This was supposed to be Xi Jinping's big year. Instead, he's dealing with Covid and war

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After years of careful preparation, the Chinese leader is expected to step into an almost unprecedented third term at the helm of the country and its Communist Party this fall.

While Xi’s path to a third term may not be imperiled by these twin crises, both will need to be navigated carefully as the 68-year-old leader steers the country toward its twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle at the 20th Party Congress this fall.

“From Beijing’s perspective there is no higher priority than stability ahead of the Party Congress — as we all know it’s by no means an election, but this is the closest you might come to seeing a ‘campaign season’ in China,” said Natasha Kassam, director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program at the Australia-based think tank the Lowy Institute.

“We know that most opposition to Xi has been eliminated … but there is still the expectation of delivering on particular needs for the majority of people,” she said.

That may be especially true for a leader who has spent years consolidating power and oversaw the removal of constitutional term limits on the presidency — paving the way for him to stay on top in the closed-door, elite political process that decides who will lead China for the next five-year term.

In doing so, Xi has placed himself at the center of the party and state in a way not seen since Communist China’s founding father Mao Zedong decades ago — a position from which the country’s successes can rest on his shoulders, but so too can its failures.

Complicated friendship

As Russian tanks, soldiers and fighter planes advanced into Ukraine from multiple sides last month, China appeared to some observers to have either been playing along — or played.

Days before the invasion, Beijing continued to publicly dismiss US intelligence that a Russian assault of its neighbor was imminent, despite Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier that month signing a 5,000-word joint joint statement that included an expression of their…

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Source : cnn