Chasing Shadows: China’s Digital Dream and the Price of Autocracy
By: Bryan Fu
As Beijing wraps up its 2025 Two Sessions - the annual convergence of China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) - the juxtaposition of ambition and anxiety within the speeches and pledges made by officials illuminates a country walking the razor’s edge between control and chaos. What unfolded over these pivotal sessions offers a glimpse into a China that, while projecting optimism and growth, is deeply ensnared in the complex web of self-inflicted constraints: economic fragility, a restive populace, and global tensions that grow exponentially as the days pass.
In his Government Work Report (GWR), Premier Li Qiang’s call for “around 5%” economic growth, despite the headwinds of a cooling global economy and strained domestic conditions, reflects a strategy for survival. The targets are ambitious, with a 4% fiscal deficit to stimulate growth, investment in infrastructure, and 12 million new jobs in urban areas. But these figures stand as symbols of Beijing’s instability, where failure could result in not only economic collapse but also broader societal consequences.
The policy blueprint’s optimism for the future, with an unprecedented bond issuance to fund infrastructure and high tech investments, signals Beijing’s grasps for control over its future. Yet, there was no grand stimulus, no cash infusions into households or consumer growth. Instead, Beijing has opted for a quiet rearrangement of state-private relations. Beijing knows that private innovation is indispensable. Xi Jinping’s new rhetoric endorses private enterprise, but knows he must retain ultimate control.
The most telling shift from the Two Sessions isn't in the promises to private enterprises or even the bond market manipulations, but in the strict tightening of the state’s surveillance over its people. There was a notable emphasis on rhetoric and actions surrounding public security, national defense, and the police state’s role in quelling dissent. With growing violence, unrest, and political apathy boiling beneath the surface, the state’s response has been to tighten its grasp, sending a clear message to an already unsettled population. To this end, Xi Jinping’s vision of “national rejuvenation” becomes less a hopeful political mantra and more survivalist. The CCP’s dream of an economically self-sufficient, tech-driven superpower stands in direct contrast to the reality of domestic unrest and geopolitical challenges. For Xi’s dream to survive pressures mounting both internally and externally, it will require not just technological prowess but the entire weight of the authoritarian system
Internally, demographic challenges also spike. Despite the grand promises of urban job creation, the reality of youth unemployment at staggering rates, hovering between 15-21% depending on how it's calculated, points to the underlying cracks. The proposals to combat this crisis, from lowering marriage age to promoting elderly care, reflect the sheer scope of Beijing’s anxiety. The society becomes increasingly divided, unable to bear the weight of its economy jumping from crisis to crisis.
Externally, China’s relationship with the world is shifting from strategic engagement to defensive nationalism. The defense budget, the second largest in the world, was increased by 7.2%, reinforcing Xi Jinping’s ambition to create a military capable of asserting China’s influence globally. This military rise is a direct response to the rising threat of a decoupling world, with trade wars, technological bans, and the spectre of Sino-US conflict casting shadows over China’s future. Li’s GWR is weighted with heavily pessimistic language about global disruptions and the unilateralism of the West. In Taiwan, Beijing’s position remains unchanged, but the rhetoric surrounding cross-strait integration has intensified. It is no longer about abstracted reunification, but pushing China’s economic and cultural projects into Taiwan. Xi’s vision remains clear; all roads lead back to a united, rejuvenated nation.
But perhaps the most troubling takeaway from the Two Sessions is the staggering contradictions at the core of its national project. The government calls for faster actions, efficiency, and growth at all costs, yet the very systems that should bring stability and confidence are fractured by overreach, underdevelopment, and resistance. The private sector, once key in China’s rise, is now caught in a hold of control, with the smallest misstep risking full regulatory crackdown. Technology is still too dependent on foreign components and too reliant on global markets that are turning cold.
The Two Sessions of 2025 was a warning of a regime too tightly wound in its pursuit of control, facing a world that is increasingly skeptical of its motives, and a population that is slowly growing weary of its promises. The future may be technological, but may also be fractured.
