Wooing Trump, Xi Jinping seeks great power status for China

Chinese leaders have long sought to present themselves as equals to American presidents. Xi Jinping has wanted something more: a special relationship that sets China apart, as the other great power in an emerging bipolar world.

The Obama administration declined to play along, worried that it implied an American retreat from Asia. But Mr. Xi, the most powerful Chinese leader in decades, may find a more willing partner in President Trump, who is traveling to Beijing this week after stops in Japan and South Korea.

Mr. Trump has often cast China as an unfair trade rival, and, after arriving in Japan on Sunday, he vowed to build a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” a phrase intended to emphasize America’s democratic allies in the region as a balance against China’s rise.

But Mr. Trump has also spoken of China in almost reverential terms and elevated Beijing as a critical player to resolving the North Korean nuclear standoff. And there are signs of mutual admiration between the two leaders — one a Communist Party princeling, the other a brash wheeler-dealer — both of whom see themselves as destined to restore their nations to greatness.

“The outcome of this clash of national ambitions will be one of the great, perhaps perilous stories of the next several decades,” said David M. Lampton, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

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China reveals new leadership line-up as Xi Jingping cements power

China’s ruling Communist Party reveals its new leadership line-up on Wednesday when President Xi Jinping introduces his Politburo Standing Committee, culminating a week-long party congress.

A key measure of Xi’s rising influence leading the world’s second-largest economy will be how many of his allies are installed on the Standing Committee, the apex of power in China. It is currently made up of seven people, all men, and headed by Xi, who is also party and military chief.

Five members are expected to retire due to an unwritten rule limiting new five-year terms to those under 68.

One of the five, a close Xi ally, the anti-corruption chief Wang Qishan, 69, was left off the new Central Committee, which elects the Standing Committee, but he could get another job a few months down the line, sources have said.

The new line-up will be announced around midday (0400 GMT) at the first plenum of the congress. The congress itself formally ended on Tuesday, with Xi having his political theory written into the party’s constitution, putting him in the same company as the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong.

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Xi's report card: Has met China economic goals but can he keep it going?

As Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to consolidate his power for a second five-year term at the 19th Communist Party Congress, beginning on Oct. 18, he can point to another impressive period of growth for the nation's economy.

While the turbocharged days of double-digit annual expansion achieved in previous decades may be over, the Chinese economy still managed to expand more than 50 percent in yuan terms in the five years to the middle of 2017. Real gross domestic product has clocked an annual growth rate of 7.2 percent over that period.

The question he will need to address in the next five years is was this growth achieved on a sustainable basis or was it too reliant on surging housing prices and massive levels of borrowing.

Two years ago, President Xi affirmed targets set in 2012 to double GDP and per capita income by 2020, and growth is on target to hit those goals.

The leadership has also vowed to rein in a rapid buildup in debt, and to shift the focus of the economy to domestic consumption from capital investment to put growth on a more sustainable long-term footing and avoid a painful adjustment later.
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