Tuesday, 12 January 2021

President Xi Jinping issued an unusually upbeat assessment about China’s future, noting that “time and the situation” were on the country’s side in a new year marked by domestic turmoil in the U.S.

The Chinese leader told a gathering of provincial and ministerial-level officials Monday that he saw “opportunities in general outweighing challenges,” a marked shift from his sometimes dire-sounding warnings of recent months. While he repeated an oft-used allusion to the challenges posed by President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies, he expressed new confidence that China would gain in the long run.