President Xi Jinping is under pressure within China because of his tough personal style, Hong Kong media magnate Jimmy Lai says.
Mr Lai, who was dramatically arrested under Hong Kong’s strict new security laws last month and is now out on bail, said the increasing criticism of China’s policies, particularly by the Trump administration, and Mr Xi’s crackdown on internal dissent was putting the Chinese leader under internal pressure.
“Xi is definitely controlling China,” he told The Australian from his offices at the newspaper Apple Daily, which was raided by more than 200 police on the day of his arrest, “but it has a lot of resistance because China is no longer in the same era as Mao Zedong.
“The Chinese people have lost their ignorance over the last 40 years. They have travelled and they know what the world is. He is elevating himself to be emperor.
“His increasing control of the people and taking people back to the Mao era has great resistance.”
Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong arrives at the West Kowloon Magistrates Court ahead of a hearing on September 15. Picture: Getty Images
Mr Xi took over as Chinese leader in November 2012, a post traditionally held for two five-year terms, which would have been up in 2022. But in 2018 the National People’s Congress scrapped the 10-year term, allowing him to remain in the post indefinitely.
Mr Lai questioned whether Mr Xi could retain his job even until 2022. The magnate said China’s more aggressive policies had seen “China come to what it is today being objected to by the free world, especially the US.
“The whole world has turned critical and hostile to China.”
Mr Lai said China was in the worst position it had been since its historic opening up to the world just over 40 years ago, which would add to the domestic pressure on Mr Xi: “I don’t believe that somebody who has brought China into such a disastrous position could have smooth sailing.”
While crackdowns on the media and public criticism have made it difficult to get insights into the internal political situation in China, Mr Lai said Mr Xi’s recent decision to ease back on references to the “internal circulation economy”— the idea of China boosting its economic self-reliance — was a sign of shifting domestic pressures.
Chinese President Xi Jinping. Picture: AFP
Mr Lai said he felt Mr Xi’s retraction of his advocacy of a purely internal circulation economy since the annual summer gathering of leaders in the sea resort of Beidaihe early last month was a sign he was under pressure to retain a more international view of trade and relations with the world.
Mr Lai said the references to the “internal circulation economy” earlier this year were evidence of a more inward-looking, protectionist mindset that China was isolated from the rest of the world.
He said closing China to the rest of the world — as happened in by imperial decree in 15th century — would be “very bad for the Communist Party as it would lose the support of the people.”
“People are not going to go backward with them,” he said.
Mr Lai has not yet been charged, saying there had been some “dialling back” of China’s rhetoric in Hong Kong following the international reaction to his and other critics’ arrests after the new national security laws came into effect at the end of June.
He said he did not see the US reconciling with China, regardless of who was in power in the White House, while Mr Xi was leader. Nor did he see any moderation of China’s position on Hong Kong while he was president.
Jimmy Lai supporters hold up copies of the Apple Daily as they protest for press freedom inside a mall in Hong Kong on August 11. Picture: AFP
“I don’t see the West will be comfortable with China unless Xi Jinping steps down,” he said.
Mr Lai said he did not think there would be a military clash in the South China Sea between the US and China.
He was also critical of the Hong Kong government for its decision to delay the elections for the city’s 70-member Legislative Council, which had been scheduled for September 6, by a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. GLENDA KORPORAAL
ASSOCIATE EDITOR (BUSINESS)
Glenda Korporaal has been covering business and finance in Australia and around the world for more than thirty years. She has worked in Sydney, Canberra, Washington, New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore an... Read more
