Xi chairs symposium with business leaders; “Xi Thought” coming?; TikTok

The top news out of China today is Xi’s meeting with and speech to a group of public and private business leaders. Among his words of encouragement, promises of more effective policies to help the firms and appeals to patriotism, he again repeated the phrase “我们要逐步形成以国内大循环为主体、国内国际双循环相互促进的新发展格局 We must gradually form a new development pattern with the domestic cycle as the main body and the domestic and international cycles mutually promoting each other”.

In other words, focus on and build up the domestic market because the global downturn due to the pandemic and other international factors are significantly pressuring China’s exports. Xi is pushing the economy to be much more reliant on domestic factors but he did not call for self-reliance, as he again also emphasized opening the economy and treating foreign firms equally.

This is not a meeting that inspires confidence in the state of the PRC economy, but the policymakers are gradually pulling out all the tools to promote growth.

Acc…