Official Triumphalism Conceals Societal Fragmentation
By Elizabeth Economy
Xi Jinping is in a race against time. The glow of China’s early economic rebound and
containment of COVID-19 is fading. The international media have moved on to celebrate
vaccine efficacy and vaccination rates elsewhere, and other economies have started posting solid growth rates. Yet President Xi continues to advance a narrative of Chinese exceptionalism and superiority. “The East is rising and the West is declining,” he trumpeted in a speech last year. Senior Chinese officials and analysts have adopted and amplified Xi’s message, pointing out the relative decline in Europe’s and Japan’s shares of the global economy and stressing the United States’ racial and political polarization. Former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs He Yafei has asserted starkly that the United States will “find that its strength increasingly falls short of its ambitions, both domestically and internationally. . . . This is the grand trend of history. . . . The
global balance of power and world order will continue to tilt in favor of China, and China’s development will become unstoppable.
More information: China’s Inconvenient Truth, Foreign affairs 28 May 2021
