In Brazil for a meeting of the BRICS, India’s new prime minister Narendra Modi met Chinese leader Xi Jinping earlier today in advance of the BRICS summit with officials from Brazil, Russia and South Africa.
Of course, India and China have a long and complicated history. But it’s not exactly surprising that it took barely over a month for the leaders of the world’s two most populous countries to meet.
Normally, an unofficially referendum conducted online isn’t worth paying much attention — just ask the residents of Venice who organized a deeply flawed, overwrought poll on Venetian independence that attracted just 135,000 participants after initially claiming 2.4 million.
But it’s worth noting the ongoing online referendum that the Hong Kong-based ‘Occupy Central with Love and Peace’ has organized, because it’s one element of a larger struggle between democracy activists and Beijing that could have major repercussions — not only for Hong Kong, but for the future political development of Macau, the Chinese mainland and, possibly, Taiwan.
Occupy Central’s chief goal is to open the nominating process for the 2017 election of Hong Kong’s chief executive. Hong Kong’s Basic Law, promulgated prior to the 1997 handover to govern the Hong Kong special administrative region, provides for the eventual democratic election of a chief executive. It’s a development that dates back over two decades to the negotiations between the British and Chinese governments over the 1997 handover. Ten years ago, Chinese officials finally relented and committed to some form of universal suffrage for the 2017 race.
Trouble began brewing earlier this month, however, when Beijing released a provocative ‘white paper’ on Hong Kong that took an aggressive posture with respect to Hong Kong’s future:
Published by the State Council Information Office, the unprecedented white paper states that “many wrong views are currently rife in Hong Kong” with regard to the “one country, two systems” principle that governs the territory’s relationship with Beijing. Some residents are “confused or lopsided in their understanding” of the principle, it adds.
“The high degree of autonomy of the HKSAR (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) is not full autonomy, nor a decentralized power,” said the paper. “It is the power to run local affairs as authorized by the central leadership.”
Local media have gone so far as to describe the white paper as an outright repudiation of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle that has guided China-Hong Kong relations since Deng Xiaoping (邓小平) coined the concept in the 1980s during the initial handover negotiations. Continue reading Hong Kong: One country, one-and-a-half systems?
The only certainty about the communiqué that resulted from the third plenum meeting of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (中国共产党) is that you should trust no one who claims to have sometime certain to say about its meaning.
But that hasn’t stopped a phalanx of Sinologists from Beijing to London and from Shanghai to New York from trying to divine the meaning of the communiqué and what it might behold for the next decade of Chinese economy planning under its new president and ‘paramount leader’ Xi Jinping (习近平), who’s also the general secretary of the CCP’s central committee.
So far, Xi has spent much of 2013 waging an anti-corruption campaign at all levels of the CCP and Chinese government, and emphasizing a less ostentatious style of governance (‘four dishes and a soup‘). The most optimistic forecasters, both within and outside China, predicted that Xi and the party’s central committee, a group of the top 350 CCP officials, would move forward during the third plenum with a bold policy agenda that could give some policy substance to Xi’s ‘Chinese Dream’ rhetoric. China’s state-controlled media even encouraged this line of thinking.
Perhaps Xi would finally end China’s one-child policy!
Perhaps Xi would announce the transition to an even more robust private sector!
Perhaps Xi would announce that the value of the renminbi would be determined by the market!
Perhaps Xi would stand on his head, pardon former Chongqing part boss Bo Xilai, sing a couple of ‘Cultural Revolution’ songs from the Mao era, lift the ‘Great Firewall,’ and establish a timetable for Tibetan independence!
No such luck — at least, so far as anyone can tell, though a more precise resolution will emerge in the days ahead. While it’s hard to find two analysts who agree on exactly what the communiqué foretells, . Xi is consolidating his power! Xi’s been stymied by the technocrats! It’s a triumph for the state sector! It’s a triumph for the private sector!
