How can China deal with the anti-Covid protests? – Victor Shih

 

Victor Shih

China’s leaders face unprecedented protest against its rigid anti-covid policy after earlier this week ten deaths in Urumqi were to blame for that. Political analyst Victor Shih sees China’s Communist Party walking on a tight rope, he says in the Hindustan Times.

The Hindustan Times:

An expert on China said Beijing has missed maintaining a balance between Covid control and economic growth, leading to citizens’ anger.

“Basically, what the (Chinese) leadership wants, a fine balance between growth and Covid control, is beyond the capacity of grassroots level enforcers. Instead, they are using draconian measures which invite popular anger,” Victor Shih, Associate Professor, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego, expert on Chinese elite politics, said.

There is apprehension that the ruling Communist Party of China could respond with hard measures against the protesters.

“In the short term, the government walks a tight rope between too little repression, which may lead to more protests, and too much, which triggers backlash protests. Unfortunately, with the pervasive surveillance in China, the government will be able to arrest and punish the ring leaders after things have cooled,” Shih added.

“However, with Covid policies still unclear, popular anger may persist for a long period of time, something the regime has not had to deal with for decades,” Shih said.

More at the Hindustan Times.

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China lockdowns hurt multinational firms – Ben Cavender

 

Ben Cavender

Global companies have been warning of the major effects of China’s lockdown on their operations, curtailing Shanghai for more than six weeks. But they have very few alternatives apart from sitting out the ordeal, says Shanghai-based business analyst Ben Cavender to CNN. The corporate exodus from Russia after the invasion of Ukraine did not help. For sure, consumption in China is down.

CNN:

The combination of both events has created a staggering one-two punch for multinational corporations, such as Estée Lauder (EL), which said last week that the “two significant headwinds” forced it to slash its outlook for the year.

The crisis is a stark reminder of China’s outsized importance to global companies.

“Like it or not, at this point if you’re a multinational, China is probably your first or second largest consumer market,” said Ben Cavender, managing director of the consultancy China Market Research Group…

“Frankly speaking, consumers right now are not worried about buying lipstick or coffee,” said Cavender. “They’re really much more focused on getting [necessities].”

In Shanghai, for instance, the lockdown initially led to a massive scramble for food and widespread complaints about difficulties receiving deliveries.

Now, even as access improves, many people concentrate on what’s known as “group buying,” allowing users who live in the same community to place bulk orders together for groceries and other essentials.

Even those who aren’t stuck at home may be affected. Consumers who live in cities without restrictions might also hesitate to go out and hit the mall, for fear of “what has happened in Shanghai,” where people remain in lockdown indefinitely, said Cavender.

“It’s been a very big negative drag on consumption.”…

Cavender said that the recent challenges in Ukraine and China had highlighted “a period of greater risk” more broadly for international firms.

“I do think there are a lot more challenges now to being a multinational than there have been in the past,” he added.

More at CNN.

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In-dept reporting is hurt in China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

A large number of foreign journalists, mostly Americans, got kicked out of China earlier this year, including long-term veteran Ian Johnson. In-depth journalism is now hurt, he tells the Deutsche Welle, as most media organizations have only one or two correspondents in China, who cannot do more than scratch the surface.

Deutsche Welle:

The biggest thing is there will be a lot less in-depth reporting on China. Now, there is a lot of spin, and a lot of people tweeting things and coming up with ways of analyzing things related to China. 

However, now there is less "boots-on-the-ground" investigative reporting that involves going out and actually talking to people. 

Without that, we lack facts in dealing with China. We end up with just more people who are commenting on China from New York, Washington, London, Berlin and elsewhere. 

Most media organizations only have one or two correspondents in China, and they are mostly driven by news editors. There is so much news, and correspondents often just end up spending all their time doing news. 

You need to have those extra reporters who you can send off to do investigations, and I think those are exactly the people who are leaving China. In other words, China used a very measured way to target American journalists. While the US expelled dozens of Chinese journalists, China achieved a lot more with its expulsion of American journalists. 

