Category: Academic Analysis

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ken Chitwood, Affiliate Researcher, Religion and Civic Culture Center, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences; Bayreuth University

Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is more than a global music phenomenon; he’s a bona fide symbol of Puerto Rico.

The church choir boy turned “King of Latin Trap” has songs, style and swagger that reflect the island’s mix of pride, pain and creative resilience. His music mixes reggaetón beats with the sounds of Puerto Rican history and everyday life, where devotion and defiance often live side by side.

Bad Bunny has been called one of Puerto Rico’s “loudest and proudest voices.” Songs like “El Apagón” – “The Blackout” – celebrate joy and protest together, honoring everyday acts of resistance to colonial rule and injustice in Puerto Rican life. Others, like “NUEVAYoL,” celebrate the sounds and vibrancy of its diaspora – especially in New York City. Some songs, like “RLNDT,” mention spiritual searching – featuring allusions to his own Catholic upbringing, sacred and secular divides, New Age astrology and Spiritism.

As a scholar of religion who recently wrote a book about Puerto Rican Muslims, I find echoes of that same strength and artistry in their stories. Although marginalized among Muslims, Puerto Ricans and other U.S. citizens, they find fresh ways to express their cultural heritage and practice their faith, creating new communities and connections along the way. Similar to Bad Bunny’s music, Puerto Rican Muslims’ lives challenge how we think about race, religion and belonging in the Americas.

Stories of struggle

There are no exact numbers, but before recent crises, Puerto Rico – an archipelago of 3.2. million people – had about 3,500 to 5,000 Muslims, many of them Palestinian. Economic hardship, natural disasters such as hurricanes Irma and Maria, and government neglect have since forced many to leave, however.

As of 2017, there were also an estimated 11,000 to 15,400 Puerto Rican Muslims among the nearly 6 million Puerto Ricans and nearly 4 million Muslims in the United States.

Like any Puerto Rican, these Muslims know the struggles of colonialism’s ongoing impact, from blackouts and economic inequality to racism. For example, in the viral 23-minute video for “El Apagón,” journalist Bianca Graulau outlines how tax incentives for external investors are displacing locals – a theme reinforced in Bad Bunny’s later song, “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii.”

Converts to Islam also face unique challenges – and not just Islamophobia. Many are told they are “not real Puerto Ricans” because of their newfound faith. Some are treated as foreigners in their own families and friend groups, often asked whether they are abandoning their culture to “become Arab.”

To be a Puerto Rican Muslim, then, is to negotiate being and belonging at numerous intersections of diversity and difference.

Still, some connect their Muslim identity to moments in Puerto Rican history. In interviews, they told me how they identify with Muslims who came with Spanish conquistadors during colonial times. Others draw inspiration from enslaved Africans brought to the Caribbean. Many of them were Muslim and resisted their condition in ways large and small: fleeing to the forest to pray, for example, or living as “maroons” – people who escaped and formed their own communities.

Many ways to be Puerto Rican

Puerto Rican culture cannot be neatly mapped onto a single tradition. The archipelago’s religion, music and art blend together influences from Indigenous Taíno, African, Spanish and American cultures. Religious processions pass by cars blasting reggaetón. Shrines to Our Lady of Divine Providence stand beside U.S. chain restaurants and murals demanding independence.

Bad Bunny embodies this fusion. He is rebellious yet rooted, irreverent yet deeply Puerto Rican. His music blends contemporary sounds from reggaetón and Latin trap with traditional “bomba y plena.” It all adds up to something distinctly “Boricua,” a term for Puerto Ricans drawn from the Indigenous Taíno name for the island, “Borikén.”

Puerto Rican Muslims wrestle with what it means to be authentically Boricua, though. In particular, their lives reveal how religion is both a boundary and a bridge: defining belonging while creating new ways to imagine it.

Since Spanish colonization in the 1500s, most Puerto Ricans have been Roman Catholic. But over the past two centuries, many other Christian groups have arrived, including Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans and Pentecostals. Today, more than half of Puerto Ricans identify as Catholic and about one-third as Protestant.

