Genocidal Chinese dictator Xi Jinping failed to show up on Tuesday night to deliver a speech at the BRICS Business Forum, sending Commerce Minister Wang Wentao to read remarks allegedly prewritten by Xi.
Xi’s absence was of particular note because he landed in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Monday to attend the BRICS summit and was expected at all the events of the three-day affair. Xi made multiple appearances in public on Tuesday without incident, alongside South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and attended the BRICS summit dinner on Tuesday night following Wang’s speech – he only skipped delivering his address to the business forum, in which he would have defended the state of the Chinese economy to attending potential investors.
The Chinese government has given no explanation for Xi’s failure to deliver his remarks at press time. Xi has since resurfaced in more BRICS events on Wednesday. The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not address his absence in statements regarding the BRICS summit on Wednesday. While rumors have surfaced that the 70-year-old Xi is suffering from health woes, no evidence suggests this is the case and Xi made no indications of being ill or injured during Wednesday’s events.
BRICS is an economic and security coalition composed of the states that give it its name: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Its members – all leftist authoritarian governments with the exception of India – say the organization is meant to help the “Global South,” a term generally used for underdeveloped Southern Hemisphere nations, pool their influence and compete with America and the West. They claim the coalition is not intended to challenge America, but its leaders regularly call for undermining the use of the U.S. dollar. Socialist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been a particularly aggressive voice in calling not just for the replacement of the dollar in international trade among BRICS countries, but the development of a BRICS joint currency. A significant obstacle to the formation of a stable BRICS currency is the currently dire state of the Chinese, Russia, and South African economies.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa bestows the Order of South Africa to President of China Xi Jinping during Jinping’s state visit at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on August 22, 2023. (PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP via Getty Images)
The speech that Xi would have delivered on Tuesday night, which he allegedly wrote, blamed America for China’s woeful unemployment rate and stagnating economy. As delivered by Wang, the speech insisted that the repressive Chinese Communist Party was working “to deliver better lives to our people,” but had recently been thwarted by “some country,” presumably America.
“Everything we do is to deliver better lives to our people. But some country obsessed with maintaining its hegemony has gone out of its way to cripple the emerging markets and developing countries,” Xi, through Wang, declared. “Whoever is developing fast, becomes its target of containment, whoever is catching up becomes its target of obstruction. But, this is futile.”
Elsewhere in the speech, according to the Chinese government news outlet Xinhua, Xi’s speech defended the Chinese economy from growing international concerns that it is on the brink of collapse.
“Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that the Chinese economy has strong resilience, tremendous potential and great vitality, and the fundamentals sustaining China’s long-term growth will remain unchanged,” Xinhua reported, clarifying, “Xi’s remarks were made in a speech read out by Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao at the BRICS Business Forum 2023.”
“Noting that the giant ship of the Chinese economy will continue to cleave waves and sail ahead, Xi said that China will remain an important opportunity for the world’s development, and the country’s door is wide open to anyone who wants to engage in cooperation,” Xinhua claimed.
Elsewhere in Xi’s speech, Wang said that BRICS was responsible for “fundamentally changing the global landscape” and would be a “force for good” intended to “help make international order more just and equitable.” Xi, through Wang, insisted that BRICS was not “asking countries to take sides.”
The Chinese government news outlets Xinhua and CCTV reported Wang’s speech as if Xi had delivered it, reporting that the remarks in question were not delivered by Xi. CCTV broadcast video of Wang delivering the speech on Xi’s behalf.
CCTV has since published videos of Xi attending other events without incident, including the traditional group photo session.
Xi also reportedly delivered remarks elsewhere at the BRICS summit on Wednesday, but not about the Chinese economy.
“We need to make good use of such mechanisms as the BRICS seminar on governance, the BRICS forum on people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and the Women Innovation Contest to deepen people-to-people exchanges and strengthen the bond between our peoples,” Xinhua quoted him as saying in a speech to the summit attendees on Wednesday.
Disappearing for the business speech but reemerging to discuss “people-to-people” exchanges and “inclusiveness” allows Xi to avoid becoming the face of the Chinese economy, which appears to be in freefall after nearly three years of state-mandated lockdowns, profligate spending on the construction of makeshift hospitals and quarantine camps, and the creation of an economy with soaring youth unemployment.
As of June, the Chinese government claimed that youth unemployment was governing around 21.3 percent. In August, the Communist Party announced it would simply stop publishing the youth unemployment rate, leading many to believe it had continued to increase significantly.
Another dramatic sign of economic collapse occurred last week when Evergrande, one of China’s largest property developers, declared bankruptcy in a U.S. court on Thursday. Evergrande debuted a debt restructuring proposal in March that apparently failed to restore stability to the company.
Xi Jinping, China’s president, left, shakes hands with Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, during a pre-BRICS summit state visit at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa, on Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023. (Michele Spatari/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The real estate sector in China has become so volatile that, last year, protests erupted outside of banks in Zhengzhou demanding deposits be unfrozen. The banks suddenly announced its customers would not be able to access their own money; some reports indicated that outstanding debt by real estate developers was largely responsible for the freezes, though the banks never offered a concrete explanation.
Last week, the Chinese government published a speech allegedly by Xi urging the public to practice “patience” with China’s tanking economy.
“We should first consider the size of the population and the large rural-urban development gap. We cannot be ambitious and unrealistic, but we cannot simply follow the beaten path. We should be patient and move forward in a steadfast manner,” the speech read.
This year’s BRICS summit has attracted elevated international attention because China, the group’s most powerful member, is demanding a significant expansion in membership. The group invited the heads of state of over 40 countries to attend alongside the five member states. The government of South Africa recently claimed that a similar number of countries have expressed interest in joining BRICS, including economically formidable countries such as Saudi Arabia.