NEW DELHI: A bid to assert Chinese power to signal that the communist giant is far from weakened post Covid-induced economic and diplomatic shocks might end up posing bigger questions for China’s supreme leader President Xi Jinping as India and other nations push back at Beijing‘s muscle-flexing.
There are no signs that Xi’s impressive control over the communist party and state apparatus has loosened or faces any imminent challenge but from being feted as “chairman of everything”, the leader faces a long haul in regaining the momentum that had seen him ride over the economic slowdown in the Chinese economy in 2015-16 without breaking into a sweat.
The economic crunch China is now experiencing, and even more significantly the souring mood in western nations, including those that have indulged the regime in the past, is hurt