Xi Jinping’s imperial speech, promising a year of triumphs (from the economy to Taiwan)

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Federico Rampini

In the West, Xi is forgiven for many things, also for his presumed saving function: the myth of the “green superpower” that will save the planet. In reality, China consumes more than half of all the world’s coal

IXi Jinping’s “imperial” speech promised the Chinese a year of triumphs. China will achieve its goal growth in 2026: +5% of GDP. It advances in advanced technologies, from microchips to artificial intelligence. Modernize the military. Reunification with Taiwan is a certainty.

Concrete facts

Optimism is based on concrete facts. In thirty years, China has gone from an underdeveloped country to a challenger to America in all cutting-edge technologies. It dominates crucial sectors such as rare earths, solar energy, electric batteries. When Trump puts pressure on Venezuela and other Latin American nations, he also does so to react to Chinese penetration: the Silk Roads have extended into the Western hemisphere, including infrastructure and mineral resources.

On the other side of the planet, a Chinese cargo ship made its first journey to Great Britain via the Arctic route: the melting of the ice will help China free itself from American control of traditional naval routes (from Hormuz to Malacca, the “jugular veins” of oil transport are a weak point of Beijing).

Global order

Xi finds a willing audience in the rest of the world. The Trump effect pushes many to embrace the scenario of a «Sinocentric global order»led by a multilateralist and benevolent power, as China wants to present itself. But opposing Trump is not a good enough reason to ignore the weaknesses in Xi’s speech.

Weak points

The 5% growth that he “confirms” is a tautology: in China the GDP is not a measure resulting from the real economy, it is pre-established from above, by decision of the government. The underlying reality is problematic. Beijing celebrated its trillion: the record of one trillion in trade surplus with the rest of the world; but this is a vulnerability, its growth depends on the possibility of invading other people’s markets with predatory behavior.

The Mexican superduty

“You are killing your customers,” Macron warned at his last meeting with Xi, predicting the inevitable European protectionism. 2026 opens with a 50% superduty imposed by Mexico on Made in China: even the global South is taking action.

The lack of “political intelligence” is singular of Chinese communist leaders: unable to predict the reactions of democratic public opinions against the destruction of their industries. Xi Jinping has demonstrated the same lack of empathy by avoiding any allusion to masses of young graduates at home without work: the Chinese technological miracle does not create enough jobs.

The disputed island

Not to mention Taiwan. They just ended yet another military maneuver threatening around the island: but why is the “Chinese model” unable to seduce those 24 million Chinese accustomed to living in a democracy, respectful of human rights, and must instead terrorize them?

In the West, many things are forgiven to Xi also for his presumed saving role: the myth of the “green superpower” that will save the planet; actually China consumes more than half of all the world’s coal; and has launched a plan to exploit its natural gas which is the opposite of decarbonisation.

The anti-Western narrative

The peculiar geopolitical atmosphere generated by Trump makes us forget that the Chinese leadership has embraced an explicit anti-Western narrative starting from 2008-2016 when there was Barack Obama at the White House. The victimhood that Xi’s propaganda instills in Chinese people from middle school must emphasize the damage suffered in the nineteenth century (the Opium Wars against the English); it erases America’s role in China’s liberation from Japanese occupation, and in its economic miracle of the last thirty years.

The games of the fourth term

2026 opens under triumphal auspices but it is the last year of respite before a delicate deadline: the next New Year’s speech will mark the opening of the power games for Xi’s fourth term (an unprecedented event since 1949) or for his succession. The handovers from Mao onwards have never been painless. The repeated purges that Xi inflicts on the leaders of the party and the army suggest that there is a volcano boiling beneath him, despite the appearance of stability.

January 1, 2026 (changed January 1, 2026 | 10:32 pm)