Xi Jinping is losing his grip on China— and Trump can give him a push

Xi Jinping’s once-total control of the Chinese military and the Chinese Communist Party is looking increasingly shaky — and President Donald Trump has a chance to help hasten the dictator’s departure.

Last month I explained in these pages why Xi, China’s “Chairman of Everything” since 2012, might soon be out of power. 

Critics scoffed — but on July 2 Beijing announced that Xi, for the first time, would miss this year’s BRICS Summit in Brazil.

Xi had long used the annual BRICS meeting as a domestic showpiece for his international leadership, with every Chinese press organ reporting on his summit speeches and activities in multiple front-page stories.

The blanket coverage strengthened Xi’s perceived power at home, so the chance that he volunteered to miss this year’s BRICS Summit is next to none.

Furthermore, Xi’s wife Peng Liyuan has not been seen in public for more than two months, and Ma Xingrui, one of Xi’s closest senior allies, was recently “assigned to another post,” according to state media — that is, removed from his position as Xinjiang Party Secretary.

Both added to a chain of senior Xi loyalists being deposed or dying mysteriously in recent months. 

Dictators, like dictatorships, frequently appear unbreakable until they break.

The CIA infamously projected the USSR would hold firm for decades just months before its demise.

The signs were there, but after 70 years of the Soviet Union’s survival, even expert analysts were hesitant to predict its imminent collapse.

Like the Soviet Politburo in the 1980s, the CCP’s ruling elite now faces severe economic challenges.

A flagging economy, huge outflows of capital, unemployment rates in depression territory and completely unsustainable public and private debt levels are driving deep unrest and even public protests in various regions of China.

If a critical mass of CCP leaders believes their nation cannot afford any more upheaval, they may well be orchestrating a smooth exit for Xi to avoid a messy coup. 

Xi, of course, is resisting his political departure — one more reason why Trump must keep up his economic pressure on China.

Trump’s tariffs have helped push the Chinese economy into truly dire straits, weakening Xi while upping the odds that his replacement will be more favorable toward US interests.

Xi’s disastrous economic, domestic and foreign-policy mistakes of the past few years make it likely that his successor will embrace a governance approach favoring collective leadership and reform, say political insiders in Beijing.

They point to the model of Deng Xiaoping, who followed a similar pattern when cleaning up the many disasters left to him by Mao Zedong.

A change in Chinese leadership could be an unalloyed benefit to the United States and our democratic allies worldwide — given that China today is by far the largest dual-use technology provider to Putin’s war machine in Ukraine, the largest supporter of terrorist governments in Asia and the greatest global thief of US intellectual property.  

There’s little the United States can or should do directly to push Xi out of power — but Trump certainly can encourage positive change in China with several concrete actions.

First, he should get behind the Russian sanctions bill now pending in the Senate and sign it into law — and follow up on his threat to impose 100% “secondary tariffs” on China and other countries that buy Russian energy.

Both measures would force China to choose between supporting Putin’s Ukraine slaughter, or leaving Russia to its failed war and rejoining the civilized nations of our world.

Continuing to partner with Putin in the face of such crippling sanctions would be economic suicide for China, and the absolute end of Xi’s regime.

In addition, Trump must escalate the fight against Chinese spies and industrial espionage in the United States and partner nations.

It’s no accident that so many of China’s newest weapons look and function exactly like their Western counterparts.

Finally, Trump should send clear signals that the United States will welcome new Chinese leadership committed to a peaceful foreign policy, the rule of law and more personal and economic freedoms for its people.

The president loves social media, and so do the Chinese people.

China’s “Great Fire Wall” dramatically limits their access to all but CCP-sponsored information — but it’s not foolproof. 

Powerful Truth Social posts, emphasizing Trump’s deep respect for China’s people while highlighting Xi’s many failures, in combination with a concerted “all channels” communications effort, will get through to the CCP elite and to well-educated future leaders.

With each week, the signs grow clearer: The Xi Jinping era is coming to an end.

The United States and our Western allies must prepare for the changes to come in the world’s second-largest economy — which now undergirds our biggest global adversaries.

Gregory W. Slayton is a former senior US diplomat, chairman of Slayton Capital and author of “Portraits of Ukraine a Nation at War.”