(B) Why silencing debate over China’s economy is bad for the country27

Accordingto a recent jokeshared among Chineseeconomists,few of them are willing to talk about the domestic economy these days, finding a lot more comfort instead in debating topics such as the risk of recession in the US.

The reluctance to raise questions about China’s economic situation or Beijing’srelatedpoliciesisunderstandable,asChineseauthoritiesaregettingless tolerant of dissenting voices.

Expressing contradictory views on a government policy could be seen as a deliberate affront to central authorities. Even a well-intended reminder of market riskscan be seen as somethingthat “bad-mouths”thegovernmentor a “malicious attempt to short the Chinese economy”.

AnumberofvoicesinChinahavealreadybeensilenced,withtheirChinese social media accounts shut down and their names blacklisted by local media outlets.

Anymentionof economicdangerscouldcome underaccusationsof failing to spread “positive energy”, despite the country’s economic failings becoming too real to ignore.

In March, when China announced its annual growth target of 5.5 per cent for 2022, it was widely hailed as pragmatic. Four weeks later, the Shanghai lockdown happened.Nowit seems unlikely thatthe country willbe able to match that goal in any single quarter this year.

Domestic commentaries and analyses about the world’s second-largest economy increasingly read like they are lifted from government documents.

The consequences are significant when there is insufficient debate about economic policies, causing results that policymakers did not intend. Even when the policy direction is correct, a top-down, cookie-cutter approach to implementation can generate new problems.

27 Zhou Xin. (2022, Aug 16). “Why silencing debate over China’s economy is bad for the country”. Retrieved from https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3188909/why-silencing-debate-over-chinaseconomy-bad-country?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article&campaign=3188909

The author is Tech Editor of the Post, following stints as Political Economy Editor and Deputy China Editor. He has previously worked for Reuters and Bloomberg in Beijing.

For instance, China’s intention to reduce bubbles in the property market is laudable, and the government is right to think that the debt levels of property developers have become too high. Still, a heavy-handed approach of restricting credit access from those companies might be reckless amid a sharp economic slowdown.

For now, many big questions are clouding China’s economic future. The elephant in the room is how the country can balance economic growth and its zero-Covid policy. Is it possible to achieve both goals down the road, as the country did in 2020 and 2021? If not, what is the way out?

Is Deng Xiaoping’s maxim of “development is the hard truth” still valid? In other words, is China still choosing pragmatism over ideology?

These questions are important, as they matter for all Chinese people and even the whole world, and they require thorough discussions and debate. It is certainly not a good sign when the country’s wisest experts are withholding their answers.

(A) China’s technology is a mixed blessing for MENA states28

China’s growing influence in the global technological market reflects Beijing’sambitionto be a leadingplayerin digital technology.ChinesePresident Xi Jinping has called for China to dominate advanced technology manufacturing by 2025. The Digital Silk Road (DSR), launched in 2015 as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, reflects this goal of developing digital infrastructure at home and overseas.

The world has witnessed China’s digital transformation in telecommunications, artificial intelligence, satellite navigation systems, sea cables and surveillance systems. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the DSR, increasing China’s digital projects and high-tech investment abroad.

Chinese technology firms have a significant presence in the Middle East and North Africa. Industry commentators have described Huawei as the world’s largest telecommunications supplier, second largest smartphone manufacturer and a global leader in fifth generation (5G) telecommunication networks. Since 2018, Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Baidu have invested heavily in regional commerce and telecommunications.

Huawei became one of the first fully-owned technology companies in Qatar in 2018, contributing to the development of 5G technology and providing better communication between individuals, vehicles and appliances. In 2019, Huawei signed a partnership agreement with Saudi Arabia’s leading telecommunicationsproviderZainto launchthefirst 5G local area networkin the Middle East and North Africa. United Arab Emirates telecommunication companies Du and Etisalat have also signed deals with Huawei to provide 5G network services.

In 2017, Huawei launched the Cairo OpenLab to serve as a hub for conducting research and development (R&D) in North Africa and established partnershipswithmanyuniversitiesintheregiontotrainlocalstudents.InTunisia and Algeria, China has used its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System in agriculture, telecommunications, maritime monitoring and disaster relief.