Here’s a brief portion of the 3,500 word communiqué (5,000 Chinese characters):
The Plenum stressed that the successful practice of reform and opening up has provided important experiences for completely deepening reform, and must be persisted in for a long time. The most important matters are persisting in the leadership of the Party, implementing the Party’s basic line, not marching the old road of closedness and fossilization, not marching the evil road of changing banners and allegiances, persisting in marching the path of Socialism with Chinese characteristics, guaranteeing the correct direction of reform and opening up throughout; persisting in liberating thoughts, seeking truth from facts, progressing with the times, seeking truth and being pragmatic, starting from reality in everything, summarizing domestic successful methods, learning from beneficial foreign experience, and daring to move theoretical and practical innovation forward; persisting in putting people first, respecting the dominant role of the people, giving rein to the pioneering spirit of the masses, closely relying on the people to promote reform, stimulating people’s comprehensive development; persisting in correctly handling the relationship between reform, development and stability, we must be bold, our pace must be steady, we must strengthen the integration of top-level design and crossing the river by feeling the stones, both stimulate overall progress and focus breakthroughs, raise the scientific nature of policymaking, broadly concentrate consensus and form joint forces for reform.
Those words might well also serve as a guide to understanding the communiqué itself — ‘crossing the river by feeling the stones,’ indeed. I’m not sure that Sir Humphrey Appleby could have improved on the document’s maddening vagueness. The Wall Street Journal summarized the statement as follows:
The communiqué called for fewer investment restrictions, greater rights for farmers and a more transparent system for local and national government taxing and spending—all areas where economists say China badly needs reform. But in lieu of specific plans it ambiguously emphasized the need to “encourage, support and guide” the private sector, while at the same time reaffirming “the leading role of the state-owned economy.”
In a small acknowledgment of the clamor for better protection of individual rights, the communiqué noted the need to establish an independent judiciary. But again it reaffirmed the leading role of the party, which has the power to trump China’s constitution.
Here’s an even more useful WSJ post that provides eight different takes from economists on the communiqué’s meaning. Perhaps the most helpful analysis comes from the BBC, which published the following word cloud of the communiqué and otherwise argued that the statement represents a stay-the-course commitment to economic reform:
But vague has long been in vogue on the path of Chinese policymaking, especially economic policy. Is it any less vague for China specialists to make vague calls for Xi to ‘deliver’? What would that entail? Looking back, even today, can you list with certainty the five top policy legacies will be for Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) and the Chinese leadership between 2002 and 2012?
Over the course of this week, we’ve watched US president Barack Obama apologize for the rollout and planning of one particular reform to one sector of the US economy. Yes, health care is a relatively large sector of the economy and yes, the government is already an important player in that sector, in light of Medicaid programs for the poor, Medicare programs for the elderly, Social Security benefits for the disabled and a separate care system for veterans and those in the armed forces. But it’s not clear if the Obama administration has any idea what will happen to the private health care insurance market over the next two months, let alone the next ten years.
Now imagine the task at hand for Xi Jinping and the Chinese government, who are expected to set a course not just for China’s health care sector, but for the entire economy, including a sizable public sector and a private sector that’s still very much linked to state power — in a country with 1.35 billion people, which is a population of about, oh, one billion more than in the United States. It’s a country that has about 42 cities with a population equivalent to or greater than the size of Chicago. Continue reading What we know (and what we don’t) about China’s CCP ‘third plenum’ meeting
In case you missed it over the weekend, China’s state-run newspaper Xinhua printed an extraordinary editorial calling for a turn to a ‘de-Americanized’ world that appears to have had the support of the top leadership within the world’s most populous country:
As U.S. politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world….
The tone only sharpens as the editoral blames the United States for torturing prisoners and killing civilians in drone attacks before fully condemning the era of ‘pax Americana‘:
Moreover, instead of honoring its duties as a responsible leading power, a self-serving Washington has abused its superpower status and introduced even more chaos into the world by shifting financial risks overseas…
Most recently, the cyclical stagnation in Washington for a viable bipartisan solution over a federal budget and an approval for raising debt ceiling has again left many nations’ tremendous dollar assets in jeopardy and the international community highly agonized.
Elements of the editorial are somewhat biased — a self-serving ding against Washington for ‘instigating regional tensions amid territorial disputes’ is more reminiscent of Chinese bluster and blunder on relations with Taiwan, Hong Kong and Tibet, as well as the recent territorial dispute with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. But if, as is almost certainly the case, the editorial has the backing of top Chinese leadership, it will be the strongest call to date for a move to a ‘de-Americanized’ world.
