Xi Jinping is no Robin Hood

 

In Xi’s China, ‘Common Prosperity’ Now Means Lowering Expectations

 

 In several speeches in 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for “Common Prosperity” as a new key goal of Chinese-style modernization. Observers both inside and outside China speculated that Xi was launching a new populist, left-wing agenda that would start spreading wealth in China more equitably.

But Common Prosperity was never intended to be a Robin Hood-like intervention to take from the rich to help the poor. As Mary Gallagher explains , it is much more anti-rich than pro-poor, seeking to constrain capital so as to empower the state, not to empower or enrich labor.