28 Passant MamdouhRidwan - East Asia Forum.(2022,Sep20).“China’s technologyis a mixedblessing for MENA states”. Retrieved from https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/09/20/chinas-technology-is-a-mixedblessing-for-mena-states/ The author is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Belt and Road & Global Governance Institute, Fudan University.

ChinaisseekingagreatertechnologicalpresencethroughtheDSRinmany regions making it difficult for Western companies to compete. In the postpandemic era, the Middle East and North Africa will be more dependent on China, especially in the digital telecommunications industry. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, digital connectivity has become more prominent. Similar to the rest of the world, the use of the internetfor onlineeducation,shoppingand health services has become essential for daily life in the region.

Inequality in internet access remains a critical challenge across the region, especially in countries with poorer infrastructure capabilities. The number of internet users in the region exceeded 300 million in 2021, with internet penetration due to reach 50 per cent of the population by the end of 2022.

Affordability is one of the major factors behind the spread of Chinese smartphones in the region. Phone brands such as Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi are increasingly popular choices for consumers. Competition between Chinese phones and other brands is limited due to the cheaper price and 5G technology offered by Chinese brands.

ImplementingChinesetechnologyintheMiddleEastandNorthAfricawill not only improve countries’ economies but will also contribute to improvements in education, health, transportation, agriculture and services.

The adoption of Chinese technology will also have economic and political implications for the region. On the economic front, China is expanding its technological firms,creatingmore opportunities forChinato dominatethedigital market in the region. That may affect the ability of local and Western companies to compete.

On the political front, the internet was an important tool used to fight autocratic regimes during the Arab Spring in 2011. As politicians in the region have become aware that the internet poses a potential threat to their power, the level of internet censorship has intensified.

The DSR is an attractive idea to many countries looking to improve their economic growth and work towards digital transformation. But the security challenges behind engaging with China in this sector remaina critical issue. Data security isa key concernfor countries thatare usingChinesetechnology.Huawei has helpedrolloutsurveillancesystems across Africaand was accusedof helping African governments spy on citizens for political reasons in 2019.

As China develops stronger political and economic ties with countries in the Middle East and North Africa, policymakers must consider the implications ofadoptingChinesetechnologicalsystems.Giventheregion’shistoryof political suppression, these systems could be used to hinder political freedom.

(A) How Xi can strengthen China's economy29

Xi Jinping is poised to become the first three-term president in Chinese history when the Communist Party of China's 20th National Congress starts tomorrow. That gives an opportune time to take stock of his economic-policy record from the past ten years and explore some obvious steps to improve economic performance in the next term.

When Mr Xi assumed China's top political position in 2012, the economy was thriving, but it also had many serious problems. GDP had been growing at an average annual rate of 10% for over a decade. But a slowdown was inevitable, and GDP growth rates have indeed declined almost every year since 2008. Moreover, inequality was rising, with the Gini index having increased by 13% between 1990 and 2000. By the start of this century, inequality in China had surpassed that of the United States for the first time in the post-1978 reform era.

Meanwhile,pollutionwasliterallykillingChina.By2013,Beijing'sairhad an average of 102 micrograms of PM2.5 particles per cubic meter, whereas Los Angeles a city historically known for its air pollution had a PM2.5 reading of only around 15. Chinese city dwellers increasingly complained about the cardiopulmonary illnesses and early mortality associated with pollution. And China was also plagued by waterpollution,owing to the chemical runofffrom its factories, farms, and mines. In rural areas, entire villages and towns sometimes had to move because their water supply had been irreparably contaminated.

China was also gradually losing its workforce. Historically high fertility ratesofaroundsixchildrenperwomanstartedtodeclineinthe1970sandreached their current levels of under two children per woman in 2000. China's workingage cohort shrank from 80% of the total population in 1970 to only 37% in 2012. The share of individuals over age 65 doubled, from 4% in 1970 to 8% in 2012. These trends left the government stuck between a rock and a hard place. Though policymakersneededto keep the overall populationfrom ballooningfurther,they

29 Nancy Qian. (2022, Oct 15). “How Xi can strengthen China's economy”. Retrieved from https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2414930/how-xi-can-strengthen-chinas-economy also needed to maintain the supply of young working people to support the growing elderly population.

