"Xi's apparent interest in integrating domestic and international security could translate to policies such as sanctions against foreign companies, (and) more bureaucracy when there is foreign investment in Chinese technology companies," according to Victor Shih, an expert on China's elite politics at the University of California San Diego.
Xi gave no indication that China's "zero-COVID" strategy might wind down despite public frustration with the policy. While other countries have eased travel restrictions, China is sticking to a strategy that keeps infection rates low.
The party newspaper, the People's Daily, reported no "zero-COVID" relaxation after the end of the congress. The strategy "must be defended," he argued. Public health experts say more elderly people need to be vaccinated before the ruling party can relax COVID-19 restrictions.
C. almost like Mao Zedong and Xi about separation from the global economy
In a recent interview, analysts told RFA that China is covertly reestablishing Mao-era institutions that once supported a socialist command economy in order to get ready for a potential "separation" from the global economy. They cited chief Liang's increased supply and marketing cooperation as evidence. Huiling to the Central Committee of the governing party last month.
Professor Wu Chien-chung of National Taiwan Ocean University concurs that Beijing may be preparing for conflict.
Wu told RFA that it was unclear whether local governments would be able to carry out the central government's plan to stockpile grain for military preparations.
In an essay for Mao Zedong's 100th birthday in 2020, former top Communist Party aide Bao Tong issued the following warning: "Markets, like history itself, can move backwards as well as forwards, and there is always the danger of retreat under a great leader flying the banner of honor and right thought."
After his political mentor Zhao Ziyang was overthrown following the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, Bao, who spent seven years in prison and is still closely watched in Beijing, claimed that "market destruction was one of Mao's most prominent tyrannies."
Despite the fact that the redesigned supply and marketing cooperative stores resembled modern supermarkets rather than the general stores of the 1970s and 1980s, many elderly Chinese people still recall rationing, which was a consequence of the top-down economic system.
Beijing-born economist Li Hengqing told RFA, "I recall there was a building for a supply and marketing cooperative, but they didn't let just anyone walk in and buy anything." "To purchase items such as beef, rice, oil, and many more, you need a special ratio ticket."
"Nobody wants to return to those times", Li declared.
The employee attitude is often very poor, and there is no product selection, he claimed.
"I can still see them attempting to sell me the meat but refusing to give it to me because they were keeping it for a friend or one of the leaders. It was an ordinary state-owned corporation."
With his election as president for three terms, Xi appears to have enormous power in implementing an authoritarian and paternalistic government. Not only that, with this power he will also be more flexible in acting so that he will establish himself as the most powerful person in China since Mao Zedong as the founder of the CCP.
In fact, since Mao's death, Chinese elites have vowed to never again create a concentration of power in just one figure, so they eventually form an unofficial affirmative leadership system, term limits, and retirement ages for high positions.