It will obviously be more challenging. We will need more Chinese language skills and people who can read Chinese really well. I think we will need more Chinese sources and look at different media as well as academic journals. It will require even more trustful engagement with Chinese sources than in the past. 

Journalists will become a little bit like sociologists, who just have quantitative methods but not qualitative methods. You can use data but you are not going to be able to do that many on-the-ground interviews.

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Less wealthy Chinese families - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

For the first time in five years' time, the number of rich Chinese families has dropped, says this year's Hurun Wealth Report, according to the China Daily. Both a dropping economy and the trade war triggered off the effect, says Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman of the Hurun Report, now in its 11th year.

The China Daily:

Economic slowdown and the trade tensions between China and the United States have resulted in a minor slide in the number of affluent families in China, said the Hurun Wealth Report 2019 released on Tuesday. 

As of Dec 31 last year, the number of high–net-worth Chinese families with household assets of 10 million yuan ($1.4 million) dropped 1.5 percent from a year earlier to 1.98 million, according to the report. The number of ultra-high-net-worth Chinese families with household assets of 100 million yuan also contracted by 4.5 percent to 127,000. 

Rupert Hoogewerf, founder and chief researcher of Hurun Report, said it is the first time in five years that a drop has been recorded in the number of high–net-worth Chinese families. China's economic slowdown and restructuring, the trade conflict between China and the United States, combined with the 20 percent slide in the major A-share indexes last year, have resulted in the contraction, he said. 

Beijing is still home to the largest number of high–net-worth families, with 288,000 households in the city owning assets of at least 10 million yuan. Guangdong comes second, followed by Shanghai. 

The majority of 65 percent of these 10-million-yuan asset families own their own businesses. Company executives, property market investors and professional stock market investors are the less commonly found occupations in this category. 

However, the number of wealthy Chinese families with household assets of 6 million yuan reached 4.94 million by the end of 2018, up 1.2 percent year-on-year, according to the report.

More in the China Daily.

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Beijing replaces Shanghai as city with most international schools - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

Shanghai lost its top position for international schools in China to Beijing, says The Hurun Education Top International Schools in China 2018, according to Shanghai-based Hurun chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf in the Pienews. The survey is based on research on 330 professionals at those schools and government agencies.

Pienews:

The Hurun Education Top International Schools in China 2018 surveyed at least 330 school principals, senior teachers, investors, overseas study agents, and even government departments, in China between July and December 2018. 

In the second year of the ranking, Beijing replaced Shanghai as the city with the most international schools on the list, Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Education, highlighted. 

In total, 26 schools in Beijing made the top 100 list, compared to 23 in Shanghai. Last year  the figures were 21 and 26, respectively. 

The top 100 came from 24 cities across Mainland China, and two-thirds of the list came from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. 

The proportion of schools included that admit Chinese passport holders rose from 70% to 80% since last year’s ranking – eight of the top 10 schools are able to admit Chinese passport holders, up four from 2017. 

“This ranking is primarily targeted at parents with children in China, helping them to find the most suitable school for their child, teachers already at or looking to work at international schools in China and admission officers of universities looking to recruit students from China,” Hoogewerf said.

More in the Pienews.

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Why Beijing does not need its newly built airport - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

In Southern Beijing, China is building the prestigious Beijing Daxing International Airport, due to open next September and serving up to 72 million passengers annually by 2025. But it is not only glamor being constructed, writes Beijing-based author Ian Johnson for the New York Times. If the military would not tightly control the Chinese airspace, the airport would not be needed to start with.

Ian Johnson:

With roughly 70 percent of airspace controlled by the military (versus 20 percent in the United States), commercial aircraft flying in China are limited to narrow tunnels in the sky. This restricts options for departure and arrival routing, cutting the number of takeoffs and landings that airports can handle. 

Beijing Capital, for example, was the world’s second-busiest airport based on passenger volume in 2017, but it ranked fifth based on takeoffs and landings, nearly a third fewer than the world leader, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. 

The lack of airspace is also a key reason delays are so common in China. Last year, flight delays increased 50 percent, with only 71 percent of flights taking off on time, according to government statistics. That’s helped push Chinese airlines to the bottom of punctuality rankings, with one study ranking three Chinese airlines as the worst among 20 large-scale carriers. 