The author is a co-director of Northwestern University's Global Poverty Research Lab, and the Founding Director of China Econ Lab.

Social discontent was rising and, according to one popular index, public perceptions of government corruption had doubled between 1991 and 2012. Around 1,300 labour strikes were documented in 2014; by 2016, that figure had more than doubled, to 2,700.

When Mr Xi came to power, he took great pains to confront these challenges head-on. But the results have been mixed. On a positive note, PM2.5 readings in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai have been halved over the past ten years, and China's Gini coefficient today is back below that of the US and 13% below its 2010 peak.

But other indicators are less favourable. Between 2012 and the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, China's annual GDP growth rate has either remained flatordeclined.Eventhoughthegovernmenthasabolisheditsstringentone-child policy, fertility rates have remained very low. The share of individuals aged 65 and oldertodayis nearly13%, a new peak for the modern era. And ten years after Mr Xi launched a highly touted anti-corruption campaign, public perceptions of corruption are higher than ever.

Still,itwouldbemisleadingtolayallof thepastdecade'saccomplishments and failures at Mr Xi's feet. Mr Xi inherited the biggest problems he has faced, which were the unavoidable consequences of China's previous rapid growth and political and economic history. At the same time, Mr Xi also inherited the main policy solutions to these problems.

After all, China started requiring state-owned energy grids to invest in renewable industries all the way back in 1994, and earlier governments also emphasised policies to improve conditions for the poor. Basic medical insurance was introduced to urban areas in 1998 and to rural areas in 2003. Aggregate inequality began to decline two years prior to Mr Xi taking office, and earlier governments regularly pursued their own anti-corruption drives.

As Mr Xi continued many of his predecessors' policy initiatives,the things thatwere improvingcontinuedto improve,and theproblemsthat were hard to fix remained unfixed.What changed most under Mr Xi was not the ostensiblepolicy aims but the mode of implementation. With a few exceptions, such as the one- child policy,post-1978 Chinese policymakersbefore Mr Xi tended to be cautious and discreet. Important changes, like the introduction of rural elections, were usuallypilotedquietlyandonlyannouncedasa"nationalpolicy"whenthecentral government felt confident that it understood how the policy would work.

This trial-and-error method had the advantage of creating political space for deliberation among important stakeholders, leading to the success of highly complex initiatives such as China's national health policy. It also allowed for flexibility, with policies being revised to account for changing conditions or unforeseen side effects. And because these policies were not associated with any one person, the political costs of admitting mistakes were low.

Mr Xi has dispensed with such subtleties, announcing policies personally, suddenly, and without much, if any, apparent deliberation. This modus operandi has clearly been economically harmful, even when the motivations behind the policies are benign or well-meaning.

Consider the 2021 ban on private tutoring, which was intended to curb the punishing hours that Chinese children spend studying and to reduce wealthier students'advantagesovertheirpeers.Butthe rolloutwas so bluntand suddenthat it reduced major Chinese education companies' market capitalisations by tens of billions of dollars and simply created a black market for the same services. The economic ramifications reach beyond education. The possibility of sudden and unanticipated policy changes discourages future investments in all sectors.

Another example is Mr Xi's zero-Covid policy. Though it was very successful in keeping the coronavirus at bay when there were no vaccines, it has fared poorlywithchangingconditions.Whileall othercountriesare shifting back to business as usual or have already done so China seems stuck in an endless game of Whac-a-Mole.

(B) The 20th Party Congress is another step in Xi’s rise

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Opening on 16 October 2022, China’s 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is virtually certain to see general secretary Xi Jinping confirmed as China’s top leader for a third term. This will mark yet another step in China’s steady slide towards a more personalist regime centred on a single individual.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is projected on a video screen at an event in Beijing on 12 October 2022 to disseminate the achievements of China's leadership under President Xi Jinping over the past 10 years. In the near-term, this will increasingly saddle Beijing with all the governance weaknesses associated with single-man rule. In the long-term, it will make China’s domestic politics more unstable and increase the risk of Beijing’s policies veering dramatically based on the whims of the top leader and his close associates.

