Xi's bid for global domination could easily backfire

China’s multi-pronged militarism against its neighbours in recent weeks is intended as a show of strength. In fact, it reveals a weakness at the top of Xi Jinping’s Communist party which could prove to be counterproductive.

Why is Xi lashing out? A detection of dissatisfaction among China’s people, mixed with a perceived opportunity for China to assert itself while the rest of the world is distracted by coronavirus, appears to have led to attacks against Indian troops and a crackdown in Hong Kong. But the gambit could backfire; and the country’s bid to attain superpower status might easily become a longer march than Xi is hoping for.

Xi has been compared more to the bristling Mao Zedong, the founder of the communist state, than the reformist Deng Xiaoping, who is generally credited with China’s meteoric rise as an economic power. He has massively tightened his grip on power by being president of the country, general secretary of the CPC and chairman of the Central Military Commission at the same time; and, with a new change of constitution, is now effectively also leader for life.