Canada’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s visit to China is excellent news in itself, as China is one of the world’s biggest polluters and a global effort must be made to solve the problem. However, there is no reason to believe that Canada will influence Chinese politics. China, where Guilbeault is going, closely resembles North Korea because of Xi Jinping’s paranoid ideological tendencies. The main concern of the Chinese Communist Party is to stay in power. And Xi Jinping’s main concern is to remain at the helm of the Chinese Communist Party. All of China’s policies are subordinate to these two basic truths.

However, the poor performance of China’s economy, due in large part to Xi Jinping’s Maoist-inspired economic policies, threatens the survival of both Xi Jinping and the party.

1) Is Xi Jinping still in charge of the economy?

Several clues point to Xi being removed from the helm of the economy. As a result, leaders have been appointed to key positions whose training is far removed from the absurdities of Xi’s so-called economic thinking. In addition, the State Council has issued 24 guidelines aimed at attracting foreign investment in recent days. According to reports, it was Xi Jinping himself who announced these new guidelines a few months ago. His name wasn’t even mentioned in several articles announcing them.

2) How is China’s economy doing?

That’s because the Chinese economy is doing badly. Exports have declined. Foreign investment has declined. Unemployment is very high, especially among young people. The economy went into deflation. The debt is increasing rapidly. Above all, however, the population has lost confidence in Xi. That’s why the Chinese are saving more than ever for bad times.

3) What will Guilbeault talk about?

Guilbeault will encounter a familiar argument: he is told that improving the environment is too expensive given the current bad economy. He will answer with good reason that protecting the environment, on the contrary, requires advanced technologies that are excellent for business. He is then asked to help transfer these advanced technologies to China, which is impossible given American security policies.

4) Will the environment trump economic concerns?

The logic of Chinese power takes precedence over that of the environment. In the early 1990s, Canadian researchers traveled to Beijing to alert the Chinese government to the catastrophes that climate change would cause in China. The Chinese government didn’t listen to them, obsessed with economic growth. There is no reason to believe that the Chinese government has changed. On the contrary: he is more worried than ever about the development of the Chinese economy.

5) Will Guilbeault get anything from China?

Guilbeault is unlikely to return from China empty-handed. It is likely that he will achieve increased cooperation with China on certain international issues. It’s not nothing. But otherwise, he faces Maoist leaders clustered around Xi with a conquering vision of the world. A conquering vision of leaders afraid of losing power and willing to do anything to keep it.