Although aviation authorities blame the weather for half of the delays, Mr. Guo of Q&A Consulting said the underlying cause was the military-induced lack of airspace. 

When a corridor is blocked by a thunderstorm, for example, Chinese flight controllers often cannot reroute an airplane, because it would have to enter military airspace. That causes planes to sit on the ground or fly holding patterns when in other countries they could land or take off. 

“The congestion takes place in the sky because the military only allows for a certain number of tunnels,” Mr. Guo said. “If that doesn’t change, the ground infrastructure needs to be expanded.” 

The new airport will help by initially opening four, then up to eight, new runways in the suburb of Daxing, 41 miles southwest of Beijing Capital. The number of air corridors available for civilian use stays the same, but the new runways will provide airlines with more ways to gain access to this limited airspace, allowing the Beijing area to facilitate more flights.

More at the New York Times.

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Why the trade talks will lead nowhere - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber

The Trump team has started trade talks in Beijing, but it is very unlikely they will get anywhere, says economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, in CBS. The internal divisions in the US team are only a part of the problems to gain ground, he says.

CBS:

The talks are unlikely to accomplish much, noted Arthur Kroeber, head of research for Gavekal Research. The American "coalition of trade warriors and national security hawks" agree that China poses a threat to U.S. dominance, yet they haven't formed a "coherent strategy," he said in a research note. 

"Above all, the professionals are hamstrung by President Donald Trump, who absurdly insists that the main goal should be a US$100 billion reduction in the bilateral trade deficit," he said. 

He added, "The team-of-rivals delegation brings differing objectives to Beijing. Mnuchin would probably like to cut a deal on tariffs and deficit reduction and focus on improving market access for US firms in the lucrative China market."

More on CBS.

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Beijing rules as first on self-driving cars - Mark Schaub

Mark Schaub

Getting rid of legal barriers is key for using innovation in real life, and Beijing approved the first regulations in China on self-driving cars, writes lawyer Mark Schaub at the China Law Insight. He elaborates on the details. "We expect more regions to follow Beijing’s lead and compete for innovation in this key sector," he adds.

Mark Schaub:

On 15 December 2017, Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport, Beijing Traffic Management Bureau and Beijing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology jointly issued the Beijing Guidance on Accelerating Road Testing for Self-driving Vehicles (Trial) and Beijing Implementing Rules for Managing Road Testing for Self-driving Vehicles (Trial) (collectively “Regulations”)[1]. 

 While the Regulations only apply to testing of autonomous vehicles in Beijing, this is something of a milestone as it is the first regulation of its kind in China. 

The Regulations may have been spurred in part by Baidu CEO Li Yanhong’s test drive of Baidu’s autonomous vehicle on public roads in July 2017. At the time this test drive was the cause of some controversy as it was wholly unregulated. 

A review of the Regulations show that the legislators have borrowed concepts of good practice from leading jurisdictions including the United States, Germany and Australia... 

The release of the Regulations is a concrete step in China’s regulation on road testing of autonomous vehicles. This will no doubt boost the development of autonomous vehicles and speed the commercialization of autonomous vehicles in China. The Regulations also facilitate China’s autonomous vehicle road testing. We expect more regions to follow Beijing’s lead and compete for innovation in this key sector.

More at the China Law Insight 

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Beijing shatters China dream for migrants - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Author Zhang Lijia of Lotus: A Novel, a book on prostitution in China, comments on the forceful eviction of migrants in Beijing. It shatters their China dream, she tells Sky News. How can you do that when you call yourself a socialist country?

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Migrants are the unsung heroes of China - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

A visibly angry Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China, shows that the eviction of migrants in Beijing - described by the insulting term "low-end population - is raising the tensions in China's capital. "We live in a socialist country," she fumes at CNN. "They are the unsung heroes of our country."

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Beijing: the center of spirituality - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Beijing is regaining its position of China's spiritual universe, writes author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao in the New York Times. While much of its past has been destroyed, the city where Johnson lives is now regaining its position of China's spiritual capital. A struggle between commerce, communist and traditional values.