It’s important to keep in mind that, for all the defeatist talk that China has eclipsed the United States, the US economy remains roughly twice the size of the Chinese economy:
Furthermore, for all of the talk that the United States is becoming ever-more indebted to the Chinese, it’s also important to keep in mind that of the $16.7 trillion or so in outstanding US debt issuance, around $4.7 trillion amounts to intergovernmental holdings (e.g., amounts held by the US Federal Reserve). Another significant chunk of that debt is held by state and local pension funds, the Social Security Trust Fund. In fact, as of July 2013, foreign governments held just $5.59 trillion of the debt, and China held just $1.277 trillion of it, while Japan held nearly as much with $1.135 trillion. Here’s a closer look at the breakdown of the foreign holders of US debt:
In all the loose talk about China’s rise, it’s easy to lose track of those two items — China holds just over 7.6% of all US debt and its economy is just 52.5% the size of the US economy.
So while China isn’t today in a position to issue edicts about the de-Americanization of the world economy, its views are becoming increasingly influential, especially as it takes a greater investment role within the world from Latin America to Africa. Its call for developing and emerging market economies to play a greater role in international financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund mean that the days of an always-American World Bank president and an always-European IMF managing director are numbered.
Even in the worst-case scenario in which the US Congress’s failure to lift the debt ceiling leads to another Lehman-style panic, China can’t do much immediately to bring about a de-Americanized world. But, like Humphrey Bogart’s warning to Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, the threat will come ‘maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon — and for the rest of your life.’
So when China makes noise about a de-Americanized world, it essentially means two things: a world where US debt is no longer perceived as the world’s safest investment and the US dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency. I’ll take a look at each in turn, but first, it’s worth making sure we’re all on the same page as to the basics of the debt ceiling standoff itself.
The debt ceiling crisis
US treasury secretary Jack Lew has pinpointed October 17 as the day that the United States will be truly jeopardized by its failure to raise the debt ceiling (currently at $16.7 trillion).
With about 24 hours to go until the world hits that deadline, the Republican Party, which controls a majority of the votes in the US House of Representatives, are nowhere near approving a bill that, with or without conditions, would raise the debt ceiling for even a short period of time, and the US Senate, which is controlled by the Democratic Party, will spend Wednesday taking the lead on a last-ditch effort at negotiations between Senate majority leader Harry Reid and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.
It’s reassuring to know that Moody’s isn’t quite as pessimistic about the October 17 deadline — in a memo from earlier this month, Moody’s experts argued that the US government could quite possibly hobble along, quite possibly until November 1, when a slew of entitlement spending means that the US government will be unlikely to meet its obligations on time. The US government will certainly prioritize interest payments on US debt and meet its other obligations on the basis of incoming revenues. But the clock’s ticking, and while Wall Street and global markets seem nonplussed about the shutdown and even about the October 17 debt ceiling deadline, there’s no way to know when that could change.
Market sentiment is a tricky thing to forecast — recall the speed in 2008 with which former US treasury secretary Hank Paulson went from worrying about the moral hazard of bailing out Lehman Brothers on September 14 to, less than 24 hours later, worrying about rescuing the entire financial system from a global panic. While it seems unlikely that markets will immediately tank at midnight tonight if the US Congress fails to act on the debt ceiling, there are signs that other actors in the global economy are running out of patience. One of the other top three credit ratings agencies, Fitch, put the United States on warning Tuesday by lowering the outlook on its ‘AAA’ credit rating from ‘stable’ to ‘negative,’ citing the brinksmanship in the US political system that’s so far failed to secure a debt ceiling hike.
For those of you who might have been living on a deserted island for the past three years, the US Congress is generally obligated to raise the total aggregate amount of US debt issued, irrespective of whether the US Congress has approved the spending levels associated with issuing such additional debt. No other country (except Denmark) has a similar concept, which is why the debt ceiling crisis is such a foreign concept for non-Americans.
Between 1798 and 1917, the US Congress had to approve every single issuance of new debt; the onset of the ‘debt ceiling’ concept was initially a way to streamline debt issuance during World War I. Since 1917, the US Congress raised the debt ceiling over 100 times, and 14 between 2001 and 2013. Traditionally, in times of divided US government, though those votes have sometimes been subject to one party’s political posturing. US president Barack Obama himself cast a vote against raising the debt ceiling in 2006 when he was just a US senator, and he issued some pious, if garden-variety, blather about ‘shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.’ Matt Yglesias at Slate called out Obama for ‘bullshitting’ back in 2006.
