Is president Xi holding China back?

How Xi Is Holding China Back

With each new year since the financial crash seem to have come dire warnings about another impending crisis facing the Chinese economy. But while 2018 will likely see the country once again overcome short-term challenges, the increasingly authoritarian bent of President Xi Jinping could mean trouble ahead, writes Jonathan Fenby for the Nikkei Asian Review.

“China needs to move up the value chain, boost productivity, develop its own technological drivers and create world brands. That requires innovation and free-ranging, globalized thinking. The creation of heavyweight ‘national champions’ as promoted by the leadership will not be the answer,” Fenby says.

“The benefits of materialism may continue to buy off social discontent. But the long-term contradiction between the urge for control rooted deep in the Communist Party’s DNA and the loosening of politically driven authority that would free the country's potential will be the greatest brake on its evolution.”

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