Xi Jinping’s plan to reset China’s economy and win back friends

The costs of China’s chaotic exit from its zero-Covid strategy are surging. In spite of a virtually static official death toll, a slew of obituaries for elderly public figures from academics to opera singers demonstrate the impact of the virus among its vulnerable population.

Hospitals in several parts of the country are overwhelmed, and a scramble for antiviral drugs and painkillers is creating shortages across Asia. Unofficial projections are putting the number of people that could die in China’s exit wave at about 1mn.

Such prospects not only damage the image of Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. They also leave Beijing’s propaganda organs struggling to defend policies after two years spent playing up hefty death tolls in the west as evidence of China’s superior governance.

But behind the havoc, a fundamental reset is taking place in Xi’s foreign and economic policies. According to Chinese officials and government advisers, Beijing is putting together policies aimed at improving diplomatic ties that have soured badly and boosting a deeply strained economy.

The motivation behind the intended resets — the success of which remains uncertain — derives from a confluence of different economic, social and foreign policy stresses that have reached critical levels, the officials and advisers add.

Several of the new policies and plans represent a fleshing out of the “spirit” of the 20th congress of the Chinese Communist party in October, the most important set-piece event in the Chinese political calendar for five years that established the tone for a series of long-range objectives.

After months of fierce internal politics, Xi secured an unprecedented third term as leader of the CCP and was able to pick a ruling politburo composed exclusively of loyalists. With the congress behind him, Xi is now attempting a course-correction.

From an economic perspective, the main goals are to restore robust growth to China’s slowing economy, improve the lot of hundreds of millions of Chinese rural workers, stabilise the ailing property market and shore up a crisis afflicting the finances of scores of local governments, the officials and government advisers say.

Chen Zhiwu, one of several leading economists who expect…