But only in 2011 did one party seek to wield the debt ceiling as a weapon of economic destruction — give us what we want on our policy priorities or the world economy gets it! In 2011, just months after Obama’s party suffered devastating losses in the November 2010 midterm elections, Obama agreed to make budget cuts in exchange for a hike in the debt ceiling. But now, fresh off reelection, Obama is arguing that he won’t negotiate over the debt ceiling — partly to discourage anyone from trying to use the debt ceiling as an instrument of political blackmail in the future.
In any event, for the best reporting in the United States on the debt ceiling crisis in terms of both politics and policy, go read Ezra Klein (and friends) at Wonkblog at The Washington Post and every word that Robert Costa at National Review reports from within the House and Senate Republican caucuses.
But it’s vitally important to the global economy because US debt — Treasury debt securities (called ‘Treasurys’) and, specifically 10-year Treasurys (called ‘T-notes’) — is generally viewed as the safest investment in the world.
Why US Treasurys are so special
As Felix Salmon at Reuters memorably explained Tuesday, US-issued debt is the ‘risk-free vaseline which greases the entire financial system’: Continue reading Amid debt ceiling showdown, China sharply calls for a ‘de-Americanized’ world
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit is going on this week half a world away — without the leader of the world’s largest economy, US president Barack Obama.
But while Obama remains stuck in Washington waiting for a resolution to what’s become a joint crisis over the US federal government’s shutdown (entering its second week on Tuesday) and the showdown over raising the debt ceiling before October 17.
Obama’s absence from the APEC summit is about as stark an indictment as you can possibly imagine of the paralysis of the American political system. It serves the interests of no one in the United States — neither Obama nor Democrats nor Republicans (no matter how intransigent over health care reform) — for the US president to miss the summit.
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, flew to Bali in his absence where, alongside the other Asia-Pacific world leaders, Kerry donned a traditional Indonesian shirt (pictured above).
For Kerry, perhaps, he could pretend he’d finally made it to the White House — a dream that eluded him narrowly in his 2004 presidential bid.
But for the rest of the world, especially Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin, it was another sign of the gradual breakdown of American hegemony.
As The New York Times reports, it leaves China as the dominant power at the summit at a time when the United States is hoping to prod negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and when the bilateral relationship with Indonesia, where Obama lived during his early youth, is undergoing transformation: Continue reading Photo of the day: John Kerry goes to APEC (while China drinks America’s milkshake)
It’s been perhaps the most sensational rise and fall of a top Chinese official in a generation, but the corruption trial against former Chongqing party leader Bo Xilai (薄熙来) wrapped up this week with plenty of surprises, even if his guilty verdict for bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power, is all but assured.
On the final day of what has been a sensation hearing by Chinese standards, Bo accused a top aide of becoming romantically involved with his wife, capping five days of what has been a spirited defense by one of China’s most charismatic 21st century party leaders. Far from showing remorse, Bo (pictured above) has vigorously denied the charges and defended his actions:
He said he never cared for money. “The long johns that I’m wearing now were bought by my mother in the 1960s,” Bo said, suggesting he did not approve of the lifestyle Gu had created for their son, Bo Guagua. “I have been working like a machine. I really don’t have time to care about air tickets, hotel expenses and travel expenses,” Bo said. He added: “The country did not pick me because I am a good accountant.”
That Bo has been allowed to mount such a public (and political) defense is not surprising, given his status as one of the second-generation ‘princelings’ of the Chinese Communist Party (中国共产党). Even if Bo goes to prison for a decade or longer, the trial will have helped to cement his image as the leader of a ‘New Left’ movement within Chinese politics and society.
But what does that mean for the ‘Chongqing model’ that Bo championed as party secretary in Chongqing from 2007 to 2012?
The ‘Chongqing model’ is a vaguely neo-Maoist approach to governing China that involves a redoubling of state power and control, strengthening state-owned enterprises and aggressively attacking organized crime, while bringing back some truly unique vestiges of the era of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛泽东), such as encouraging the singing of revolutionary-era songs. It’s often contrasted against the ‘Guangdong model’ — a leadership style that encourages private development to blossom instead of through state-sponsored economic policy and at least a passing respect for the rule of law and other institutional reforms.
