De onverklaarbare koerswijziging van Xi

Xi Jinping repeats Mao’s most dangerous mistake. Why China’s obsession with control and the faltering export miracle are pushing the country toward the abyss. Is China’s unstoppable rise becoming a myth? Now that dictator Xi Jinping is heading toward his fourth term, the question arises whether he is starting to lose his grip on his own empire. In this episode, historian Maarten van Rossem and host Tom Jessen dissect the geopolitical and economic reality of modern China under the rule of the Communist Party. Maarten directly compares Xi’s drive for absolute power to the catastrophic reign of Mao Zedong. The classic dictator dilemma rears its head: the older the autocrat, the more paranoid he is. With the impending retirement of two-thirds of the Central Committee and the ongoing purges within the military leadership, there is only one man Xi trusts blindly: his ruthless puppet Cai Qi. But can a superpower really run on the paranoia-driven policies of a single man? In addition, Maarten explains why China's ambition to become a 'super-Germany' — an economy driven purely by a gigantic export surplus and high-quality industrial goods — is running up against its limits. By focusing on exports instead of increasing domestic consumption and the incomes of its own population, Beijing is creating a shaky house of cards. Europe and the United States are increasingly erecting trade barriers. And what about the threat surrounding democratic Taiwan? According to Maarten, an invasion is a formidable military bubble, comparable to Putin's stalled intervention war. From the geopolitical heat in Beijing, we switch to the literal heat in Europe. The Tour de France is plagued by wildfires and extreme temperatures, which leads Maarten to a razor-sharp cultural-historical reflection on our persistent desire for mass tourism. Why does modern man flee en masse to bone-dry, urine-smelling Mediterranean campsites when you can just read a good book at home? From the nineteenth-century 'Grand Tour' of the aristocracy to the Opel Kadetts of the sixties: the history of holidays receives an unvarnished Van Rossem treatment. #maartenvanrossem #xijinping #china #geopolitics #history #podcast