China's post-reform era has arrived — and its future is unclear
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
The period of economic and political opening that transformed China over the past 50 years is now over, a growing number of experts say. What the next 50 years will look like isn't yet clear.
Why it matters: Instead of reforming China to fit Western-led global institutions, Chinese leaders now aim to reshape the world in Beijing's image, forcing the U.S. and other countries to scramble to reassert influence.
- China's slowing economic growth may complicate Beijing's goal in the next few years.
- But it's far too early to say for certain that China's economy will enter a period of long-term stagnation — or that Beijing's political hardening will inevitably result in a weakening of the country's comprehensive power.
What's happening: China's reform era was "characterized by political stability, ideological openness, and rapid economic growth," Carl Minzner, an expert on Chinese law and governance at Fordham University, has written.
- All three of those pillars have now been dismantled.
- The Chinese Communist Party has reasserted substantial control over the economy, Xi has made hardline ideology a key driver of party policies, and the country's leaders have put made it harder for Chinese people to engage freely with the rest of the world, especially the West.
- Meanwhile, Xi has consolidated his personal power by abolishing term limits and putting loyalists in top positions.
What they're saying: "I tell the stream of visitors returning to China after the end of zero-COVID that we've entered a new era - the post reform era," Dake Kang, a Beijing-based correspondent for the Associated Press, posted on social media platform X last week.
- Even after the extremely strict pandemic-era controls were lifted earlier this year, "Beijing has clung to a strategy of accelerating government intervention in Chinese life," Ian Johnson, a China expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote for Foreign Affairs last week.
- China's model of economic growth powered by manufacturing and infrastructure projects has run out of steam, and ideological crackdowns have crushed civil society, targeted foreign businesses and scared off investors.
- Those trends have led to comparisons between Xi's current policies and those that led to the eventual collapse of the Soviet bloc.
Yes, but: These challenges don't necessarily mean China has now entered a period of decline.
- China's economy, though growing at a less-rapid rate, remains massive and is still deeply intertwined with the global economy.
- Western analysts have consistently underestimated the ability of Beijing's economic interventions — such as subsidies, state-directed investments, and other non-market incentives— to boost new industries and power innovation. China's now-successful electric vehicle sector, initially heavily subsidized, is but one example.
What to watch: Xi's restructuring of China's economy toward high-tech industries could eventually pull the economy out of the doldrums.
- The move is a test of the resilience of China's hybrid state-capitalist economy that, if successful, could further bolster Beijing's position that its political-economic model is a viable alternative to liberal democratic capitalism.
- Or, the doomsayers may be correct, and China's economy, its standing in the world, and the relative appeal of its model may be headed for a long, slow decline.