Alongside these traditions, Afro-Caribbean traditions such as Santería, Espiritismo and Santerismo – a mix of the two – remain active. There are also small communities of Jews, Rastafari and Muslims.

Even with this diversity, converts to Islam are sometimes accused of betraying their culture. One young man told me that when he became Muslim, his mother said he had not only betrayed Christ but also “our culture.”

Yet Puerto Rican Muslims point to Arabic influences in Spanish words. They celebrate traces of Islamic design in colonial and revival architecture that reflects Muslims’ multicentury presence in Spain, from the 700s until the fall of the last Muslim kingdom in Granada in 1492. They also cook up halal versions of classic Puerto Rican dishes.

Like Bad Bunny, these converts remix what it means to be Puerto Rican, showing how Puerto Rico’s sense of identity – or “puertorriqueñidad” – is not exclusively Christian, but complex and constantly evolving.

In solidarity

Many Puerto Rican converts frame their faith as a counternarrative, rejecting the Christianity imposed by Spanish colonizers. They also resist Islamophobia, racism and foreign domination, with some converts drawn to the religion as a way to oppose these forces. Similar to Bad Bunny’s music, which often critiques colonialism and social constraints, they push back against systems that try to define who they can be.

To that end, Puerto Rican Muslims also build connections with other groups facing injustice. In reggaetón terms, they form their own “corillos” – groups of friends – united by shared struggles.

They demonstrate on behalf of Palestinians, seeing them as another colonized people without a nation. The first Latino Muslim organization, Alianza Islámica – founded by Puerto Rican converts in 1987 – emerged out of the era’s push for minorities’ rights around the New York City metro area. And after the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting, where about half of the 49 victims killed were Puerto Rican, and the mosque attended by the shooter was intentionally set on fire, Boricua Muslims joined with LGBTQ+, Muslim and Latino communities to grieve and demand justice.

In these ways, Puerto Rican Muslims remind me that notions of community, identity or justice do not stand on their own. For many people, they are linked – parts of the same fight for dignity and freedom.

That is why, when I listen to songs like “NUEVAYoL” or “El Apagón,” I think of the Puerto Rican Muslims I know in places such as Puerto Rico, Florida, New Jersey, Texas and New York. Their stories, like Bad Bunny’s music, show how being Puerto Rican today means constantly negotiating who you are and where you belong. And that religion, like music, can carry the sound of struggle – but also the hope of one day overcoming the injustices and inequalities of everyday life.

Ken Chitwood received funding from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Muslim Philanthropy Initiative, and the Spalding Trust to conduct research related to this article.

– ref. Bad Bunny and Puerto Rican Muslims: How both remix what it means to be Boricua – https://theconversation.com/bad-bunny-and-puerto-rican-muslims-how-both-remix-what-it-means-to-be-boricua-267164

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Steve Lorteau, Long-Term Appointment Law Professor, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

Interactions between different users on roads are often a source of frustration, the most prominent being those between motorists and cyclists.

For example, many motorists are frustrated when they see bicycles cross an intersection without coming to a complete stop, which drivers are required to do.

Many motorists consider this behaviour a sign of cyclists’ lack of discipline or even a double standard. In fact, cyclists don’t seem to run any real risk just slowing down at stop signs instead of making a complete stop.

By comparison, motorists risk a hefty fine for dangerous driving if they run a stop sign.

So should cyclists be required to follow the same traffic rules as motorists, or should we recognize that these rules do not always reflect the reality of cycling in a city?

As a professor of law at the University of Ottawa who specializes in urban law issues, I have studied various regulatory approaches that have been adopted around the world, each with different advantages and disadvantages.

This article is part of La Conversation’s series Our Cities: From yesterday to tomorrow. Urban life is going through many transformations, each with cultural, economic, social implications. To shed light on these diverse issues, La Conversation is inviting researchers to discuss the current state of our cities.

Strict equality between cyclists and drivers

In Québec, as in many other jurisdictions, traffic laws apply to all users, whether they are motorists or cyclists.

