China's growing economic angst is another political threat for Xi

Charles Burton is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, non-resident senior fellow of the European Values Center for Security Policy in Prague, and a former diplomat at Canada's embassy in Beijing. As China's economy tanks in dramatic fashion, there are growing signs that it is scrambling to avoid any civil unrest fanned by the downturn. Earlier this month, after seven consecutive months of rising youth unemployment, Beijing announced it will stop releasing jobless statistics for young people. Official figures put unemployment among 16- to 24-year-olds in urban areas at 21.3 per cent; objective observers suspect it is much higher…