Ian Johnson:

When I first came to Beijing in 1984, the city felt dusty and forgotten, a onetime capital of temples and palaces that Mao had vowed — successfully, it seemed — to transform into a landscape of factories and chimneys. Soot penetrated every windowsill and every layer of clothing, while people rode simple steel bicycles or diesel-belching buses through the windy old streets. 

Then, as now, it was hard to imagine this sprawling city as the sacred center of China’s spiritual universe. But for most of its history, it was exactly that. 

It wasn’t a holy city like Jerusalem, Mecca or Banaras, locations whose very soil was hallowed, making them destinations for pilgrims. Yet Beijing’s streets, walls, temples, gardens and alleys were part of a carefully woven tapestry that reflected the constellations above, geomantic forces below and an invisible overlay of holy mountains and gods. It was a total work of art, epitomizing the political-religious system that ran traditional China for millenniums. It was Chinese belief incarnate.... 

Once in a while, somewhat awkwardly, the Communist state even recreates the old rituals. In March, some friends of mine, retirees who are amateur singers and musicians, were hired as extras for a ceremony on the spring equinox. About 30 of them dressed up in gowns and Qing dynasty-era hats and marched solemnly to the altar. Accompanied by a small orchestra of musicians playing gongs, cymbals and kettle drums, they strode up to a table filled with imitation dead animals laid out for sacrifice. A young man dressed as the emperor then kowtowed and made the ritual offerings, all under the strict guidance of experts from the local cultural affairs bureau who had read accounts of the ancient practices. Later, videos streamed around social media platforms like WeChat, reinforcing the popular idea that the past is returning.

Much more in the New York Times.

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Beijing beats New York again as billionaire capital of the world - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

For the second year more billionaires call Beijing their home than New York, says the latest Global Hurun Rich List report. Concentration of capital into a few hands is outpacing the global creation of wealth, says Hurun chairman Rupert Hoogewerf to ECNS.

ECNS:

The new list ranked 2,257 billionaires, up 69 from last year and a growth of 55 percent or 804 over the last five years. 

Total wealth among billionaires increased by 16 percent to $8.0 trillion, equivalent to 10.7 percent of global GDP, and up from 7 percent of global GDP five years ago. 

Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Report, said global wealth is being concentrated in the hands of the billionaires at a rate far exceeding global growth.... 

Chinese billionaires led the USA for the second year running, with 609 compared with 552, up 41 and 17 respectively. Hoogewerf said "China and the USA have half the billionaires in the world." 

The combined net worth of Chinese billionaires is $1.6 trillion, 2.1 percent of the global GDP. Real Estate has generated most billionaires (120), followed by Manufacturing and TMT with 115 and 78 respectively, according to the report. 

China is number 1 in the world in terms of generating self-made billionaires akin to "rags to riches" and is home to two-thirds of the world's self-made female billionaires. 

Led by Beijing, 5 Chinese cities made the top 10 cities and 7 the Top 20. Average age is 58, six years younger than the list average. 

Shenzhen surprised many by adding 16 billionaires to propel it into fourth place, just behind Hong Kong. 

A February IPO propelled Wang Wei, 46, of SF Express to third spot, with a five-fold growth in his wealth to $27 billion, just behind Wang Jianlin and Jack Ma. Corporate raider Yao Zhenhua of Baoneng saw the fastest growth on the list, rising almost eight-fold to $15 billion.

More in ECNS.

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Why we prefer Shanghai over Beijing - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

The ChinaAccelerator, a tech-focused US$200m fund, picked Shanghai over Beijing, although typically most IT firms started off in Beijing. Shanghai is more international, says managing director William Bao Bean in the Economist. 

The Economist:

Lack of government support is cited as the second-greatest challenge to entrepreneurs globally but it is not an issue in Shanghai. In fact, 85% of the city’s entrepreneurs deem their government “very or somewhat effective,” by far the highest figure globally. “It’s pretty simple,” says William Bao Bean, Partner at SOSV and managing director of Chinaccelerator, a global venture capital firm and China based accelerator. “In China, government support is local and a way to build a tax base.” He considers Shanghai to be among the most aggressive in Asia.  No wonder: in April 2016 the local government announced new regulations that will cover up to RMB6m of venture capital losses in case of a bad investment. 

