Can Beijing bounce back?

Isabel Hilton writes in her usual well-informed style about the challenges facing Beijing (“If China cracks”, Jan/Feb). Her comments on the country’s struggles with the pandemic, its housing crisis, its poor growth over 2022—and the possibility it falls into the “middle-income trap”—are well made. It is clear that China’s leaders are facing a grim menu of economic difficulties. Nor could one reasonably dissent from Hilton’s assessment that they are likely to prioritise shoring up their own political power over finding effective answers.

Still, China throws surprises at even the most seasoned analysts. Within days of the nationwide protests against continuing lockdowns in November, Chinese leaders lifted many restrictions, including strict tracing requirements. This was despite most expecting that this sort of surveillance would carry on when the pandemic died down. Autocracies have many issues—but making huge U-turns is not at the top of their list of fears. The question remains whether the country is going to be able to manage the nasty spike and high number of fatalities that have emerged in the past few weeks, but the willingness to make shameless about-turns often works to China’s advantage.

This makes me more hesitant than Hilton in predicting such negative events over the horizon. The one golden rule that anyone observing China over the last few decades has had to bear in mind is that outside observers are almost always dramatically more pessimistic about the country’s options than is ultimately justifiable. China might well be facing profound systemic challenges this time around, of an order not seen before. It may be due a reckoning. The evidence as of today, however, is that the Communist party will be ruthless in maintaining its hold on power. And to do that, it will be willing to deploy any policy responses necessary—even ones that it stated just a few days before were impossible. In this context, all one can do is expect surprises.

Kerry Brown, King’s College London