Sincehis rise to powerin 2012,Xi has pursueda consistentset of domestic policies tighten the Party’s grip over state and society alike, strengthen Beijing’s hold over economic elites, forcefully assimilate minority populations, wipe out dissent, and harden the system against ideological infiltration, particularly from the West.

All of these have a single consistent thread to strengthen the power of the Chinese Communist Party, which Xi views as having been undermined over the course of the post-1978 reform era, and avoid the fate of the Soviet Union under former general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.

Increasing Xi’s personal control has been core to this process. The purge of rivalssuch as Bo Xilaiand ZhouYongkang,the steady elevationof Xi himself in China’s ideological pantheon, propaganda efforts to cultivate a cult of personality around himself, the refusal to designate a political successor at the 2017 Party Congress and now his steady march towards extended (and perhaps lifetime) rule all of these reflect a one-party system that is sliding in the direction of a personalist regime.

30 Carl Minzner - East Asia Forum. (2022, Oct 16). “The 20th Party Congress is another step in Xi’s rise”. Retrieved from https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/10/16/the-20th-party-congress-is-another-step-in-xisrise/

The author is a Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Professor at Fordham Law School, specialising in Chinese politics and law.

On the surface, this looks strong. But it is actually a recipe for massive problems. Indeed, by steering China back towards a system of one-man rule, echoing that of Maoist China or Russia under President Vladimir Putin, Xi risks replicating all of their governance failures as well.

As a political system deteriorates towards personalist rule, decisionmakingerodes and yes-menproliferate. Aides hesitateto report bad news and the supreme leader starts believing his own propaganda about his infallible wisdom and ultimate power. Previously, he merely sought to avoid stepping down. Now, having cultivated a cult of personality, he never wants to back down for fear of appearingweak.ThatisnotonlyhowPutinfirstcameto invadeUkraine,butwhy he is now doubling down on a war that could quite likely wreck his regime and Russia’s future.

China is not at that level of political deterioration yet. But Putin has had a quarter of a century to deform Russian politics to his will. Xi has only been at the top for a decade. But in Beijing’s stubborn unwillingness to modify or question Xi’s COVID-19-zero policies, even at the cost of massive domestic economic damage, one can already see the outlines of a similar dynamic at work.

Political decay into personalist rule has a second effect as well. Court politics multiply and infect the day-to-day operations of the bureaucracy. Officials start to rapidly fall in and out of favour with the paranoid, declining monarch. State policies begin to careen wildly as aides pander to his whims and smear their rivals.

The United States experienced its own strain of this virus under Trump. China’s variant in the 1960s and 1970s under former chairman Mao Zedong was far more lethal.

Mao’s first two designated political successors experienced gruesome deaths the first expiring as a result of medical neglect on the cold floor of a prison cell after repeated abuse at the hands of radical Red Guards. The second perished in a mysterious plane crash after allegedly attempting a coup and trying to flee to the Soviet Union. This is what happens when China’s elite politics devolve into blood sport. That changed with the birth of the reform era. Deng Xiaoping edged former chairman Hua Guofeng out of power in the early 1980s. Reform-minded general secretary Zhao Ziyang was purged after the bloody suppression of the 1989 pro-democracy protests, and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. But neither was killed.

Butas Chinadeterioratespolitically,such practicesare eroding.Xi’spurge of former security czar Zhou Yongkang, and his 2015 sentence to life in prison, marked the first time a former or current member of the Politburo Standing Committeehad been sentencedon corruptioncharges.Rootingout elite ‘political cliques’ aimed at challenging the top leader is back in fashion as reflected in the suspended death sentence handed down to former deputy public security minister Sun Lijun on 23 September 2022.

Such measures are clear warningsto Party cadres in the lead-upto the 20th National Party Congress that any rivals to China’s top leader no longer risk merely their careers, but quite possibly their lives. Continue down this path and elite Chinese politics could steadily regress to a far more lethal era.

Strategically,XimaybeseekingtoavoidthefateoftheSovietUnionunder Gorbachev. But the tactics he is adopting may result whether intentionally or not in repeating that of China under Mao, or Russia under Putin.

(A) Why is China’s youth unemployment so high?

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This year’s cohort of college graduates has been facing China’s toughest job market in recent memory.

