Xi Peak or China Peak?
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt 王立基
Director Meaningful Tourism Centre / COTRI
China joins the rest of the world in the downward slide
The China Peak Mountain Resort, Google tells you, is California's premier ski and winter vacation spot, located at the scenic Huntington Lake. “China Peak” is however also a term which comes up more frequently now in the debates about the future development of the People’s Republic of China. Chinese officials, including the outgoing Xi and Li couple, have voiced serious warnings about rough seas and dire threats ahead in recent speeches.
This topic was discussed also in these pages before, with the key arguments being the loss of the demographic dividend, the implosions of the Ponzi schemes which fuelled the real estate market for many years, the growing levels of unemployment especially among educated youngster, and the increasingly felt results of the climate catastrophe. China imports more energy and food than any other country in the world and still creates the biggest amount of pollution globally. It is doubtful, if the Chinese economy can in the future grow strong enough in both quantitative and qualitative ways to offer solutions to all these challenges.
However, not much thought is given to the question how much of the China Peak is actually a Xi Peak. At the moment the “two sessions” are underway in Beijing. Both the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) are holding their annual meetings. The CPPCC is an advisory body, whereas the 3,000-member NPC is China’s legislative body, often called a “rubber stamp” parliament. Its members include business executives, celebrities, and celebrated individuals, even though this time some former delegates like Pony Ma are missing. In October last year the Congress of the Communist Party reappointed Xi Jinping to the two most important of his three formal titles, Secretary General of the CCP and Chairman of the military commission. The third title, President of the Chinese government, he is certain to receive also for an unprecedented third time during the NPC session. Confusingly, the new Vice-President will probably be Mr. Li Qiang, taking over from Li Keqiang.
Most commentators describe the increase in power for Xi, as he is filling up even more positions with his allies and is weakening even further the position of the government against the influence of the party and the military. In terms of practical policies, however, a lot of his key positions have been overturned in the last three months. The abrupt end of the Zero-Case policy, the opening of the borders, the charm offensive especially towards Europe, the pause in the destruction of the Fintech sector, even the end of his expensive pet project of the Belt and Road Initiative, now rebranded “Global Development Initiative”, are all pointing towards a major repositioning in the face of growing international isolation among the major players, growing economic problems and the post-pandemic wave of brain drain and flight of capital.
Given the opaqueness of Chinese politics, it is hard to say if the newly empowered trusted allies managed towards the end of 2022 to convince the leader that changes are needed or if there has been a mild version of a putsch behind the scenes. In any case, what we are witnessing in these days is, in the view of your humble editor, as much a Xi Peak as it is a China Peak.
领英推荐
China is becoming less of a wonder boy and falls more in line with the rest of the world. This is unfortunately true for the unabated move towards an ecological Armageddon, but it is finally also true for the recovery of international tourism. Many observers had stated that a restart of China’s outbound tourism would have to wait until after the “two sessions”, but they have been proven wrong and the more optimistic position of your humble editor got it right: Already about 300,000 Chinese leisure travellers visited for instance Thailand in 2023 and the speed of the reinstalment of air routes is faster than expected, supporting our forecast that after the Easter holidays China will become a major international tourism source market again.
Another important "session”, this time for the global tourism industry has gone underway today: The ITB Berlin is back as a physical event, for the first time as a purely B2B fair and convention. This is certainly an improvement for the fair, even though this year not all halls are used for lack of sufficient exhibitors. If the ITB Berlin convention returns to its former glory remains to be seen, the programme, which has also been reduced, looks more like a Chop Suey than a nicely balanced five-course menu.
The return of the most important tourism source market made it only into a single panel discussion on Thursday, March 9th, organised by the WTCF World Tourism Cities Federation. Your humble editor will be one of the panelists and hopes to meet many of the COTRI Weekly readers there.
The next main opportunity to bring Chinese and non-Chinese tourism professionals together will be the GITF Guangzhou International Travel Fair in May in Guangzhou/China. The conference organised during the fair on May 20th will certainly give more room for focused discussions and will allow to recover parts of the old and to create new parts of the network for the Chinese market.
Best greetings from Berlin and as always, all best wishes from Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt and the COTRI Weekly team.
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