Xi Jinping and China face another tough year

livemint.com:

China’s woes. Just over a year ago, Mr Xi abandoned his strict “zero-covid" measures, which had been in force for nearly three years and had led to ever more frequent lockdowns. But the country did not experience what Mr Xi described in his speech as a “smooth transition".

China’s under-vaccinated population was ill-prepared: according to some estimates, well over 1m people died of the disease as the country staggered back to normality (officials covered up the actual death toll). The economy failed to gather momentum. Youth unemployment soared, the property market continued to slump and foreign investors grew more nervous.

The headwinds were fierce. The coming year looks hardly less troubled. Mr Xi will try to put on a brave face.

He will send an unusually large delegation to schmooze with plutocrats at the World Economic Forum in mid-January, an annual gathering of the rich and powerful in Davos, Switzerland. Reuters, a news agency, says the team will be led by China’s prime minister, Li Qiang—the highest-ranking Chinese official to attend in person since Mr Xi himself showed up in 2017. Mr Li, a protégé of Mr Xi, got the job in March 2023 after serving as Communist Party leader in Shanghai.

He impressed foreigners there with his business-friendly ways. He will find that much harder in Davos. When Mr Xi went there, it was different.

Many officials and firms in the West were shuddering at the prospect of Donald Trump’s presidency (he was about to be sworn in) and the impact that his threatened trade war with China would have on global growth. They were enraptured by Mr Xi’s efforts to portray himself as a champion of free trade. Now many of them see China as a source of risk, whether caused by the country’s faltering