China, Sinologist Masini: “Redistribution of wealth is Xi’s great challenge”

“The enterprise of redistribution of wealth is Xi Jinping’s great challenge” and “China’s political but also economic stability is at stake on the distribution of wealth.” And “we have to see if Xi will succeed and at what price”. Federico Masini, sinologist, professor of Chinese language and literature at La Sapienza in Rome, speaks with the Adnkronos of China, of Xi Jinping, who has just seen his power consolidated with the “historical resolution” of the Chinese Communist Party, and of the upcoming virtual summit of the Chinese leader with US President Joe Biden. China, he says, must “try, like us, to solve the Covid problem”, maintain “a level of economic development that guarantees an improvement in the general structure of the Chinese economy and the possibility of distributing wealth”. “And ‘It is typical of the Chinese tradition to use history to imagine the future or to mortgage the future “, notes Masini after the adoption of the resolution on the” main goals and historical experience “of the 100 years of the CCP, the third document of its kind since the era of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. And now it is a question of awaiting the outcome of the Party Congress in the autumn of next year. ‘Virtual summit with Biden step towards a real meeting that would reassure winds of war’ “If it is assumed that Xi will be re-elected for the third time – he says – it will be necessary to see how China will arrive “at that appointment. So, “how will it end facing Covid, if it changes policy” on this point, how it will “react” to the crisis of the real estate giant Evergrande and if, in fact, “it will succeed in the enterprise of redistribution of wealth”. In the meantime, the spotlight is on on the expected virtual summit between Biden and Xi, which has not left China for 21 months, after the joint declaration announced by surprise by China and the United States at the climate conference in Glasgow. “International events have now also turned into media events – observes the sinologist – and Xi’s meeting with Biden has a media function for public opinion in the US as well as for the Chinese public, perhaps less critical”. And it is “likely that it has the function of showing” that Xi, after the consolidation of power at home, finds “recognition also on an international level”, meeting – although not for a face-to-face live – “China’s main competitor. “.Biden, he continues, on his part” needs to show that while on the one hand he fears the possibility of waging an unfortunate war “, a conflict with the Asian giant,” on the other he is open to dialogue “. And the virtual summit, he concludes, could “pave the way for a real meeting, in presence, which would mean a turning point and would be a reassurance that there are no too insistent winds of war”.