As the Chinese economy slows, the regime is ramping up an assault on dissidents and others it brands as troublemakers. Call it the repression index. One of the best indicators of the country’s economic direction is now a political one. The crackdown is telling us that the leadership, despite outward displays of confidence, is growing increasingly insecure as it grapples with faltering growth, the mainstay of the Communist Party’s legitimacy. That translates into crippling indecision; leaders seem unable to summon the resolve to implement tough yet necessary economic overhauls. Meanwhile, evidence of policy disarray is growing with President Xi Jinping and his premier, Li Keqiang , apparently disagreeing on how aggressively to add stimulus . A People’s Daily article in May by an “authoritative person,” most likely a proxy for the president, read like […]