For example, all users must come to a complete stop at stop signs and red lights. If cyclists break these rules, they have the “same rights and duties as a driver of a vehicle,” in the words of the Supreme Court of Canada.

In other words, regardless of the differences between a car and a bicycle, the law treats them equally. Of course, this equality often remains theoretical, as the application of the rules can vary depending on context and behaviour.

À lire aussi :
À Montréal, même en doublant les pistes cyclables, les voitures conserveraient 90 % de la chaussée

Deceptive equality

The uniform application of traffic rules may seem fair, but in reality, it can create a false sense of equality.

On the one hand, the risks associated with different modes of transport are incommensurate. A car that runs a red light can cause serious or even fatal injuries. A cyclist, on the other hand, is unlikely to cause the same degree of damage.

Furthermore, the efficiency of cycling depends on maintaining speed. Having to stop completely over and over discourages people from cycling, despite its many benefits for health, the environment and traffic flow.

Treating two such different modes of transport the same way, therefore, amounts to implicitly favouring cars, something akin to imposing the same speed limit on pedestrians and trucks.

The Idaho stop rule

Rather than treating bicycles and cars as equals, some jurisdictions have opted for a different approach. The state of Idaho is one good example.

Since 1982, cyclists in Idaho have been able to treat a stop sign as a yield sign and a red light as a stop sign. Several American states (such as Arkansas, Colorado, and Oregon) and countries, such as France and Belgium, have adopted similar regulations.

In Canada and Québec, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.

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Moins de cyclistes… ou répartis autrement ? Le Réseau Express Vélo (REV) à l’épreuve des données

It’s important to note that the goal of the Idaho stop rule is not to legalize chaos on the roads. Cyclists must still yield to cars ahead of them at stop signs, as well as to pedestrians at all times, and may only enter the intersection when it is clear.

The Idaho stop has three main advantages.

First, the rule recognizes that the dynamics of cycling are fundamentally different than those of driving, and therefore cannot be treated equally.

Second, the Idaho stop rule takes the burden of issuing fines off the courts and police.

Third, the efficiency of cycling depends on maintaining momentum. Coming to a complete stop over and over again discourages cycling, despite its many benefits for health, the environment and traffic flow.

The effects of the reform

Faced with these two very different approaches for bicycles, one may wonder which is the most appropriate.

Several empirical studies show that adopting the Idaho stop rule does not lead to an increase in road collisions.

Some studies even suggest a modest decrease in collisions with the Idaho stop regulation. This is because cyclists clear intersections more quickly, reducing their exposure to cars. In addition, motorists become more attentive to cyclists’ movements.

In fact, the majority of road users, both motorists and cyclists, often do not strictly obey stop signs. According to a study conducted by the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), only 35 per cent of motorists stop correctly. Also according to the SAAQ, only 27 per cent of cyclists report coming to a complete stop at mandatory stop signs.

In short, adopting the Idaho stop rule would not create chaos, but would regulate an already common practice without compromising public safety, contrary to some concerns. Cyclists who rarely come to a complete stop when there is no traffic generally slow down before crossing because they are aware of their vulnerability.

A cultural shift

Furthermore, the question of introducing the Idaho stop rule in Québec invites broader reflection.

For decades, our laws and road infrastructure have been designed primarily for cars. Many motorists still consider cyclists to be dangerous and engage in reckless behaviour.

À lire aussi :
À Montréal, même en doublant les pistes cyclables, les voitures conserveraient 90 % de la chaussée

However, it’s important to remember that cars are the main structural hazard on our roads and that cyclists are in fact vulnerable. This structural danger has increased with the growth of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and pick-up trucks, which increases the risks for pedestrians and cyclists.

Adopting the Idaho stop rule would not give cyclists a free pass, but it would recognize their realities and legitimize cycling as a mode of transport, with traffic regulations adapted to its risks and benefits. This modest but symbolic reform could be part of a broader set of changes that would offer citizens true freedom and safety when travelling.

