Alibaba owner] Jack Ma was revered as \u2018Father Ma\u2019, now he\u2019s called a vampire and a bloodsucking capitalist,\u201d says Liang. Anger over the gaping rich-poor divide and especially the miserable treatment of 290 million migrant workers from\u00a0China\u2019s\u00a0poorer inland provinces is a major driver of today\u2019s political radicalisation.<\/p>\n

Eradicating poverty<\/strong><\/p>\n

The celebrations of Xi Jinping\u2019s \u201ccomplete victory\u201d in eradicating poverty are an attempt to shift attention from these realities. Not only has the regime proclaimed this \u201cmiracle on earth\u201d, it has\u00a0even\u00a0deleted the word \u201cpoverty\u201d from the official name of the anti-poverty agency, raising the possibility that all references to \u201cpoverty\u201d will be prohibited in future.<\/p>\n

Chen Hongtao, one of the editors of Maoist website Red China, was arrested in February for posting an article exposing the fraudulent nature of the poverty eradication campaign. On this topic as with many others the claims of the regime are widely disbelieved, especially by the left\u00a0in China, while neo-Stalinist \u201clefts\u201d internationally seem happy to swallow these absurdities.<\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s campaign was launched in 2013 with the express aim of lifting the remaining 100 million people out of \u201cextreme poverty\u201d by the end of 2020<\/a>.\u00a0Given that his personal prestige was invested in this\u00a0enterprise there was no possibility this deadline would be missed. Reality, once again, is rewritten in the service of the dictatorship.<\/p>\n

The government allocated 1.6 trillion yuan to poverty relief, which was used for investments in roads and infrastructure in some extremely poor regions and the relocation of 10 million people. That was one side of the story. The other is widespread forgery of data, coercion, and faking of achievements by local governments to meet their anti-poverty targets. The campaign used a very low base to define \u201cextreme poverty\u201d set at $2.30 per person per day. This is lower than the $3.20 per day poverty line the World Bank applies to India, and is less than half the level it recommends for an upper-middle income country like China.<\/p>\n

Vaccine backlash<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another area where regime propaganda obscures reality is China\u2019s fight against Covid-19. Xi Jinping declared \u201cvictory\u201d over the pandemic at a Beijing awards ceremony on 8 September last year. This was premature and new outbreaks have since occurred. While the numbers of new infections have been low by international standards this has brought forth several large-scale lockdowns.<\/p>\n

In Hebei province, which neighbours Beijing, more than 22 million people were ordered to remain inside their homes for more than\u00a0a\u00a0week in January. This was actually twice as large as the Wuhan lockdown of 2020. Similar lockdowns involving tens of millions of people have occurred in Xinjiang (July to August 2020), Jilin and Heilongjiang (January 2021). There is friction between Beijing and regional governments, some of which it believes have been too eager to impose lockdowns. This too is a feature of the intra-CCP power struggle.<\/p>\n

Currently, the regime\u2019s vaccine rollout is beset by problems. While China has gained some ground with its global \u201cvaccine diplomacy\u201d, exporting\u00a0to 80 mostly low- and middle-income\u00a0countries that have been cold-shouldered by\u00a0the\u00a0Western powers and their vaccine companies, its domestic vaccine program is going badly. China has shipped more vaccines abroad than it has administered to its own people, 46 million as against 40.5 million, according to an analysis by the South China Morning Post on 15 February.<\/p>\n

Not only does China face the challenge of vaccinating a population four times greater than that of the US, it is encountering widespread public distrust. This is because of numerous scandals involving unsafe, expired, and contaminated vaccines, drugs and food products over the past decades. Lack of transparency and the refusal of China\u2019s vaccine makers to disclose some trial data has deepened misgivings among the public. A survey in Shanghai showed that half the population did not plan to get vaccinated. Among medical workers in Zhejiang province only 28 percent wanted the vaccine according to another survey.<\/p>\n

The Chinese vaccines, which so far have only been approved for people under 60 years of age, have not performed well in comparisons with Western alternatives. Sinovac\u2019s vaccine achieved an efficacy rate of just 50.4 percent in trials in Brazil<\/a>, and 65.3 percent in Indonesia. This compares to an efficacy rate of 95 percent for Pfizer\u2019s vaccine and 94.1 percent for Moderna\u2019s (both US companies). The Financial times reported production delays at Sinovac\u2019s factories in China and a shortage of imported glass vials needed to store the vaccines.<\/p>\n

Scepticism towards the Chinese vaccines has\u00a0also\u00a0knocked some of the shine off its global diplomatic offensive. In December, Cambodia\u2019s dictator Hun Sen, normally a slavish CCP supporter, refused to accept the Chinese vaccines unless they were given WHO approval. \u201cCambodia is not a dustbin\u201d<\/a>, he said.<\/p>\n

Although the WHO is still evaluating China\u2019s vaccines, the Cambodian government took delivery of its first batch in January. But Hun, who is 68,\u00a0had to forego his own vaccination on the advice of Chinese officials. \u201cThe safety and efficacy of the vaccine for people over 60 years old are still being studied,\u201d he said.\u00a0In the Philippines, where another authoritarian ruler Rodrigo Duterte is promoting China\u2019s vaccines, less than 20 percent of those questioned in a poll expressed confidence in them.<\/p>\n

Hungary is the only EU country to use the Chinese vaccines and this is of course connected to the anti-EU grandstanding of the right wing Orban government. But a survey in February showed only 27 percent of Hungarians are willing to take the Chinese\u00a0shots<\/a>, although among supporters of the ruling party this rose to 45 percent.<\/p>\n

Despite its bravado, and concern that nothing should be allowed to \u201cspoil the party\u201d as the CCP celebrates its centenary, Xi\u2019s regime will face a number of reality checks. The debt crisis, the continuing Cold War with the US, and\u00a0fears\u00a0that faster vaccine rollouts in several Western countries could tilt the scales against China, these challenges point to a turbulent period ahead. Growing discontent among workers and youth mean that new outbreaks of struggle are inevitable and that genuine socialist ideas will meet an even more receptive audience.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Chinese Covid-19 vaccines.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

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Chinese regime\u2019s propaganda goes into overdrive as Xi positions himself for unprecedented third term<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":26736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[132,124],"tags":[7474,207,174,2941,36853,1965,4490,2509,8452,1633,4738,915,1635,36854,36855,36856,36857,36858,36859],"class_list":{"0":"post-26735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-china","8":"category-news","9":"tag-100th-anniversary","10":"tag-ccp","11":"tag-china-2","12":"tag-cold-war","13":"tag-covid-19-en","14":"tag-deng-xiaoping","15":"tag-hong-kong-en","16":"tag-poverty","17":"tag-power-struggle","18":"tag-repression","19":"tag-tw-en","20":"tag-xi-jinping","21":"tag-xinjiang","22":"tag--en"},"yoast_head":"\nChina: The unreal world of Xi Jinping - 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