China’s 19th National Congress of the Communist Party is garnering a lot of attention right now, and rightly so. In a speech during the opening ceremony of the conference, President Xi Jinping heralded the beginning of a new era in China, but he was also surprisingly honest about the inadequacy of his first term. Although the congress will continue into this week – there are still important things to be decided, chief among them whether Xi will anoint a successor, as is tradition in China, or whether he will continue to rule as dictator in perpetuity – most of the major events have already taken place.
Much of Asia had been in something of a holding pattern in the lead-up to the congress. But now, that holding pattern is over, and we can look ahead to some key events in the region that will reverberate throughout the world in the weeks to come.
In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s coalition decisively won another term in elections over the weekend. It is a remarkable political comeback for Abe, who gambled that he could overcome some of the scandals dogging his regime and win another mandate, allowing him to continue his economic reforms and to push the country toward the controversial step of revising its pacifist constitution.
This post was published at Mauldin Economics on OCTOBER 23, 2017.
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