You can place the two models on the familiar left-right ideological axis — the Chongqing model prioritizes equitable distribution among all classes, the Guangdong model prioritizes the highest economic growth possible. In reality, however, the line between the two models is blurrier. Though the ‘Guangdong model’ is associated with the relatively liberal former Guangdong party chair Wang Yang (汪洋), now a vice premier (though not a full member of the Politburo Standing Committee) in Xi’s government, it was Wang who served for two years as Chongqing party chair as Bo’s direct predecessor. Realistically, the differences among China’s political elite remain smaller than their shared values. Just as there’s little chance that China will return to the days of Mao-era socialist state planning, there’s also little evidence that economic liberalization and reform has led (or will lead in the future) to greater political freedom.
Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported that Xi Jinping (习近平), who took power as Chinese president earlier this year after assuming leadership last November as the general secretary of the party’s Politburo Standing Committee, is also lurching to the left in the first year of what is expected to be his ten-year stewardship of the People’s Republic of China: Continue reading With the end of Bo Xilai’s trial, is Xi Jinping co-opting the ‘Chongqing model’?
Guest post by Michael Cole
When asked, “Who is Xi Jinping?” a Beijing wit might respond, “He is Peng Liyuan’s husband.”
Xi’s long slog to the top post in China’s Communist Party (中国共产党) was achieved by quiet service and loyalty to the right power players. It was a predictable course pursued by many ambitious scions of powerful Chinese families, with one surprising difference: Xi is married to Peng, one of China’s favorite superstar singers.
In March, amid military pageantry at Tiananmen Square, in the shadow of the Forbidden City’s imposing gatehouse and the famous portrait of Mao with the Mona Lisa smile, Peng Liyuan ascended to the top of the Communist Party leadership dais with her husband, the new president. Soldiers marched, generals saluted, and the sun shone on a rare blue-sky day while Peng smiled and waved. In China, as it is everywhere, a warm personality stands out and gives heart. Peng was an uncommonly elegant presence among the dowdy leadership, and everyone noticed.
In the following weeks, headlines tinged with hopefulness have chronicled President Xi Jinping’s commitment to punish corruption, maintain and control China’s economic growth, and even curb the dangerous effects of pollution. His success will take years to assess, but his tenure is already proving to be a stylish departure from his predecessor’s as he travels the world and appears on television with his wife.
During trips to Russia, Tanzania, and Congo, she has received praise for her personal style. Stepping off an airplane in Moscow in March, she wore a trim black trench coat cinched at the waist, and carried a smart leather bag, both made by the highbrow but homegrown Chinese label Exception de Mixmind. In Tanzania, she wore a chic skirt-suit in peach brocade and carried a small leather purse made in Chengdu. Appearing on television in Beijing, she wore a silk qipao, a traditional tunic dress with a high collar. Her look is both elegant and distinctly Chinese, and her manner warm but formal.
Although the wife of a Chinese president has no official position, Peng Liyuan’s popularity is making her truly China’s first lady. Her presence at public events makes her unique, as most premiers’ wives have remained conspicuously discreet. When former president Hu Jintao visited Washington, DC to attend a state dinner at the White House, his wife Liu Yongqing was notably absent, but Peng’s image makes her a potential game-changer. The New York Times compared her to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; London’s Daily Telegraph compared her popularity to the “Lady Katherine effect;” and Weibo fan groups proliferate. In the ultimate sign of China’s approval, the massive retail site Taobao – China’s eBay – is flooded with copies of her popular clothing choices.
Critically, Peng arrives on the scene at a moment when China’s Communist Party and government need a new face to show the public, despite the fact that they form a system that is adamantly, and sometimes violently, opposed to change. Chinese politicians do not like to make waves. Senior Party members’ tight-lipped discretion keeps generations of political secrets, and their unfashionable uniform of red ties and square black suits masks immense wealth. Observers speculate endlessly about rivalries within the Party, but officials are united in their mission to maintain appearances.
The Communist Party’s stale old images have little appeal in media-saturated modern China. Elderly Chinese tell folk stories of Mao’s personal warmth and penchant for wordplay, but few want another leader like him. State companies produce grand dramas about well-known revolutionaries beloved for idealism and selflessness, but the cinemas sit empty. Global news outlets have dissected the government’s trust deficit amid news of corruption and abuse, but they arguably miss the point: modern Chinese peoples’ cynicism masks their unmet need for leaders who make them proud, and who represent their best selves. China wants a hero.
