Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: As its President-for-Life, Xi Jinping revived China’s thousand-year-old dream to fly like a Dragon across the planet and beyond. He masterminded the USD 200 billion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as the world’s largest-ever chain of around 1,700 infrastructure projects to expand Beijing’s footprints across a hundred countries in Asia, Africa and Europe and keep these nations in a perpetual debt-trap as suppliers of raw materials and colonized and a captive market for finished Chinese goods.
Under his leadership, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) never had it as good. With Russia hardly in the reckoning in global geopolitical sweepstakes, the hegemonist and monopolist China challenged the US of America for world leadership and super-powerdom.
A small, smart virus, however, put paid to all these gargantuan efforts. Also, most nations suspected China of inventing and spreading this ‘biological warfare’ weapon to control the world. But the best-laid plans often go awry: the coronavirus may have stripped China itself off its crown of glory.
No nation has lost so many friends and made so many enemies, inside and overseas, so fast!
The “Made-in-China” brand that Beijing so pushed hard across the world has actually come to haunt it. It is now the most unpopular country in the world. Many nations who signed up on Beijing’s dotted lines for the BRI projects are turning down its offers, cancelling orders, or demanding a restructuring of debt. Covid-19 has become China’s own nemesis. Inside China. And outside.
Even the Chinese realize this predicament as they gravitate against him. Xi also knows it. So much so that it has forced him to stay indoors ever since the pandemic broke out in January 2020. The mortal who wanted to make China immortal, one who tried to make it the centre of the planet, could not venture out of his own country for 22 long months. It is rare for any dictator who is the Head of the State, Head of the Government, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and Supreme Judge, all rolled into one—and Xi also remains the fount of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
For someone who concentrates so much power on himself, it should be strange. But no, it is not. For, if reports are accurate, an ailing Xi Jinping fears that if he goes abroad, his rivals, waiting in ambush, could immediately stage a coup against him amid an ongoing power struggle within the CCP he heads. Even if he travels overseas for fresh air, the only two countries which might still welcome him are Pakistan and North Korea, Beijing’s Jurassic stool pigeons. Other countries, viewing China’s every move with great suspicion, are no longer dying to welcome Xi Jinping.
In September, US President Joe Biden had, during a 90-minute telephonic conversation with Xi Jinping, proposed to hold a face-to-face Summit to break the Washington-Beijing impasse on a range of issues. But Xi declined it. He is also unlikely to attend the G-20 Summit in Italy. He did not even attend the UN General Assembly last month. In fact, he is not venturing out at all from his comfort, secure zone, and prefers virtual meetings. He cannot face the world, and himself!
For China and Xi Jinping in particular, everything may have turned into a veritable mess. Inside, amid rumours of his ill-health, all anti-Xi factions—billionaires, military bosses, political opponents within the CCP, investors, pro-democracy activists, scholars etc—have all ganged up against him. Outside, no nation is ready to forgive him for the suspected role of China in the pandemic.
Xi Jinping’s last foreign visit was to Myanmar on January 17-18, 2020. As soon as the pandemic broke out that month, he disappeared for weeks from public platforms to ward off mounting criticism. Then he re-emerged wearing a mask to tell his rivals that he was still their chief.
Ever since, to cover up failures and excesses, and to divert the public attention by raising a nationalist discourse, Beijing has been firing on all foreign policy cylinders: its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) attacked India; it sent warships in the South China Sea; it flew hundreds of warplanes over the Taiwanese skies… by showing such flexing muscles—all sound, no fury—China has made itself a laughingstock among serious geopolitical narratives.
In an October 8 tweet, Indian security expert Brahma Chellaney said, “There are some reports of an intensifying power struggle within the Communist Party. If true, that would suggest that—despite China’s return to an era of a one-man-rule—Xi may not be omnipotent, and unassailable, especially given the number of enemies he has made at home.”
That says it all.