‘The East is rising’: Xi Jinping maps out China’s post-covid ascent CHRIS BUCKLEY

But as Beijing rolls out a long-term plan, its top leader has also warned that ‘the United States is the biggest threat’

Xi Jinping has struck a confident posture as he looks to secure China’s prosperity and power in a post- Covid world, saying that the country is entering a time of opportunity when “the East is rising and the West is declining.” But behind closed doors, China’s Communist Party leader has also issued a blunt caveat to officials: Do not count out our competitors, above all the United States.

“The biggest source of chaos in the present-day world is the United States,” Xi said, a county official in northwest China recounted in a speech published last week on a government website. He quoted Xi as saying: “The US is the biggest threat to our country’s development and security.” That warning, echoed in similar recent public comments by senior officials close to Xi, reinforces how he is seeking to balance confidence and caution as China strides ahead while other countries continue to grapple with the pandemic.

His double-sided pronouncements reflect an effort to keep China on guard because, despite its success at home, it faces deep distrust in Washington and other Western capitals. Although China is growing stronger, Xi has said, there are still many ways in which “the West is strong and the East is weak,” officials have recounted in speeches recently issued on local party websites.

Xi will unveil a long-term blueprint for navigating China in this new global environment later this week, when the Communist Party-controlled legislature, the National People’s

Congress, gathers on Friday and convenes for about a week.

“Xi Jinping strikes me as ruthless but cautious in erecting a durable personal legacy,” Dimitar Gueorguiev, an assistant professor of political science at Syracuse University who studies China, said in an interview. In the eyes of China’s leaders, he said, “the response to the coronavirus was really a textbook example to the party of how you could bring things together in a short amount of time and force through a program.”

Xi and other Chinese leaders have recently described challenges, both short-term and long-term, that could hold back their ambitions. The Biden administration has signalled that it wants to press China on human rights and compete with it on technological advancements and regional influence in

Asia. At home, China is grappling with an aging population and trying to overhaul an engine of economic growth that uses too much investment and energy for too little gain and too much pollution. Beijing also sees a threat in Hong Kong after anger at the Communist Party’s deepening control there ignited months of antigovernment protests in 2019. Underscoring Xi’s hard line against any political challenges, the Chinese legislature appears poised to back plans to drastically rewrite election rules for Hong Kong, removing the vestiges of local democracy in the former British colony. China is also looking to its next big leadership shakeup next year, when Xi, 67, appears likely to claim a third five-year term in power, bulldozing past the term limits that had been put in place to restrain leaders after Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

Having emerged triumphantly from the pandemic, Xi will look to further centralise his power, said Lynette H. Ong, a political scientist at the University of Toronto. The congress is part of the party’s stagecraft this year to reinforce the view that Xi is essential to safely steering China through momentous changes. “The looming risks and tests will not be any less than the past,” Xi told an audience of younger party officials in Beijing, according to official reports. “Our party has relied on struggle up to this day, and must rely on struggle to win the future.” And in July, Xi will preside over the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, celebrations that are likely to cast him as a historic leader like Mao and Deng. Adding to the aura of success are China’s plans next year to hold the Winter Olympics and to have a space station in orbit.