What was unsaid at China’s ‘two sessions’ and why it matters

In the season of China’s annual “two sessions” meetings, what remains unsaid often carries more weight than what is openly declared. When President Xi Jinping met privately with China’s top entrepreneurs in Beijing last month to offer lip service in support of the private sector, the implicit message was clear, if subtle: China’s state-dominated economic model has hit a wall.

Premier Li Qiang’s repeated exhortation to pull out all the stops and his call for bureaucrats to be relentless problem-solvers barely mask a deeper reality. China’s bureaucratic apparatus has a follow-through problem. That’s hardly surprising, given that the anti-corruption crackdown and local debt crisis have dampened morale and tightened purse strings across the system.

These hidden signals highlight two fundamental domestic hurdles in Xi’s economic management: securing buy-in from both the private sector and bureaucrats tasked with implementing policy. No matter how powerful Xi might be, he cannot steer China’s economic ship towards global leadership without overcoming these internal roadblocks.