7 Things That Have Kept Xi Jinping Up at Night in 2025 (Probably)
Not all surveillance systems are digital. Sometimes the panopticon is in your own head.
Regular readers know I usually go deep on China analysis. Today we’re going light, but sometimes the truth hits different when you’re laughing.
Xi Jinping likes to think he’s the most powerful man in the world, but 2025 is testing that theory. It hasn’t been smooth sailing for the Chairman of Everything. His legacy project, the China Dream, is looking more like a stress dream. And while his face stays impassive, it’s getting harder to hide the cracks in the surface.
Here are seven things that have probably kept Xi up at night this year (plus a few honorable mentions), based entirely on strategic inference, historical pattern recognition, and a little bit of psychological profiling.
1. The Youth Unemployment Chart That Wouldn’t Die
You can delete the dataset, but you can’t delete the vibes. Despite pulling official youth unemployment stats last year and then re-releasing them with new “definitions,” everyone knows China’s jobless Gen Z is still jobless, and angry.
The real anxiety? This is the first post-Tiananmen generation that’s both disillusioned and digitally fluent. They’re using VPNs, they’re on Xiaohongshu, and they’re memeing about “lying flat” faster than censors can delete.
2. Lai Ching-te’s Entire Existence
The newly elected president of Taiwan refuses to play the reunification script. He didn’t say anything wild, he just kept winning elections. Awkward.
Beijing’s analysts keep insisting the DPP’s victories are the result of “foreign influence,” but Xi knows better. The real problem was never America. It’s that Taiwan’s people keep voting wrong. Every. Single. Time.
3. The Belt, The Road, and The Receipts
The Belt and Road Initiative was supposed to be the 21st-century Silk Road. But in 2025, the headlines read more like Debt and Regret.
From Zambia to Sri Lanka to Argentina, partner countries are pushing back, asking for debt relief, or outright defaulting. Even worse, some are winning elections by running against Chinese influence. Italy already left. Others are eyeing the door. This wasn’t in the white papers.
4. A Real Estate Crisis with No End in Sight
Xi said, “houses are for living in, not for speculation.” Now no one wants to live in them either.
Local governments are panicking. Evergrande’s collapse was only the beginning. Developers are ghosting projects, buyers are protesting, and ghost cities are getting... ghostlier. Not even 5,000 years of civilization can generate spontaneous demand. Somewhere, a nervous cadre is updating his PowerPoint to make negative growth look positive.
5. The Trillion-Dollar AI Hype Cycle (That Left China Behind)
In 2022, China swore it would lead the world in AI by 2030. But 2025 is here, and while OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and even Anthropic are rolling out increasingly powerful models, China’s tech firms are releasing LLMs trained on censored data and hoping no one asks about Tibet.
The cognitive dissonance? You can’t lead the future of information while tightly controlling the past. Chinese chatbots keep accidentally spilling state secrets because they can’t remember what they’re supposed to forget. Even the algorithms are confused.
6. That Nagging Whisper About the PLA
Sure, Xi purged the Rocket Force, restructured the command hierarchy, and replaced generals with loyalists. But loyalty doesn’t get missiles off the ground.
There are rumors the hypersonic glide vehicle program is stalling. Corruption probes keep uncovering entire arms of the military that don’t know how to perform basic combat functions. The last thing Xi wants is to order a Taiwan invasion and have the engines fail on liftoff. Nothing says “paper tiger” like rockets that won’t rocket.
7. The Lingering Ghost of Hu Jintao
Dragged off stage in 2022. Memory-holed within hours. But everyone saw it.
And worse, people remember it.
You can disappear a person. You can erase a photo. But you can’t erase the lingering national subconscious that watched that old man being pulled from his chair at the exact moment Xi consolidated lifetime rule. That moment said more than any speech ever could. And Xi knows it still echoes in every Party meeting where officials wonder: Am I next?
Honorable Mentions:
That one Chinese diplomat who tweeted too much (RIP Zhao Lijian’s Twitter account)
Vietnamese officials refusing to stop smiling in group photos with President Biden
Jack Ma’s surprising resurrection tour (and everyone asking “wait, where was he?”)
The fact that more African civil society leaders follow BTS than CGTN
Wolf Warrior diplomacy becoming Panda diplomacy again (growls don’t work when everyone knows you need their semiconductors)
The persistent popularity of Winnie the Pooh memes despite a decade of bans
Xi Jinping grew up learning how to survive authoritarian power. Now he wields it, only to discover that absolute control comes with its own invisible cage.
The economic miracle is stalling. The international narrative is slipping. And for all the AI-enhanced surveillance and ideological purification campaigns, Xi still can’t force people to believe what they don’t believe.
Maybe that’s why, of all the modern autocrats, Xi seems the least fun at parties. Kim Jong Un has the leather trenches. Putin has the shirtless calendar. MBS has the trillion-dollar desert cities. Xi? Xi has a beige windbreaker and a committee meeting.
We say all this with love, of course.
Sleep tight, Chairman.
P.S. Because even dictators deserve a fit check...
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