Putin has wrecked Russia’s already shaky economy, Biden is wrecking America’s already broken economy seemingly to stop him, and China, while it’s doing better than either America or Russia, has its own longstanding problems that are getting worse.
Chinese policy makers became alarmed at the end of last year by how sharply growth had slowed after Mr. Xi tightened controls on private businesses, from tech giants to property developers. Meanwhile, China’s stringent Covid lockdowns, part of Mr. Xi’s approach to handling the crisis, have ramped up again as Covid cases surge, hurting both consumer spending and factory output…
As Beijing works to manage the entente with Russian President Vladimir Putin while preventing a collapse in its relationship with the West, underpinning the disquiet is the plunge in economic growth to 4% in the fourth quarter from 18.3% at the beginning of 2021. Officials are now speaking of a “course correction” to mitigate some of the effects of Mr. Xi’s policies.
Which is not the kind of thing you say unless you smell weakness.
Behind closed doors at a December conference to set the 2022 economic agenda, Mr. Xi even appeared to acknowledge that wealth redistribution is hard to do when growth is slowing. Common prosperity, he told officials, according to people briefed on the remarks, was about “making the cake bigger first,” and then dividing it more equally.
It figures that a Chinese Communist leader would see economic common sense on wealth redistribution before Joe Biden will.
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