“Neijuan (the Chinese term for stasis or an inward evolution) now permeates all aspects of life in Xi’s China, leaving the country more isolated and stagnant than during any extended period since Deng launched the reform era in the late 1970s.”

After leaving China in 2020, I returned earlier this year for an extended visit. Some of my observations were of trends that began much earlier; perhaps being away for a few years made them much clearer. In any case, I came away thinking that China is pursuing a deadend path toward ever-greater state control and suppression of individualism, which ultimately means a rejection of the ideas that underpinned its rise in the reform era.

Please read the full article, unpaywalled for now, at this link. And thank you for any constructive feedback!

How did Xi Jinping botch his country’s exit from its zero-Covid policy? And does this herald a new era of protests in China. I answer these and other questions in this Foreign Affairs essay.