Xi Jinping on screens in the media center as he speaks at the opening ceremony of the third China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, China November 4, 2020. Credit: Aly Song via Alamy
Xi Jinping is poised to become the first three-term president in Chinese history when the Communist Party of China’s 20th National Congress convenes this month. That makes this an opportune time to take stock of Xi’s economic-policy record from the past ten years and explore some obvious steps to improve economic performance in the next term.
When Xi assumed China’s top political position in 2012, the economy was thriving, but it also had many serious problems. GDP had been growing at an average annual rate of 10 percent for over a decade. But a slowdown was inevitable, and GDP growth rates have indeed declined almost every year since 2008. Moreover, inequality was rising, with the Gini index having increased by 13 percent between 1990 and 2000. By the start of this century, inequality in China had surpassed that of the United States for the first time in the post-1978 reform era.
Meanwhile, pollution was literally killing China. By 2
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