New era of international relations according to PRC and Russia; Olympics; Year of the Tiger Predictions

Happy Year of the Tiger!

The big news over the last week, other than the start of the Beijing Olympics, was Putin’s visit to Beijing and the joint statement by Russia and the PRC. It reads both like an aspirational manifesto for a new world order as well as a document primarily drafted by the Chinese side with a few things added in for the Russians. There is more on the meeting and document in item 1.

Over the break I published an interesting essay by Charles Parton - China watching in the ‘New Era’: A guide.

I also posted my five predictions for the Year of the Tiger into the weekly discussion thread. I generally find predictions mostly useless, but since I posted into the thread I thought I should share them with everyone else who did not participate. Here they are:

1. Xi will “run the table” at the table at the 20th Party Congress in terms of personnel arrangements, starting with turnover at rate at or above the 1969 9th Party Congress’ 82% (see the transcript of this podcast last year with Chris Johnson) . He will stay in charge in whatever capacity he chooses, likely either General Secretary or the reinstated Party Chairman, and by the end of the Congress “Xi Jinping Thought on XXX” will just be “Xi Jinping Thought”;

2. More tigers will fall before the 20th Party Congress, including at least one retired Politburo-level official, but we are unlikely to have the kind of craziness we had in the months before the 2012 18th Party Congress;

3. There is no “easing off” common prosperity, in fact there should be an official Common Prosperity “Plan” released later this year, probably sometime between mid-summer and the 20th Party Congress. Nor will there be any easing off in anti-monopoly work, and there will be an intensification in regulating capital and rooting out its negative aspects;

4. There will not be any major stimulus this year. Policymakers won’t let things get out of control to the downside but moves to ensure “stability” will be calibrated and just enough to hit the official GDP growth target of 5-5.5%;

5. US-China relations will deteriorate further, especially as the US heads into the November mid-term elections and afterwards when it is very likely the GOP will retake control of the House if not also the Senate.

Today’s Essential Eight:

1. New era of international relations according to PRC and Russia

2. “Dynamic zero-Covid policy” not going away

3. Hong Kong Outbreak

4. US-China

5. More trouble for Macau gaming

6. Xuzhou mother of eight scandal

7. Olympics

8. Recap of the CCTV Spring Gala show

Thanks for reading.