Steve Lorteau has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Bar Association, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

– ref. Cyclists may be right to run stop signs and red lights. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/cyclists-may-be-right-to-run-stop-signs-and-red-lights-heres-why-268724

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Michelle Burgis-Kasthala, Professor of International Law, La Trobe University

The Middle East has long been riddled by instability. This makes getting a sense of the broader, long-term trends in the aftermath of the Gaza war particularly challenging.

The significance of Trump’s 20-point peace deal that has (hopefully) brought an end to the Gaza war cannot be overstated.

However, this deal – and what comes next – will not change the Middle East. Rather, the wars of the past two years merely consolidated trends that were already under way. They didn’t serve as a radical break from the past.

The impact of October 7 on the region

Before October 2023, Israel’s place in the region seemed to be improving, despite the formidable “axis of resistance” Iran and its allies had built to counter it.

On top of its earlier peace agreements with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994, Israel had normalised relations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan under the Abraham Accords. It looked set to normalise relations with Saudi Arabia, too.

However, once Iran and Saudi Arabia reached a detente in their long-simmering rivalry in March 2023, the urgency of closer ties with Israel faded.

Then came October 7. One of Hamas’ apparent aims in launching the attack was to refocus the region’s attention on Palestinian liberation.

At the beginning, it looked like Hamas had partially succeeded. Among Arab states, only the UAE and Bahrain condemned the attack.

The remainder of the region either chose to join the fight against Israel (Iran, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon) or maintain a duplicitous dance in between – not making the US angry by speaking out too forcefully against Israel, while placating (or repressing) their angry pro-Palestinian citizens at home.

Two years later, the “resistance” camp led by Iran and its proxies has been significantly weakened – an undeniable victory for Israel.

And while Arab popular opinion still largely supports armed Palestinian resistance to Israel, regional leaders do not. In a significant step in August, the Arab League officially condemned Hamas’ October 7 attacks and called for its disarmament.

Why Arab states are now backing Trump’s plan

Historically, even when the Palestinians have seemed at their weakest, they have had an outsize effect on the stability and legitimacy of Arab regimes in the Middle East.

A case in point is the wave of coups in the region that followed the Nakba in 1948, when around 750,000 Palestinians were either expelled or forced to flee during the war that created the state of Israel.

Today’s peace deal is no different. Israel’s neighbours are backing Trump’s 20-point plan because they have learned from history – rather than out of any sense of moral obligation.

For these states, the plan is not perfect. In fact, it makes a mockery of more robust peace proposals from the past, such as the 2002 Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Though Trump’s plan recognises the continued Palestinian presence in Gaza, it denies them political agency or accountability for alleged Israeli crimes. The plan only pays lip-service to the idea of a two-state solution. And given the facts on the ground and the prevailing political sensibilities in the US and Israel, Palestinian statehood seems highly unlikely.

Yet, regional states are aware that ongoing conflict is in no one’s interests, save for the Israeli far right.

Trump’s plan therefore represents a fig leaf for a region desperate to be seen to be ameliorating Palestinian suffering, while ensuring more robust US support. Such a concern became existential for the Gulf countries in the wake of Israel’s attacks on Hamas’ leadership in Qatar in September.

What comes next?

If the ceasefire holds and the peace plan proceeds, Trump sees an expanded Abraham Accords in the future, with other states lining up to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel (including possibly Saudi Arabia).

But other deals may get under way first. Israel and the United States are moving ahead with a series of initiatives. These include the India-Middle-East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) (a rail-sea link to transport goods between India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Europe), and the Abraham shield plan (a proposed security and infrastructure partnership between the Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Israel).

Currently, it is unclear which land routes will be preferred for linking India and China with Europe. The Gulf states are prioritising Israel, while Turkey is positioning itself as an alternative northern route that extends China’s Belt and Road rail and road projects through Central Asia.

As the US has strengthened its military ties with Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, this will probably tilt the balance in favour of Israel and the Gulf countries, in spite of Turkey’s regional importance and NATO membership.

Given the huge public and private sums and geostrategic stakes involved, this is really where the region’s focus lies now.

