Xi Jinping has been the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus the paramount leader of China, since 2012. Who doesn’t love a grand status and title?

(In Chinese naming convention, surnames come first. Here, Xi is the family name, Jinping is his given name.)

Since 2013, Xi has also served as the seventh president of China. As a member of the fifth generation of Chinese leadership, Xi is the first CCP general secretary born after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Alan Wares looks at an enigma: a leader who has been placed front and centre in an international trade war, and asks, What can China do?

 

Political history

The son of Chinese communist veteran Xi Zhongxun, Xi was exiled to rural Yanchuan County, Shaanxi Province, as a teenager following his father’s purge during the Cultural Revolution. He lived in a yaodong in the village of Liangjiahe, where he joined the CCP after several failed attempts and worked as the local party secretary. After studying chemical engineering at Tsinghua University as a worker-peasant-soldier student, Xi rose through the ranks politically in China’s coastal provinces. 

Xi was governor of Fujian from 1999 to 2002, before becoming governor and party secretary of neighbouring Zhejiang from 2002 to 2007. Following the dismissal of the party secretary of Shanghai, Chen Liangyu, Xi was transferred to replace him for a brief period in 2007.

He subsequently joined the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) of the CCP the same year and was the first-ranking secretary of the Central Secretariat in October 2007. In 2008, he was designated as Hu Jintao’s presumed successor as paramount leader.

Upon his succession to paramount leader, in a marked departure from the common practice of Chinese leaders, Xi’s first speech as general secretary was plainly worded. It did not include any political slogans or mention his predecessors. Xi mentioned the aspirations of the average person, remarking, “Our people expect better education, more stable jobs, better income, more reliable social security, medical care of a higher standard, more comfortable living conditions, and a more beautiful environment.” Xi also vowed to tackle corruption at the highest levels, alluding that it would threaten the CCP’s survival; he was reticent about far-reaching economic reforms.

China had hitherto been a fairly insular, inward-looking state, not inclined to interfere in local disputes, except on its own doorstep. And if there’s anything China seems to want to do under a new leader, it’s bring in new reforms. Xi has introduced, over the past 13 years, a comprehensive range of national reforms, encompassing virtually every aspect of Chinese life, both at home and abroad.

And not all of them are appreciated.

Social reforms

In November 2013, the Communist Party unveiled a far-reaching reform agenda that hinted at changes in both economic and social policies. Xi signalled that he was consolidating control of the massive internal security organisation that was formerly the domain of Zhou Yongkang. A new National Security Commission was formed with Xi at its helm, which commentators have said would help Xi consolidate control over national security affairs.

They were said to be the most significant since Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 Southern Tour. The plenum also announced economic reforms and resolved to abolish the laogai system of “re-education through labour,” which was primarily seen as a blot on China’s human rights record.

Through a series of measures from 2016 through to 2021, China has replaced its child-limit policies to the point of now removing them.

 

Legal reforms

The party under Xi announced a raft of legal reforms at the Fourth Plenum held in the fall 2014. The party aimed to reform the legal system, which had been perceived as ineffective in delivering justice and was affected by corruption, local government interference, and a lack of constitutional oversight. It also called for greater transparency in legal proceedings, increased involvement of ordinary citizens in the legislative process, and an overall professionalisation of the legal workforce.

 

Foreign policy

The stance China has taken since Xi’s elevation to leader has been to take a harder line on security issues as well as foreign affairs, projecting a more nationalistic and assertive China on the world stage. His political programme calls for a China that is more united and confident in its value system and political structure. Foreign analysts and observers have frequently said that Xi’s main foreign policy objective is to restore China’s position on the global stage.

The reforms have, both internally and externally, enabled China to exert its influence on the international stage, particularly in its trade with Western partners. Xi has frequently alluded to a community with a shared future for mankind, which Chinese diplomats have said doesn’t imply an intention to change the international order, but which foreign observers say China wants a new order that puts it more at the centre.

 

Human rights

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Xi has “started a broad and sustained offensive on human rights” since he became leader in 2012. His policies of strengthening the Chinese state and its people have resulted in what HRW states is repression in China is “at its worst level since the Tiananmen Square massacre.”

Since taking power, Xi has cracked down on grassroots activism, with hundreds being detained. He presided over the ‘709 crackdown’ on July 9th 2015, which saw more than 200 lawyers, legal assistants and human rights activists being detained.

The Chinese government has also brought in policies aimed at suppressing Christianity, and the rights of ethnic minorities, scaling back affirmative action in the country by 2019, and scrapping the wording in October 2021 that guaranteed the rights of minority children to be educated in their native language, replacing it with one that emphasised teaching the national language.

In short, his record on human rights is shocking.

Environment

For such an authoritarian, it’s perhaps a little surprising that Xi identifies environmental protection as one of China’s five major priorities for national progress.  He has popularised a metaphor of “two mountains” to emphasise the importance of environmental protection. The concept is that a mountain made of gold or silver is valuable, but green mountains with clear waters are more valuable. The slogan’s meaning is that economic development priorities must also provide for economic protection.