Nearly onein every five youngChineseurbaniteswas unemployedin July, a record since data began to be released at the start of 2018. Their chances of finding a job have been hit by a perfect storm of economic disruption and uncertainty.

Covid-19 lockdowns have forced millions of firms to shut their doors, while regulatory clampdowns on the tech, property and private tutoring sectors have prompted massive waves of lay-offs. Below, Caixin explains the reasons driving the youth unemployment crisis, as well as how young people and policymakers have been responding to the job drought.

Why is youth unemployment so high?

Around 16 million people need to enter China’s urban labour market this year, Premier Li Keqiang said at a press conference in March. Among them are 10.76 million fresh college graduates, an increase of 1.67 million from 2021, accordingto educationministrydata,settinga recordinboththetotalnumberand year-on-year growth.

Youthunemployment usuallypeaksduringgraduationseason,aroundJuly and August. While China’s headline jobless measure the official surveyed unemploymentrateforurbanworkers was5.4percentonaveragefortheJuneto-September period, unemployment among 16- to 24-year-olds was more than triple that at 19 per cent.

Yet these gauges miss some groups, including those who’ve not participated in the labour market for more than three months, suggesting the reality could be even direr. On the supply side, many firms are vanishing as they have borne the brunt of Covid-19 lockdowns and other disruptions that have exacerbated an economic slowdown, impacting demand for workers nationwide.

31 Zhang Ziyu. (2022, Nov 14). “Why is China’s youth unemployment so high?”. Retrieved from https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/why-is-china-s-youth-unemployment-so-high

A total of 13.2 million market entities including corporations, partnerships, as well as self-employed people and households deregistered in China in 2021, up nearly 30 per cent year-on-year, according to the State Administration for Market Regulation. Newly registered market entities grew at a much slower pace of 15 per cent to 28.9 million for the period.

Meanwhile, the central government has launched regulatory crackdowns on sectors dominated by privately owned companies that previously employed millions of young people.

Internet giants have been hit with huge fines for monopolistic behaviour, the real estate sector has been mired in a year-long crisis of liquidity and confidence sparked by deleveraging policies, and dramatic reforms have all but wiped out the private education industry.

Asthelightattheendofthetunnelisyettoappear,companieshave slowed hiring and implemented waves of layoffs.

Companies’ demand for fresh college graduates dropped 12.2 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter, while the total number of such job applicants soared91.3percent,accordingtoareportjointlyreleasedlastmonthbytheChina Institute for Employment Research and Chinese jobs board Zhaopin Ltd.

How have young people reacted?

Young jobseekers have lowered their expectations.

Fresh graduates aim to get paid around 6,295 yuan (S$1,205) per month, down 6 per cent from last year, a Zhaopin survey conducted in March and April showed.Manyofthemprioritizestability,droppingdreamsofhigh-flyingprivate sector jobs and choosing safe careers in the state sector.

This year, almost 2.6 million eligible candidates signed up for the 2023 national civil servant exam, the test that one needs to pass to land a sought-after job in China’s sprawling bureaucracy, with only a one-in-70 chance of getting a covetedjob,according to theNationalCivilServiceAdministration.Thisnumber of applicants is up 22 per cent from last year, when the chance was one in 68.

Some graduates opt for flexible employment, a broad term that covers various kinds of informal, temporary and “gig” workers, including construction workers, delivery drivers and livestreamers.

China’s flexibly employed has reached more than 200 million, Premier Li said in the March conference. The number constitutes roughly 14 per cent of the total population and 27 per cent of the entire working population, according to Caixin calculations based on government data.

What measures have policymakers taken?

Governments at all levels have been attempting to beef up youth employment through measures such as subsidizing companies that have hired fresh graduates, opening more public sector positions for them, supporting them starting their own businesses, and offering high salaries to those who are willing to work in less developed regions.

One long-term structural issue is the mismatch between companies’ demandsand graduates’skillsand expectations.Forinstance,whilegraduatesare reluctant to take on factory jobs, manufacturers face a shortage of skilled technicians.

Authoritieshave been tryingto fix this imbalancethroughdifferent means, including providing students with targeted vocational programs, and amending relevant law to elevate the status of vocational education.

