Xi Jinping’s China on the way to the 20th Party Congress, Part 2 with Johnny Erling

With our new event series, which began in November 2021, we will be accompanying China's preparations in the coming year for the 20th Party Congress at the end of 2022. Of central importance  - particularly from a German perspective - will be the course set for economic policy. At its Central Economic Work Conference in December, the party leadership prepared the cadre apparatus for severe economic turbulence. A central problem: the poor data situation, which worries even Beijing's most influential economic leaders.

Xi is nevertheless sticking to the concepts he has been coining since 2019, which he seeks to have systematized by the Party Congress as 'Xi Jinping Thought on Socialist Economy.' So far, they have only been sketched out and only rudimentarily implemented. Xi's concept runs under slogans such as 'self-reliance and self-dependent innovation' (self-sufficiency, decoupling in high-tech development and standard setting), 'dual circulation' (strategic internal market orientation), 'commmon prosperity' (anti-monopoly policy and social redistribution) or 'unified market system' (gongxiao supply and sales). All concepts are based on (once failed) Maoist ideas.

Johnny Erling is a Senior Fellow at MERICS and analyzes Chinese Communist Party policy. Erling worked as a China correspondent for three decades, including for WELT, and is the author of numerous books.

Moderation: Bernhard Bartsch, Director External Relations, MERICS

Participation in the event was by invitation only.
The event was held in German.