Challenging Start To The New Year For China

With China’s stock market in a downward spiral, a near cold war situation on the Korean peninsula triggered by Pyongyang’s test of what it claims was a hydrogen bomb, and a growing coalescence of nations concerned about China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea amongst other things, 2016 is shaping up to be a challenging year for President Xi Jinping. Apart from the perennial challenges of ruling Tibet and other so called autonomous regions, some of the other problems that China is confronting are a dropping currency and economic growth rate, a Taiwan that is likely to vote in a DPP government that is less inclined to see an upside in a political union with the PRC, an ever growing wealth gap that can threaten stability, and finally a wide scale democracy movement in Hong Kong that appears determined to push back against China’s heavy handed political appointments.