So, even if the ceasefire falters and popular anger around the region intensifies, most Arab leaders will continue to expand and embrace Israeli cooperation.

Michelle Burgis-Kasthala has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. After 2 years of devastating war, will Arab countries now turn their backs on Israel? – https://theconversation.com/after-2-years-of-devastating-war-will-arab-countries-now-turn-their-backs-on-israel-267869

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Bruce Wolpe, Non-resident Senior Fellow, United States Study Centre, University of Sydney

One year and a day after Donald Trump won a second term as president – and on the 35th day of the US government shutdown, which has tied a record for the longest in history – the Democrats swept to victory in key races across the county.

Democratic candidates won the governorships in the states of Virginia and New Jersey, while Zohran Mamdani became New York City’s next mayor.

The Democrats may have just become the winners of the fight to reopen the government, too.

Trump’s ratings dropping sharply

Sixteen years ago, then-President Barack Obama was staggered by Republicans winning the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey in the 2009 elections.

The message was indelible: voters wanted to put a check on Obama and his wide-ranging agenda, from health care to global warming. Many Americans wanted him to cool his jets, including on what would become his signature achievement, Obamacare.

The following year, in the 2010 midterm elections, the Democrats lost more than 60 seats and their majority in the House. For the next six years, Republicans had a veto over whatever bills Obama wanted Congress to enact.

With Democrats now winning the governorships in those two states, Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have just been sent the same message: you need to be checked, too.

Going into Tuesday’s elections, Trump’s approval rating in one major poll was just above 40%, and his disapproval rating just under 60% – the highest it’s been since the January 6 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Independent voters, who swung Trump’s way in last year’s election, are now disapproving of his performance by a 69–30% margin.

Trump’s leadership of what he calls the “hottest country in the world” is falling short in voters’ eyes on a number of key issues: inflation, management of the economy, tariffs, crime, immigration, Ukraine and Gaza.

What’s at the heart of the continued stalemate?

The US government has also been shuttered since October 1. Government agencies have been closed to the public, and hundreds of thousands of government employees are going without paychecks, while thousands of others have been laid off.

Millions of Americans have been affected by flight delays or cancellations due to air traffic controller staffing issues. And food stamps to 42 million Americans have been suspended, with the Trump administration only relenting to provide partial payments in response to a court order.

Closing the government was not solely the doing of Trump and the Republicans in Congress. After nearly a year of laying prostrate and appearing pathetically ineffective in responding to Trump and his agenda, the Democrats finally got off the mat to fight back.

Of all the issues with Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” – which contained huge tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, huge spending cuts for Medicaid, huge increases in spending to control immigration, more funding for fossil fuels and an increase in the debt ceiling – Democrats seized on one glaring omission from the legislation.

At the end of this year, subsidies are due to expire that more than 24 million Americans rely on to purchase health insurance under Obamacare. As a result, millions are projected to lose their health care coverage.

That is the cross Democrats chose to die on. They’ve told the Trump administration: you want to keep the government open? Keep the insurance subsidies flowing. Fix it now.

Republicans in Congress have had no interest in caving to Democratic demands. They’ve argued Democrats must agree to reopen the government before discussing the subsidies. Their calculation: voters will turn on the Democrats for the turmoil caused by the shutdown.

Trump wanted nothing to do with any such negotiations either. Two days before the elections, he said he “won’t be extorted”.

But a recent poll shows 52% of Americans blame Trump and the Republicans for the shutdown, compared to 42% who blame Democrats.

The wins in Virginia and New Jersey drove this message home. Yes, the Democrats triggered the current shutdown. But the president owns the economy. For better or worse, Trump will own the economy going into next year’s midterm elections, too.

What happens next?

How can the Democrats get out of the shutdown box with a win? With the leverage they just gained in the elections. Republican stonewalling after these election defeats will hurt them even more.

There are two routes forward.

First, Democrats could reach an agreement with the Republicans on a fix to the health insurance issue, with a vote in Congress by Christmas to get the subsidies restored. A bipartisan compromise appears now to be in the works.

