In 5 Years, Xi Jinping Won't Change The World And China: AFP

China's slowing economy will likely dominate Xi's next five years in power but his decision to pack the Communist Party's top leadership with loyalists has stoked concerns about him prioritizing ideology at the expense of growth.

Photo Insert: Critics have assailed Xi for failing to redistribute wealth, with retirees forced to work since their monthly pensions are not enough to pay for food and cooking oil.

After decades of high growth, China's economy is running out of steam, with analysts widely expecting the country will struggle to attain its 2022 growth target of around 5.5 percent.

And Xi's move suggests the days of liberal reformers steering the world's second-largest economy have come to an end. While past decades saw China's private sector grow rich on easy credit and hefty profits, Xi's next term may see Beijing revert to more old-school economic management, with a fresh focus on shoring up heavy industry and a continuation of a crackdown on big tech, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Xi's next term will likely see him "continue his profound assault on human rights across the country and around the globe," Sophie Richardson at Human Rights Watch wrote.

Xi has thrown his weight behind the development of a more consumption-driven economy -- a policy known as "dual circulation" -- and has sought to address China's yawning wealth gap under the banner of "common prosperity."

Yet, critics have assailed Xi for failing to redistribute wealth, with retirees forced to work since their monthly pensions are not enough to pay for food and cooking oil.

Up to 300 million Chinese make do with $140 a month and 400 million more earn below the monthly take of workers and employees in coastal industrial zones. Thus, fully half of the Chinese people are technically poor.

By keeping wages low, Xi cannot encourage consumption as there will not be enough money to buy even basic needs. With the property market in the doldrums and people taking their money out of banks that have to be succored by the state as they fall down like dominoes, the Chinese are actually cutting down on their expenditures.

After years of ratcheting up tensions with Taiwan, an increasingly emboldened Xi could decide the time is right to fulfill Beijing's ambition of retaking the self-ruled island that it had never governed in 6,000 years even as imperial China claimed it as a province in 1888, but never administered it for a second.

US officials have argued that the world is closer than ever to seeing a conflict over the island even within the year. China has made a "fundamental decision that the status quo was no longer acceptable and that Beijing was determined to pursue reunification on a much faster timeline," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Beijing insists its policy towards Taiwan has not changed, but the rhetoric and actions towards the island have become more pronounced. The Communist Party has enshrined its opposition to Taiwanese independence in its constitution at its just-ended congress.

This is a risible act. But any move to invade Taiwan would wreak havoc on global supply chains as the island is a major supplier of semiconductors. It would also provoke outrage from the West, deepening China's isolation, and bringing Beijing and Washington closer than ever to direct military confrontation.

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