ZERO COVID
Xi will also need to decide the future of China’s strict zero-Covid policy – and whether the country is now ready to open up to the outside world after two years of closed borders and strict quarantines.
The policy is dragging on the economy, with officials this week blaming the epidemic for rising unemployment.
“Consumption is unlikely to recover to pre-Covid level with the current scale of Covid control,” said Dan Wang, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank China.
And with COVID-19 rules in China’s semi-autonomous territory of Hong Kong slowly being relaxed in a bid to attract more international capital, Xi could decide the economic costs outweigh the benefits of keeping controls tight.
But the Chinese leader’s speech to the party faithful last week gave no sign that the rigid policy – which has forced millions into lockdowns over just handfuls of cases as the rest of the world learns to live with the virus – would relent anytime soon.
And with the success of the zero-Covid policy so entwined with Xi’s legitimacy, it appears unlikely that a relaxation will take place anytime soon – no matter the cost to the economy.
HUMAN RIGHTS
China under Xi has seen the almost-total eradication of civil society, with scores of activists having fled the country and opposition to the government all but snuffed out.
And in the far-western region of Xinjiang, rights groups say more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities are detained in what the United States and lawmakers in Western countries have said amounts to genocide.
The situation looks unlikely to improve under the next five years as Xi’s power grows increasingly impossible to challenge and the leadership digs in its heels against international pressure.
Xi’s next term will likely see him “continue his profound assault on human rights across the country and around the globe,” Sophie Richardson at Human Rights Watch wrote.