Although growth has slowed, China is still booming by international standards with GDP increasing at about 6.7% in the first quarter of 2016 and Shanghai offering some advantages compared to other cities in the country. “It is more international than Beijing,” says Mr Bean. For this reason, many companies opt to place their marketing and sales departments in the city and foreign brands often establish their headquarters here. Beijing is home to the majority of R&D initiatives and large domestic players, such as Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba, which means the ecosystem is just stronger there overall. “The reason we chose Shanghai,” says Mr Bean, who runs a tech-focused US$200m fund, “is that it is the most international city in China, both in terms of the level of English spoken but also because our focus is to help Chinese companies go global.”

More in the Economist.

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Why Christianity grows fast in China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

The Christian faith in China, sometimes illegally, sometimes condoned by the government, is growing fast, faster than other religions. Journalist Ian Johnson, author of the upcoming book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, explains in the Spectator why.

The Spectator:

Many Chinese converts do not want their faith to be controlled by the government — and so they join covert congregations like the one at Zion, which was founded in 2009. ‘For every one of the official churches, there’s at least another unregistered church,’ explains Ian Johnson, author of a new book on China’s religious revival, Lost Souls of China. ‘Many of those who attend “house” churches started by going to official churches and then branched out.’ The number of Christians is now estimated at around 60 to 70 million — much higher than official reports suggest. 

In Beijing, Christianity is permitted to thrive, as long as it does so quietly, but elsewhere in China there has been a crackdown. Last summer, in Zhejiang province — a region with a rich history of missionary activity — crosses were removed from the exteriors of more than 1,000 churches.... 

Christianity is growing fast within cities among the young and well-educated Chinese. ‘People don’t see a contradiction between modernity and Christianity,’ Ian Johnson says. ‘Particularly for many who are already westernised, or have studied abroad, Christianity may be more acceptable than Buddhism or Taoism.’

More in the Spectator.

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Mobike: great service, but no viable business model - Paul Gillis

Paul Gillis

Emerging startup Shanghai Mobike expanded to Beijing, to the delight of its citizens. But while accounting professor Paul Gillis likes and uses their service, he does not see how this VC-financed operation is going to make any money, yet, he writes at this weblog.

Paul Gillis:

Mobike offers bike rentals, something I can use to avoid Beijing’s heavy traffic. Mobike’s app opens to a map that shows me the nearest bikes to me, usually only hundred meters or so away.  I can then reserve the bike, follow the map to find it, scan a QR code on the bike and the bike unlocks itself.  

When I am finished with it I park it anywhere I wish, push a switch to lock it, and get charged 1 yuan per half hour – essentially free.  I paid a depost of 299 yuan using my Wechat pay account – another amazing app. 

Mobike as 10,000 bikes in Shanghai and 3,000 in Beijing and is adding hundreds every day. I have not had a problem finding one in Beijing, although they are scarce during rush hour. 

Mobike is VC funded, and the business model makes no sense to me. Each bike costs 3000 RMB – they are quite sturdy and some complain about the weight and lack of adjustability. At that cost it is estimated that it will take 25 months to recover the cost of each bike if each does four trips a day. That creates an interesting accounting problem. It appears the bikes are impaired as soon as Mobike puts them into service, necessitating a writedown, because the expected discounted future cash flows are significantly lower than the cost to build them. 

I can’t see Mobike doing a successful IPO. Some suggest it may be acquired by one of the ride sharing apps, but that does not make much sense to me either.  I think the business model only becomes viable if they transform the company into a software company and sell services to governments around the world to start their own bike sharing operations. 

Many cities have bike sharing, (Beijing has 50,000 bikes in its program) but they usually use fixed locations and payment can be challenging. Mobike could provide a turnkey solution for cities that want green transportation, and that might be a viable business.

More at ChinaAccountingBlog.

