Foreign investors in China should not have any high hopes for the near future. Two years into the leadership of President Xi Jinping, there’s scant indication that the country is opening investment opportunities or rebalancing the economy as foreigners expected. According to analysts, it is unlikely that 2015 will be a better year for economic opportunities.

It seems that President Xi has been doing his best to get things moving. He has cracked down on the bad guys, including former security chief Zhou Yongkang. He has introduced new targets for industrial congestion and energy power and there is talk of China’s GDP growing dropping below 7 percent – something the ruling Communist Party’s leaders have not encountered for the last two decades.

But the most important concern that has not materialized has been the increase in the function of the markets that Xi had promised. In addition, a much touted cross-border stock investment scheme between the mainland and Hong Kong has not produced the results expected and has been capped so far at a scant 2 percent of the Shanghai bourse’s market capitalization. Meanwhile, foreign exchange reserves replicating constant intervention in the currency markets has expanded by $600 billion since Xi took office. And despite promises to the contrary, there have been few financial products that have defaulted.

Overseas Markets

Investment into China from overseas markets in the nine months to September 2014 was lower than in the same period of 2013. Add to this drop in investment transaction the political situation in the country and you can see why foreign politicians, bankers and investors are at a loss of what to do. There is little support for the XI’s party in China while more and more people are favoring the Labor Party.

The continued search for political popularity is expected to get even fiercer in the future. Jumping a few years ahead to 2017, five of the seven members of the ruling Politburo Standing Committee will be of retirement age, and the expected contention for leadership has already begun. If President XI wants to beat out his competition, he must do so by earnestly implementing the policies that are necessary for China’s leadership. This will most definitely include the continued crackdown on the well-known graft to foreign financial companies which is known to everyone but which has until now avoided investigation. In addition, the interest in territorial claims in the South China Sea should also intensify.

XI’s moves will no doubt increase the strain among Xi’s partners who expected to already reap the benefits of their association with China but haven’t. Economists expect that at the moment, China should focus on solidifying what they have already achieved and take a back seat to further world expansion.