Second, if such an agreement cannot be reached, the Democrats can introduce a bill to restore the subsidies on their own, with an up-or-down vote in both the House and Senate. If this was voted down, the Democrats would then have a winning issue to take to the midterm elections next November. The voters would know who to blame – and who to reward.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has prevented the House from meeting for more than six weeks, but it has to come back in session to vote to reopen the government at some point.

Trump is also insisting the Senate change its rules to allow a simple majority to be able to reopen the government – without any compromises on health insurance subsidies. But this is not a viable political option after these election results.

Two other Democrats take centre stage

There were two other big Democratic winners on Tuesday. California voters approved a redistricting plan intended to partially offset Republicans’ gerrymandering of congressional electorates across the country for the midterm elections.

It was a high-risk strategy by California Governor Gavin Newsom, and it paid off handsomely: Newsom is now considered the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.

And Mamdani, a Muslim socialist, was elected the Democratic mayor of New York City. Trump will no doubt continue to rubbish him as a communist radical extremist and follow through on his threats to cut federal funding for the largest city in the US.

Mamdani’s victory also places him on the national stage, but not centre stage. The Sinatra doctrine from his hit song New York, New York — “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere” — does not quite apply in this situation.

To take back Congress next year and the White House in 2028, the Democrats will need all kinds of flowers to bloom — not just Mamdani’s bouquet. In 2028, the party is going to have to shop in a bigger greenhouse.

Bruce Wolpe has served on the staffs of Democrats in Congress and former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

– ref. Democratic election wins send Trump – and Republicans – a message: Americans blame them for government shutdown – https://theconversation.com/democratic-election-wins-send-trump-and-republicans-a-message-americans-blame-them-for-government-shutdown-269094

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Shaoyu Yuan, Adjunct Professor, New York University; Rutgers University

Every few years since 1953, the Chinese government has unveiled a new master strategy for its economy: the all-important five-year plan.

For the most part, these blueprints have been geared at spurring growth and unity as the nation transformed from a rural, agrarian economy to an urbanized, developed powerhouse.

The task that faced China’s leaders as they met in early October 2025 to map out their 15th such plan was, however, complicated by two main factors: sluggish domestic growth and intensifying geopolitical rivalry.

Their solution? More of the same. In pledging to deliver “high-quality development” through technological self-reliance, industrial modernization and expanded domestic demand, Beijing is doubling down on a state-led model that has powered its rise in recent years. President Xi Jinping and others who ironed out the 2026-2030 plan are betting that innovation-driven industrial growth might secure China’s future, even as questions loom about underpowered consumer spending and mounting economic risks.

As an expert on China’s political economy, I view China’s new five-year plan as being as much about power as it is about economics. Indeed, it is primarily a blueprint for navigating a new era of competition. As such, it risks failing to address the widening gap between surging industrial capacity and tepid domestic demand.

High-tech dreams

At the heart of the new plan are recommendations that put advanced manufacturing and tech innovation front and center. In practice, this means upgrading old-line factories, automating and “greening” heavy industry and fostering “emerging and future industries” such as aerospace, renewable energy and quantum computing.

By moving the economy up the value chain, Beijing hopes to escape the middle-income trap and cement its status as a self-reliant tech superpower.

To insulate China from export controls put in place by other countries to slow China’s ascent, Beijing is doubling down on efforts to “indigenize” critical technologies by pumping money into domestic companies while reducing dependence on foreign suppliers.

This quest for self-reliance is not just about economics but explicitly tied to national security.

Under Xi, China has aggressively pursued what the Chinese Communist Party calls “military-civil fusion” – that is, the integration of civilian innovation with military needs.

The new five-year plan is poised to institutionalize this fusion as the primary mechanism for defense modernization, ensuring that any breakthroughs in civilian artificial intelligence or supercomputing automatically benefit the People’s Liberation Army.

Reshaping global trade

China’s state-led push in high-tech industries is already yielding dividends that the new five-year plan seeks to extend. In the past decade, China has surged to global leadership in green technologies such as solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles thanks to hefty government support. Now, Beijing intends to replicate that success in semiconductors, advanced machinery, biotechnology and quantum computing.