By some accounts, the Party’s image problem is rapidly becoming a legitimacy crisis. Riots break out over problems such as economic inequality, labor abuse, and pollution, but leaders lack both inclination and credibility to address the issues, and instead use violence. “Netizens” on Weibo and Renren — the Chinese Twitter and Facebook, respectively — spread news of officials’ corruption faster than government censors can ‘harmonize’ their posts. In magazines, social media, and conversation, commercialism rules and ostentation wins the day. Pop stars and athletes receive adulation while officials struggle to evade ridicule.
In a system that thrives on stability — or harmony, as the Chinese say — Peng Liyuan presents an opportunity to try a new approach. Personally, she now occupies the role of a much-loved first lady, but it’s unknown who her role models might be. Chinese and international observers are watching for signs of how she understands her role, how she intends to use their unprecedented good will, and whether her image indicates changes in how the top leadership will behave and relate to the public. Continue reading Glamorous singer Peng Liyuan reshapes role of China’s first lady
So this is pretty amazing.
Henry Kissinger, the U.S. secretary of state and national security adviser who paved the way for U.S. president Richard M. Nixon’s historic visit in February 1972 and thereafter, the normalization of U.S.-Chinese relations, met with Li Keqiang (李克强), the new premier of the People’s Republic of China on Tuesday:
[Li] said China is willing to work with the US to develop an unprecedented type of relationship in order to allow both sides to benefit from bilateral cooperation and play their due roles in maintaining world peace.
Kissinger highlighted the vital importance of US-China relations in promoting world peace and development, suggesting that both sides should work on long-term planning and strengthen communication to foster ties.
It must have been quite a stunning chat, considering that the current ‘Fifth Generation’ of leadership is essentially four generations of Chinese governance removed from the generation that Kissinger and Nixon encountered — Chinese premier Zhao Enlai (周恩来) and Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong (毛泽东). Like him or love him, Kissinger remains one of the top old-school Sinologists in the United States, writing at age 89 a new book, On China, just last year. When Nixon visited China, Li was just 17 years old. The change that China has seen in the ensuing 41 years is one of the most amazing transformations of any human society in such a short period of time.
More background here on Li from my seven-part series from November 2012 on the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (中国共产党). Li speaks fluent English; unlike many of his colleagues on the Standing Committee, he is a protégé of Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) and unlike Chinese president Xi Jinping (习近平), Li is not a princeling. An economic reformer, Li served as the Party secretary of Henan province previously, and he’s emphasized since becoming premier that his chief tasks will be to roll back Chinese government spending in favor of private sector development, corruption and the massive size of Chinese government bureaucracy, and tackling the growing gap between China’s rich and poor.
Add The People’s Daily to the cadres of those who hate Valentine’s Day, according to the South China Morning Post.
But don’t blame it on curmudgeonry, blame it on corruption — apparently, Cupid and cupidity go hand in hand:
A four-paragraph story in People’s Daily said Valentine’s Day had become a hatchery of decadent ideology, indulgent lifestyle, fraud and corruption for some party members who squandered money indulging their lovers.
It went on to say that such a trend had been seen among some senior party members, including disgraced former Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai, former railways minister Liu Zhijun and former Shanghai party secretary Chen Liangyu, who all kept mistresses or had illicit affairs with many women.
The writer then asked why such a romantic holiday in the West, where lovers presented flowers, offered chocolates and sent greeting cards, had transformed into a breeding ground for corruption when it reached the mainland. The problem was cadres who had abandoned communist beliefs, the article said, breaking their party oath and betraying the cause.
Ahem, paging James Fallows.
I cannot find the story on the People’s Daily English website, only a piece that seemed to welcome the fact that the Spring Festival surrounding Lunar New Year coincides with Valentine’s Day, giving business a boost:
Any concerns that Valentine’s Day clashing with the Spring Festival
holiday might hurt business have been allayed as both retailers and
restaurateurs report good turnover. It could even be said
that the two dates are perfect partners and suit
each other down to the ground.
It’s quite true that Xi Jinping (习近平), the secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party (中国共产党) and the incoming president of the People’s Republic of China, has made waves recently in a speech stating that opposing corruption will be a top priority of his incoming administration — he pledged to pursue both ‘tigers’ and ‘flies’ (in other worlds, both top Party officials and rank-and-file bureaucrats) guilty of corruption.
But perhaps this is taking things a little too far?
Meanwhile, with the United States pursuing a free trade agreement both with the European Union and, through the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with South American and East Asian nations, maybe it’s time for China to send a valentine to the European Union to discuss its own bilateral trade agreement.
