Analysis by Simone McCarthy, CNN

Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, and other officials sing the Chinese national anthem during a ceremony to mark Martyr’s Day at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, in September 2019.
Updated 1005 GMT (1805 HKT) March 16, 2022
Hong Kong (CNN)In a year when all Xi Jinping craved was for things to be stable, 2022 is shaping up to be anything but.
After years of careful preparation, the Chinese leader is expected to step into an almost unprecedented third term at the helm of the country and its Communist Party this fall.
But instead of a smooth ride, dual crises are threatening to upend the status-quo, with China’s largest outbreak of Covid-19 in two years emerging at home while overseas, Russia embarks on a brutal, widely denounced invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading This was supposed to be Xi Jinping’s big year. Instead, he’s dealing with Covid and war