In September 2020, Xi announced that China would “strengthen its 2030 climate target, peak emissions before 2030 and aim to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.” If accomplished, this would lower the expected rise in global temperature by 0.2–0.3 °C – “the biggest single reduction ever estimated by the Climate Action Tracker.”

 

Economy

For his part, Xi was initially seen as a market reformist, and a central committee under his leadership announced that market forces would begin to play a decisive role in allocating resources.

In effect, this meant that the state would gradually reduce its involvement in the distribution of capital, and restructure state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to allow further competition, potentially by attracting foreign and private sector players in industries previously highly regulated.

China’s economy has grown under Xi, doubling from $8.5 trillion (£6.3tn) in 2012 to $17.8 trillion (£13.3tn) in 2023, while China’s nominal GDP per capita surpassed the world average in 2021, though growth has slowed from 7.9% in 2012 to 5.2% in 2023.

 

TariFfs and trade

It’s against this backdrop that US President Donald Trump has decided to pick a disastrous and wholly unnecessary trade war with… just about everyone, going against every piece of sage advice offered to him.

However, as Laura Bicker stated on the BBC, “If you say the name Donald Trump in the halls of wholesale markets and trade fairs in China, you’ll hear a faint chuckle. The US president and his 145% tariffs have not instilled fear in many Chinese traders.

“Instead, they have inspired an army of online Chinese nationalists to create mocking memes in a series of viral videos and reels – some of which include an AI-generated President Trump, Vice-President JD Vance and tech mogul Elon Musk toiling on footwear and iPhone assembly lines.

“China is not behaving like a nation facing the prospect of economic pain and President Xi Jinping has made it clear that Beijing will not back down.

“For more than 70 years, China has always relied on self-reliance and hard work for development… it has never relied on anyone’s gifts and is unafraid of any unreasonable suppression,” he said this month.

His confidence may stem in part from the fact that China is far less dependent on exports to the US than it was 10 years ago. However, the truth is that Trump’s brinkmanship and tariff hikes are putting pressure on the existing vulnerabilities within China’s already struggling economy. With a housing crisis, increasing job insecurity and an ageing population, Chinese people are simply not spending as much as their government would like.”

Xi’s dreams of a rejuvenated China are being severely tested. Now, the question is whether Trump’s tariffs will dampen Xi’s economic dreams, or can he turn the existing obstacles into opportunities? As much as Trump likes to boast about how his policies are adversely impacting China, it’s not the whole story. These tariffs could not have come at a worse time in the Chinese financial cycle, but they’re only part of the problem.

At its root, China has vastly overbuilt its domestic housing. The most extreme estimate suggests that there are now enough vacant homes to accommodate three billion people, leading to a collapse in the housing market. From there, Chinese consumer confidence is falling fast.

President Xi is also attempting to utilise this crisis as a catalyst for further change and to explore new markets for China. In the short term, some Chinese exporters will be significantly impacted, but Chinese companies will take the initiative to adjust the destination of their exports to overcome the difficulties. Exporters are waiting and looking for new customers.

Donald Trump’s first term in office was a cue for China to look elsewhere for buyers. It has expanded its ties across South East Asia, Latin America and Africa – and infrastructure initiatives shored up ties with the so-called Global South. China is reaping the rewards from that diversification. More than 145 countries do more trade with China than they do with the US, compared to only 30 countries doing that in 2001.

Xi’s reaction – like nearly every Western trading partner – is not to immediately slap on a vast array of retaliatory tariffs. Whilst some opposition parties in the UK are calling for UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to do just that, he is following both the political and economic wisdom, alongside the EU trading bloc, Australia, Canada and others, and waiting to see how this plays out. This is a route China is also taking.

Trump is out in the cold on this one. His coercive tariff policy could present an opportunity for Chinese diplomacy. The irony is that he has brought together other trading partners to collectively look away from the US, all of whom are using this as an opportunity to explore different markets. That said, there are pockets of indifference – Australia is still on the receiving end of China’s tariffs, after the former sought to criticise the latter’s response to COVID.

 

Future

Seen as an enigmatic leader by those outside of his immediate circle, Xi, soon to turn 72, was described in a 2011 Washington Post article by those who know him as “pragmatic, serious, cautious, hardworking, down-to-earth, and low-key.” He was described as a skilled problem solver and “seemingly uninterested in the trappings of high office.” The Chinese state media has also cast him as a fatherly figure and a man of the people, determined to stand up for Chinese interests.

He will need this pragmatism in the coming months as, thanks to Trump’s economic illiteracy, Xi appears to be the former’s fall guy, even if no-one else on the international stage is treating him this way.

Whatever way you look at it, Xi is playing the longer game; a game Trump doesn’t know how to play.