Jonathan Browning by Bernhard Zand , Beijing

Xi’s Crises

China's Communist Party has endowed Xi Jinping with enormous power. He should use it to ban four dangers.

© Jonathan Browning By Bernhard Zand , Beijing

For eight days, the CP has advised and appointed Xi Jinping with a power that is more like China's emperor than his predecessors since Mao Zedong. For at least five more years he will now govern the country.

In our photo gallery, we will present to you the six politicians to assist him:

Beijing's Politburo: The seven most powerful men in China

With the 19th Party Congress, Xi Jinping had announced that it would begin a "new era of socialism of Chinese character." That may be so. At the same time, five normal years begin, in which China , like every other country, will experience crises. What should people and companies around the world, whose jobs and sales are increasingly dependent on China, stop?

1. Corruption

If the stability of an autocracy was based only on the power of its leader, then China would go against five quiet years. Not even Mao, the founder, and Deng Xiaoping , the reformer of modern China, had the party, state, and military as completely under control as Xi Jinping. It is therefore extremely unlikely that a faction is raised within the apparatus.

But it is not excluded. On the US east coast, watched by the FBI around the clock, a man who can still make a lot of trouble with Xi: Guo Wengui, a billionaire-heavy Beijing real estate tycoon, who fled two years before corruption fighters to the US and from there on his side China's party elite with massive corruption reproaches - also men from Xi's tight environment. None of Guo's accusations have been proven so far, but nothing is electrifying Beijing's establishment as much as his weekly tweets and Facebook posts.

In fact, Guo can only be one of many billionaires who can cause trouble among China's powerful unrest. The extent of the corruption associated with China's economic miracle should be as impressive as the wealth it created. Here dangers could dwindle, which XI's anti-corruption campaign of the past five years has not yet ruled.

2. Prosperity

Even the autocrats who swept away the Arab Spring six years ago reigned to the last degree in great power. It was the crumbling prosperity, the dissatisfaction of broad social strata, and the hopelessness of the youths who brought their fall.

There is currently no indication that such a revolution is threatening in China. The country is still growing strongly. Demand for housing, education, transport and health care remains unbroken. And even the poorest Chinese benefit from growth.

But the upturn is unequal, the differences between city and country, between entrepreneurs and officials, employees and migrant workers are huge. Unlike the Arab regimes, China's CP is closely monitoring these tensions and has therefore effectively reigned over recent years. But it is difficult to assess how deeply the perception of the deprivation in individual milieus really reaches - from the catastrophic environmental pollution in the country up to the invaluable rents in the big cities. China is an authoritarian state, and the displeasure of the population is ultimately hidden under a blanket of censorship.

3. Debt

In the summer of 2015, China was hit by a stock market crash, which neither the government nor Western economists had seen coming. A few months later, the courses sank again. China, it seemed, could tear the entire world economy into the abyss, precisely because the country had become economically important.

The crash did not come, Beijing got off lightly. But crises of this kind can be repeated at any time. The good economic data are deceptive; not even China's politicians trust their numbers always. Zhou Xiaochuan, the outgoing central bank chief, brought the threat to a brief formula last week. The "excessive optimism" that characterizes China's economy today could lead to a "Minsky moment" - the sudden collapse of the assets named after the economist Hyman Minsky long growth period.

The risks are long-established: China's cities and provinces, many companies and private households have been heavily indebted during the upturn. The country is still struggling to ensure that its capital market is largely closed and therefore at least protected against influences that led to the Asian crisis in 2008 and the global financial crisis in 2008. But for the next five years, the warning that former Premier Wen Jiabao had expressed ten years ago is that China's growth is "unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable".

4. North Korea

The biggest risk to Xi Jinping, however, is a crisis that was almost completely ignored during the party convention: the dispute over North Korea's nuclear and missile program.

Pyongyang sent congratulations to the Chinese Communist Party for their congress, and waived further rocket tests for eight days. But there is no doubt that North Korea's dictator Kim Jong Un will resume these tests, and it would be a surprise if there were no other nuclear tests to follow in the next five years.

This crisis is already a reality and will certainly exacerbate itself. It will force Xi to prove that the "diplomatic wisdom", for which his comrades have praised him for a week, is more than party poetry. Whether he can use his enormous power to defuse the most dangerous conflict of our time.

At the end of next week, US President Donald Trump breaks out on his first trip to Asia. He will first fly to Japan, considering the North Korean threat to rewrite his pacifist constitution, and then to South Korea fearing for his safety. Then Trump comes to Beijing. Time is running out.

In summary: China's strong man Xi Jinping has to deal with several crises over the next five years. On the one hand, there is the aggravating North Korean conflict. On the other hand, there are three domestic challenges: the rampant corruption, the ever-worsening of wealth, and growing debt.