The leader’s unprecedented third term opens with Covid protests, economic and housing issues and Taiwan strait crisis
As 2022 began, while swaths of the world were struggling with Covid and a looming war in Ukraine, life in China was relatively calm. Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid strategy was working and cases were low. There were lockdowns but they were orderly and people were compliant. This stability was exactly what Xi probably hoped would surround his taking of a historic third term, at the helm of a rising China. Economic dominance, domestic control, an annexed Taiwan, and increased global influence were all on the agenda.
But as the year closes and 2023 begins, China is, instead, entering uncharted territory.