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How China saved its equivalent of the Dead Sea scrolls - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

While China was watching the 2008 Olympic Games, its academics were engaged in another heroic struggle to save what can be the Chinese equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Journalist Ian Johnson describes for the New York Review of Books that struggle, and the efforts to make sense out of them. A few snippets.

Ian Johnson:

As Beijing prepared to host the 2008 Olympics, a small drama was unfolding in Hong Kong. Two years earlier, middlemen had come into possession of a batch of waterlogged manuscripts that had been unearthed by tomb robbers in south-central China. The documents had been smuggled to Hong Kong and were lying in a vault, waiting for a buyer. 

Universities and museums around the Chinese world were interested but reluctant to buy. The documents were written on hundreds of strips of bamboo, about the size of chopsticks, that seemed to date from 2,500 years ago, a time of intense intellectual ferment that gave rise to China’s greatest schools of thought. But their authenticity was in doubt, as were the ethics of buying looted goods. Then, in July, an anonymous graduate of Tsinghua University stepped in, bought the soggy stack, and shipped it back to his alma mater in Beijing. 

University administrators acted boldly. They appointed China’s most famous historian, seventy-five-year-old Li Xueqin, to head a team of experts to study the strips. On July 17, the researchers gingerly placed the slips in enamel basins filled with water, hoping to duplicate the environment that had allowed the fibrous material to survive so long. The next day, disaster struck. Horrified team members noticed that the thin strips had already started developing black spots—fungus that within a day could eat a hole through the bamboo. Administrators convened a crisis meeting, and ordered the school’s top chemistry professors to save the slips. 

Over the following weeks, the scientists worked nonstop through the eerily empty campus—the students were on vacation, and everyone else was focused on the Olympic Green just a few miles east. With the nation on high alert for the games, security officers blocked the scientists from bringing stabilizing chemicals into the locked-down capital. But the university again put its weight behind the project, convincing leaders that the strips were a national priority. By the end of the summer, Professor Li and his team had won their prize: a trove of documents that is helping to reshape our understanding of China’s contentious past... 

The manuscripts’ importance stems from their particular antiquity. Carbon dating places their burial at about 300 BCE. This was the height of the Warring States Period, an era of turmoil that ran from the fifth to the third centuries BCE. During this time, the Hundred Schools of Thought arose, including Confucianism, which concerns hierarchical relationships and obligations in society; Daoism (or Taoism), and its search to unify with the primordial force called Dao (or Tao); Legalism, which advocated strict adherence to laws; and Mohism, and its egalitarian ideas of impartiality. These ideas underpinned Chinese society and politics for two thousand years, and even now are touted by the government of Xi Jinping as pillars of the one-party state.² 

The newly discovered texts challenge long-held certainties about this era. Chinese political thought as exemplified by Confucius allowed for meritocracy among officials, eventually leading to the famous examination system on which China’s imperial bureaucracy was founded. But the texts show that some philosophers believed that rulers should also be chosen on merit, not birth—radically different from the hereditary dynasties that came to dominate Chinese history. The texts also show a world in which magic and divination, even in the supposedly secular world of Confucius, played a much larger part than has been realized. And instead of an age in which sages neatly espoused discrete schools of philosophy, we now see a more fluid, dynamic world of vigorously competing views—the sort of robust exchange of ideas rarely prominent in subsequent eras. 

These competing ideas were lost after China was unified in 221 BCE under the Qin, China’s first dynasty. In one of the most traumatic episodes from China’s past, the first Qin emperor tried to stamp out ideological nonconformity by burning books (see illustration on this page). Modern historians question how many books really were burned. (More works probably were lost to imperial editing projects that recopied the bamboo texts onto newer technologies like silk and, later, paper in a newly standardized form of Chinese writing.) But the fact is that for over two millennia all our knowledge of China’s great philosophical schools was limited to texts revised after the Qin unification. Earlier versions and competing ideas were lost—until now.

Much more at the New York Review of Books.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Ian Johnson? Do check out this list.

Ian Johnson also discusses more recent politics, here on the return of politics under Xi Jinping.