With Chinese President Xi Jinping increasingly advocating his country's unique state-led market economy as he cemented his power at the last week's key Communist Party congress, foreign businesses, including Japanese firms, may face further challenges in China, such as technology leakage fears.
Beijing's stringent "COVID zero" policy, its pursuit of greater self-reliance in the manufacturing sector amid rivalry with the United States, and the promotion of "common prosperity" that could lead to coercively narrowing the income gap have all contributed to increasing uncertainty in doing business with China, critics say.
In a work report to the twice-a-decade congress, where Xi secured an unprecedented third five-year term as party general secretary, he repeatedly stressed the importance of seeking a "Chinese path to modernization" different from Western nations and touted past achievements, including the radical anti-virus measures.