(A) What's next in zero-Covid China drama

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China's leaders always knew that they would have to abandon their zeroCovid policy eventually and that the longer they waited, the more painful the transition would be.

Yet they seemed mired in the policy, unable to leave it behind and move on. Then an apartment-building blaze in locked-down Xinjiang killed 10 people whose escape was thwarted by locked doors and blocked entrances. This sparked China's largest anti-government protests since the Tiananmen movement of 1989 and became the catalyst for the authorities' decision finally to begin easing restrictions.

The protests were an expression of the frustration and anger accumulated over nearly three years of aggressive lockdowns. Compared to 1989, the government's response was notably moderate: police dispersed demonstrations with relatively little violence.

China's government has also apparently listened to the protesters. It has now scrapped some of its harsher Covid policies, such as the requirement to quarantine in state facilities. But the path out of zero-Covid will be long and difficult and not only from a health perspective. The recent upheaval points to broader political challenges that China will face in the years to come.

The action plan for exiting zero-Covid has been known to Chinese leaders for some time. They must boost the population's immunity especially that of the elderly through some combination of higher vaccination rates and more effective foreign vaccines. Otherwise, epidemiologists estimate that opening up could cause 1–2 million Covid deaths in China.

To be sure, for a population of 1.4 billion, even 2 million deaths would amountto a much lowermortality rate thanin the UnitedStates,where more than 1 millionhave died in a populationof 330 million. But after years spent suffering

32

Nancy Qian. (2022, Dec 12). “What's next in zero-Covid China drama”. Retrieved from https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2458182/whats-next-in-zero-covid-china-drama under strict lockdowns as the government touted its zero-Covid credentials, the Chinese people are unlikely to find this distinction comforting.

The author is a co-director of Northwestern University's Global Poverty Research Lab, and the Founding Director of China Econ Lab.

Chinahas attemptedtoease itspandemicrestrictionsbeforeonlyto tighten them when cases surged. This pattern is likely to continue until enough of the elderly are vaccinated and both the government and public accept the increased risk of infection and death.

What sets China apart are the political stakes. Zero-Covid was the subject of a power struggle which played out largely behind closed doors between President Xi Jinping, who was committed to the hardline approach, and moderatessuch as Prime MinisterLi Keqiang,who advocatedless stringentrules for the sake of economic growth.

Mr Xi won hands down. China maintained zero-Covid, he was appointed to an unprecedented third term as the Communist Party of China's General Secretary and the leadership of the Standing Committee, including Mr Li, was replaced by his loyalists.

Notably in his moment of political victory at the CPC's 20th National Congress in October Mr Xi re-emphasised the importance of zero-Covid. Abandoningthe policyless than two monthslater is a blow to Mr Xi's credibility.

But this is not about one man. The zero-Covid drama could threaten the legitimacy of the entire Chinese government and nearly 75 years of one-party rule.Thisis becauseChineseautocracymaskssystemicinstability.When citizens ofdemocraciesaredissatisfiedwiththeirpoliticians'performance,theyvotethem out of office. But China lacks a formal mechanism for citizens meaningfully to affect policy, so unhappy citizens must resort to "illegal" forms of expression, like protests.

Since these activities are outside the rules, they erode the country's institutional structure. Moreover, in a one-party system, a protest against government policy amounts to a protest against the Party, and thus, the entire regime. In today's China disagreeing with any government policy is tantamount to disagreeing with Mr Xi and, thus, the CPC.

As for the protests, the government will undoubtedly adopt measures to preventthem from recurring.Before thepandemicprotestsin Chinesecitieswere often followed by increased investment in police surveillance and a decline in popular resistance. This time is unlikely to be different. Even as the government eases pandemic restrictions it will tighten further control over the public sphere.

Recent developments thus bring mixed tidings for the Chinese people. Optimists can say that the end of zero-Covid is finally in sight, the government respondedto thedemands ofthepeopleand theprotestswere dispersed with little bloodshed. Pessimists, meanwhile, will point to the public's rejection of the government's Covid rules, note how it raises the political stakes of the next controversial policy and predict that the coming years are likely to bring ever tighter government control amid rising instability.