Professor Holslag fears the day when China invades Taiwan: “Compared to this, Ukraine will be small beer” | Abroad

Xi gets a third term as president. This is unprecedented since the death of Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China. After his death, it was decided that leaders could only serve two more terms. Xi had that restriction voted down by the People’s Congress four years ago. He can therefore in principle go for a fourth and even fifth term. And that with one goal: to make China the most powerful country in the world. Preferably by 2049, one hundred years after the foundation of the People’s Republic.

“This is a bit at odds with our democracy. There is a leader who is now almost confirmed as a president for life,” said Holslag. “The annual state congress shows the huge pyramid of power. His party has more than 90 million members and it runs through all of Chinese society, from the economy to the military. We don’t know this system anywhere else in the world except for North Korea.”

Xi was expected to be a reformer when he took office, but nothing has come of it. “On the contrary, he has taken on an enormous amount of power and bypassed the government to some extent,” says Holslag. “Xi has started to carry out very hard propaganda in which he is the center of attention. He has reformed just less in economic policy. State-owned companies have again become very powerful, the government is again doing more itself. In concrete cases such as corona, his policies have been counterproductive, with harsh lockdowns and tens of millions of people forced to stay in their apartments.”

Xi’s two-hour speech made it clear that a turnaround is out of the question. “Many foreign companies had hoped that he would relax his corona policy a bit, but that will not be the case. He also wants to get China to develop its own technology, making it less dependent on the West. And he also puts a lot of emphasis on ideology: all young people must be willing to sacrifice and listen to the party.”

According to Holslag, the Taiwan issue will sooner or later lead to conflict. “The Chinese have been trying to please Taiwan with economic favors for a long time, but more and more Taiwanese say they don’t want to hear about that reunification. Then the military option becomes important. If China steps in, Japan and the United States will rally behind Taiwan. Then we have a big problem where – in comparison – Ukraine will turn out to be a minor conflict.”

The comparison with Vladimir Putin is also there: changing the constitution to stay in power longer. “Xi really wants to be the one who makes China a strong power. What worries me most is that he first tried to do this by generating a great deal of economic growth. However, making the people richer did not really work. This probably makes it more tempting to hit the table with your fist as compensation. Just like with Putin, you get a leader who will step towards the world more and more firmly, more nationalistic and militaristic. That is of course a very big challenge for us in the short and long term”, concludes Holslag.