China’s perilous helmsman

The Meridian100 Podcast

Until Xi Jingping, no Chinese leader since Mao had subordinated economic development to Communist Party political domination, says Yasheng Huang. This has been developing since the early in Xi’s leadership and manifests in mounting hostility to the private sector and tightening CCP controls over every significant part of the economy. China is already paying a price in dramatically slowing domestic growth and, Yasheng argues, gradual deterioration of political and social stability will follow.

Yasheng Huang is Professor of Global Economic and Management at MIT Sloan School of Management. He is a leading authority on China’s political economy. Most recently he authored The Rise and Fall of the East: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability and Technology Brought China Success and Why They Might Lead to its Decline (2023)