Kevin Rudd explains several factors affecting Xi Jinping as China’s economy faces struggles

Former PM Kevin Rudd has weighed in on the state of China’s economy as talk continues to swirl over Beijing’s next move on Taiwan.

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has weighed in on the state of China’s economy as talk continues to swirl over the superpower’s next move regarding Taiwan.

Speaking on ABC’s 7.30, Mr Rudd said he believes leader Xi Jinping will bide his time to insulate China from potentially devastating economic sanctions before making a territorial push on the island nation.

“I think Xi Jinping’s preferred timetable is the 2030s, by which time he would still be in power, he‘s got good genes, his mother’s still alive at the age of 96,” he said.

“He hopes to further open up a military gap against the United States and Taiwan over the next seven years or so. And hopes to financially and economically insulate China against the risk of global sanctions against China of the type that we have seen applied to Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine.”

Rudd said a number of factors within China may threaten President Xi’s power, namely the economy, which he has described as the ruler’s “Achilles heel”.

“I‘ve written for some time now that I believe the economy represents Xi Jinping’s Achilles heel. And it’s slowing for several sets of reasons,” Mr Rudd continued.

“There’s the overhang of demography, the country’s getting older, the birthrate is now 1.16, the second-lowest in Asia. (They are) beginning to have a shrinking population and, for some years now, a shrinking workforce.”

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has weighed in on the state of China’s economy as talk continues to swirl over the superpower’s next move regarding Taiwan.

A number of factors within China may threaten Xi Jinping’s stranglehold over the nation, namely the economy, which he has described by Kevin Rudd as the ruler’s ‘Achilles heel’.

Mr Rudd also believes Xi’s left-leaning economic policies will play a major role in the years to come, as the Chinese private sector begins to “reduce its enthusiasm for continued fixed-capital investment in the economy”.

“But then there’s this second factor, which is the overhang of ideology. And as he’s moved the centre of gravity of Chinese economic policy in the last five years to the Marxist/Leninist left, the Chinese private sector has begun to reduce its enthusiasm for continued fixed-capital investment in the economy,” he continued.

Mr Rudd believes Xi’s left-leaning economic policies will play a major role in the years to come.

China’s insistence on maintaining Covid-zero policies almost three years since the pandemic’s outbreak has also wreaked havoc on the nation’s economy.

“Add to that zero-Covid lockdowns, and you have the economy barely bumping along at maybe 2% or 3% at the moment – and this may prove to be secular and structural for the long-term rather than just temporary because of Covid,” Rudd continued.

“This is his Achilles heel.

“He would need to execute a significant ideological U-turn or change at this 20th party congress in order to remove this ideological impediment to growth that he said imposed for the last five years.”

Originally published as Kevin Rudd explains several factors affecting Xi Jinping as China’s economy faces struggles