Hal Brands, Columnist

Xi's Total Control Over Foreign Policy Is a Big Problem

History shows that when an autocratic leader takes full command of a powerful state, the results are rarely good for anyone.

October 25, 2022 at 9:39 PM UTC

By Hal Brands

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Strongman.
Photographer: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

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The results of China’s 20th Communist Party Congress are in, and they aren’t pretty — for China, the US and the world. Xi Jinping secured a historic third term as general secretary of the party while stacking the system with acolytes and dismissing prominent rivals.

China is continuing its long march toward personalistic autocracy, a system in which Xi ruthlessly rules the party, the imperatives of political control trump those of economic growth, and the police state flourishes from Beijing to Xinjiang.