Is George Soros Right About Xi Jinping’s Third Term?
It will be tough for opponents to overcome the procedural hurdles that insulate China’s president. But his power can be dimmed.
China’s government is not a big fan of George Soros. During the Asian financial crisis, the billionaire investor tried but failed to break the Hong Kong dollar peg. In 2016, when China was experiencing massive capital outflows, the People’s Daily warned him not to short the yuan. Last summer, he wrote an op-ed that President Xi Jinping “does not understand how markets work,” at a time when global investors were jittery about Chinese tech stocks being targeted by Beijing’s regulatory crackdowns.
In a fiery speech delivered at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Soros made his most sensational claim yet — that Xi may not get re-elected to a third-term at the 20th National Congress this fall: