https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/xi-jinping-age-stagnation

Ian Johnson's Foreign Affair article is more than 4900 words. He tries to portray Xi's Age of Stagnation. First of all, he repeats other's people negative portrait on objective evidence:

"For more than a year, economists have argued that China is embarking on a period of slowing economic growth. To account for this, they have cited demographic changes, government debt, and lower gains in productivity, as well as a lack of market-oriented
reforms. Some have talked of “peak China,” arguing that the country’s economic trajectory has already or will soon reach its apex and may never significantly overtake that of the United States. "

It is clear the above argument is weak, for example, lower gains in productivity reflects only one single data point. More important, lower gains in productivity is not negative gain. Low gain means slower gain and will not lead to peak China. In
addition, China only needs higher than US in productivity gain to overtake the US economically.

Interested readers could check out the following labor productivity of China and US:
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/china/labour-productivity-growth https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/labour-productivity-growth

Secondly, Ian Johnson latches on the something more abstract:
"What this analysis overlooks is the extent to which these economic problems are part of a broader process of political ossification and ideological hardening. For anyone who has observed the country closely over the past few decades, it is difficult to
miss the signs of a new national stasis, or what Chinese people call neijuan. Often translated as “involution,” it refers to life twisting inward without real progress."

But then he fails to provide anything concrete. For instance, how many Chinese have interpreted "neijuan" in what way and for what reason.

Actually, if one wants to criticize China and/or Xi, he or she would be more successful citing the number of Chinese killed by thunder strike. I bet more people would be struck down in China than in Americans years after years. Ironclad proof that Xi has
done something wrong and God is angry. No?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)