WITH RUTHLESS EFFICIENCY: How Xi sacrificed China’s future in pursuit of total power.

His power, and the sense that he is determined to enforce China’s cultural and military dominance even at the expense of prosperity, has sent a chill through domestic investors and the world order alike.

Proof of Xi’s apparent lack of interest in the economic consequences of his actions can be seen in the Communist leader’s choice for his second in command.

Striding out behind President Xi Jinping at the country’s recently ended Communist Party Congress last weekend, Li Qiang has become a symbol of China’s future.

A man with no central government experience, Li and other members of the Politburo Standing Committee – equivalent to the presidential cabinet – all owe their careers to Xi.

Li Keqiang, the market-orientated premier, has been sidelined. As have central bank governor Yi Gang and China’s top trade negotiator Liu He. Technocrats are out. Loyalists are in.

“China has paid a high price economically in order to maintain low Covid infection,” says Vera Yuen, a lecturer in economics at the Hong Kong University Business School.

“That zero-Covid policy is likely to continue. That will affect China’s connectivity with the rest of the world.”

Xi seems only to be concerned with Communist China’s relative position in the world. If the price of his power is a weaker economy and society, he’ll look for more ways to harm ours.