Such ambition, if realized, could reshape global supply chains and standards.

But it also raises the stakes in China’s economic rivalry with advanced economies. Chinese prowess in building entire supply chains has spurred the United States and Europe to talk of reindustrialization to avoid any overreliance on Beijing.

By pledging to build “a modern industrial system with advanced manufacturing as the backbone” and to accelerate “high-level scientific and technological self-reliance,” the new plan telegraphs that China will not back down from its bid for tech dominance.

An elusive rebalancing

What the plan gives comparatively modest attention, however, is the lack of strong domestic demand.

Boosting consumer spending and livelihoods gets little more than lip service in the communiqué that followed the plenum at which the five-year plan was mapped out.

Chinese leaders did promise efforts to “vigorously boost consumption” and build a “strong domestic market,” alongside improvements to education, health care and social security. But these goals were listed only after the calls for industrial upgrading and tech self-sufficiency – suggesting old priorities still prevail.

And this will disappoint economists who have long urged Beijing to shift from an overt, export-led model and toward a growth model driven more by household consumption.

Household consumption still accounts for only about 40% of gross domestic product, far below advanced-economy norms. The reality is that Chinese households are still reeling from a series of recent economic blows: the COVID-19 lockdowns that shattered consumer confidence, a property market collapse that wiped out trillions in wealth, and rising youth unemployment that hit a record high before officials halted the publication of that data.

With local governments mired in debt and facing fiscal strain, there is skepticism that bold social spending or pro-consumption reforms will materialize anytime soon.

With Beijing reinforcing manufacturing even as domestic demand stays weak, the likelihood is extra output will be pushed abroad – especially when it comes to EVs, batteries and solar technologies – rather than be absorbed at home.

The new plan is cognizant of the need to maintain a strong manufacturing base, particularly among beleaguered industrial farms and other older industries struggling to stay afloat. As such, this approach may prevent painful downsizing in the short run, but it delays the rebalancing toward services and consumption that many economists argue China needs.

Ripple effects

Beijing has traditionally portrayed its five-year plans as a boon not only for China but for the world. The official narrative, echoed by state media, emphasizes that a stable, growing China remains an “engine” of global growth and a “stabilizer” amid worldwide uncertainty.

Notably, the new plan calls for “high-level opening-up,” aligning with international trade rules, expanding free-trade zones and encouraging inbound investment – even as it pursues self-reliance.

Yet China’s drive to climb the technological ladder and support its industries will likely intensify competition in global markets – potentially at the expense of other countries’ manufacturers. In recent years, China’s exports have surged to record levels. This flood of cheap Chinese goods has squeezed manufacturers among trading partners from Mexico to Europe, which have begun contemplating protective measures. If Beijing now doubles down on subsidizing both cutting-edge and traditional industries, the result could be an even greater glut of Chinese products globally, exacerbating trade frictions.

In other words, the world may feel more of China’s industrial might but not enough of its buying power – a combination that could strain international economic relations.

A high-stakes bet on the future

With China’s 15th five-year plan, Xi Jinping is making a strategic bet on his long-term vision. There is no doubt that the plan is ambitious and comprehensive. And if successful, it could guide China to technological heights and bolster its claim to great-power status.

But the plan also reveals Beijing’s reluctance to depart from a formula that has yielded growth at the cost of imbalances that have hurt many households across the vast country.

Rather than fundamentally shift course, China is trying to have it all ways: pursuing self-reliance and global integration, professing openness while fortifying itself, and promising prosperity for the people while pouring resources into industry and defense.

But Chinese citizens, whose welfare is ostensibly the plan’s focus, will ultimately judge its success by whether their incomes rise and lives improve by 2030. And that bet faces long odds.

Shaoyu Yuan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. China’s new 5-year plan: A high-stakes bet on self-reliance that won’t fix an unbalanced economy – https://theconversation.com/chinas-new-5-year-plan-a-high-stakes-bet-on-self-reliance-that-wont-fix-an-unbalanced-economy-268699