After Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a speech strewn with words such as "common prosperity" and "struggle", experts fear the Chinese Communist Party's economic approach could send the country backwards and cause more headaches for the global economy.
Mr Xi was delivering the traditional "work report" as the general secretary at the opening on Sunday of the Party's week-long 20th National Congress.
China faces a once-in-a-generation economic challenge and his decisions will significantly shape the lives of the country's 1.4 billion people.
Economists have warned that reversing market-style reform could hamper the country's growth.
Professor Shi Heling from Monash University's department of economics said the Chinese government had "made a lot of mistakes in the last five years with its economy".
"Instead of having any mechanism to correct mistakes, the past mistakes were glorified," he said.
"From the epidemic prevention policies, to the idea that 'state enterprises advance, the private sectors retreat', and the suppression of the tech industry, and so on and so forth, I think these are all very wrong for the Chinese economy."
He said China had given "huge subsidies to state enterprises" which had "proven a dead end in the past before China's reform and opening up", adding that this gives little incentive for private companies to thrive and would result in China's economic development losing momentum.
"Now, China's walking backwards … It's missing the opportunity of becoming a world power."
From economy to security
Mr Xi — who is expected to be granted a historic third term as general secretary during the congress — laid out his plans to the meeting's delegates.
"The next five years will be crucial," Mr Xi said.
He also repeatedly invoked his slogan of the "rejuvenation of the Chinese nation".
In his report, there was another shift in tone from the last National Congress: Mr Xi used the terms "security" or "safety" 89 times, up from 55 times in 2017, according to Reuters, while his use of the word "reform" declined to 48 from 68 mentions five years ago.
"In the past, Chinese leaders based their legitimacy on their ability to provide economic growth," said Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew school of public policy.
"Now, with the economy slowing, Xi tries to shift the basis of legitimacy from economic growth to security — so that he can be the one who saves and protects China."
Zhiwu Chen — professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong — said one significant change was to de-emphasise economic development and economic reform.
"From the 14th to the 19th Party Congress, economic development was, each time, explicitly stated as the central mission for the party. Whereas, this time, there is no such mention. Instead, the emphasis is on 'complete' and 'all-rounded' development," he said.
What is 'bootstrap collective prosperity'?
Mary Gallagher — director at the International Institute and professor of political science at the University of Michigan — highlighted Mr Xi's use of the terms "common prosperity" and "bootstrap".
"It's about hard work and struggle," she wrote in a Twitter thread.
"Bootstrapping toward wealth is important here … The harder you work, the more you get, encourage hard work to become rich."
"To sum: No lying flat allowed. Don't expect the state to do what you can do yourself," she wrote.
"My take: The problem is that individual hard work isn't enough. The Chinese people have been working hard for a long time. The state needs institutional reform, in tax, property, and hukou," she said, referring to a household registration system in China that divides urban and rural populations.
After highlighting the need for "common prosperity", Mr Xi expanded:
"We need to improve the distribution system, adhere to the distribution of labour as the main body, the coexistence of a variety of distribution methods, adhere to 'work more and get paid more', encourage getting rich through hard work, promote fair opportunities, increase the income of low-income earners, expand the middle-income group, regulate the order of income distribution, regulate the wealth-accumulation mechanism."
"Big words are everywhere in this report. These big words [such as regulate wealth-management mechanism] are going to scare the rich people away," Professor Shi said.
Tactics spark uncertainty
The CCP has increased the dominance of state-owned industry and poured money into strategic initiatives aimed at nurturing Chinese creators of renewable energy, electric cars, computer chips, aerospace and other technologies.
Its tactics have prompted complaints that Beijing improperly protects and subsidises its fledgling creators and led then-president Donald Trump to hike tariffs on Chinese imports in 2019, setting off a trade war that jolted the global economy.
Mr Trump's successor, Joe Biden, has kept those penalties in place and, this month, increased restrictions on Chinese access to US chip technology.
The party has tightened control over private sector leaders, including e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, by launching anti-monopoly, data security and other crackdowns.
Under political pressure, these private sector companies are diverting billions of dollars into chip development and other party initiatives.
Their share prices on foreign exchanges have plunged, due to uncertainty about their future.
Mr Xi said the party would build "self-reliance and strength" in technology by improving China's education system and attracting foreign experts.
The president appeared to double down on technology self-reliance and "zero COVID" at a time when other countries are easing travel restrictions.
"China does want to be more open to foreign companies in an economic sense," said Australian Institute of International Affairs' China Matters fellow Yun Jiang, .
"The COVID policy has been the biggest barrier to opening up," she said.
Professor Shi added that another concern was when wealthy citizens not only paid tax but were then pressured to make a donation to the government.
"With this donation money, the government is going to subsidise the poor," he said.
"There are a lot of issues with [this] distribution, because donation is not an economic concept and it's not sustainable.
"It's not written in law and China is using propaganda pressure to make people donate, and using moral standards to solve economic problems."
ABC/wires