It is now, of course, the Year of the Snake, as people of Chinese descent across the world today mark the Lunar New Year.
But, for world politics, the Chinese new year will bring the formal inauguration in March of Xi Jinping (习近平) as the next president of the People’s Republic of China, completing the transition from Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) to Xi as China’s ‘paramount leader’ — Xi already became the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (中国共产党) last November with the election of seven members (including five new members) of the Politburo Standing Committee of the CCP.
Furthermore, Li Keqiang (李克强) is set to succeed the popular, but now scandal-plagued Wen Jiabao (温家宝) as the premier of the PRC government at the opening of the 12th People’s National Congress in March.
Just last week, Xi drew a bright line against corruption in the wake of accusations that several of Wen’s family members had amassed fortunes largely due to Wen’s powerful position and in the aftermath of the most spectacular Chinese political scandal in two decades surrounding now-disgraced former Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai (薄熙来).
In a widely covered speech, Xi pledged to go after ‘tigers and flies’ in his fight against corruption — meaning that his leadership would stand for corruption neither among the highest-ranking officials nor among rank-and-file bureaucrats.
It remains to be seen whether Xi has the will to carry through that fight, but he’s already drawing quite a stylistic contrast from the buttoned-down ‘China, Inc.’ image of his predecessor Hu.
Photo credit to Kevin Lees — Bellagio, Las Vegas, January 2013.
Earlier today, Suffragio kicked off its 2013 coverage of world politics with a look at 13 key elections to watch in 2013.
While we’ll watch as new leaders, from Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi to French president François Hollande to South Korean president Park Geun-hye begin their first full years of power, we’ll also watch for comebacks by former presidents — former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will make a decision about running for a third term in the 2014 Brazilian presidential election and former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet is the odds-on frontrunner to win a new term in Chile’s December 2013 election.
In addition, however, here are 13 up-and-coming politicians and other public figures who will figure prominently in the next 12 months — either because they are likely to come to power themselves in 2013 or because this year will will likely be a make-or-break year for them to achieve power beyond 2013. Continue reading 13 in ’13: Thirteen up-and-coming world politicians to watch in 2013
This is the seventh and final post in a series examining the Chinese leaders named to the Politburo Standing Committee during the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (中国共产党) that concluded November 14. Prior installments on Zhang Gaoli here, Zhang Dejiang here, Liu Yunshan here, Yu Zhengsheng here, Wang Qishan here and likely future premier Li Keqiang here.
In many ways, there’s not much I can add to what the world’s press has already written about Xi Jinping (习近平) in the past 24 hours, who’s been the newest figure on the world scene since becoming the general secretary of the Party yesterday and, in a bit of a surprise, also the chairman of the Party’s Central Military Commission. He is expected to take over before March 2013 as China’s president, thereby fully succeeding Hu Jintao (胡锦涛).
There’s much we already know about Xi — starting with the fact that much of the world’s press and other policymakers find Xi leagues more expressive and relatable than Hu.
Xi is a ‘princeling’ — the son of Xi Zhongxun, a revolutionary hero, former vice premier and Politburo member, who was purged during the Cultural Revolution, but returned to help Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s to develop parts of Guangdong provide as special economic zones. When Xi Zhongxun was purged from the leadership in the 1960s, however, and Xi Jinping was just 15 years old, he was sent off to a remote village in Shaanxi province in the center of China.
As Robert Lawrence Kuhn writes in How China’s Leaders Think, Xi Jinping’s time in the ‘wilderness,’ so to speak, has now become part of his mythology:
Xi Jinping spent the next six years in this harsh, poor rural area — chopping hay, reaping wheat and herding sheep as a member of a local work unit. He lived in a cave house, as was the local custom. But he adjusted well to his new life, impressing older colleagues with his enthusiasm to labor long and hard, and with his personal modesty. He built a reputation for endurance by winning wrestling matches with farmers, and by carrying ‘a shoulder pole of twin 110-pound buckets of wheat for several miles across mountain paths without showing fatigue.’
Xi did not lose his love of studying, however: by night, he would read thick books in the dim light of kerosene lamps. The locals liked to go to his cave to listen to his stories about history and the world beyond the mountains. Everyone, old and young, enjoyed chatting with him.
I’m not sure whether this is just so much hagiography for the next ‘paramount leader’ of the world’s largest country, but there’s no doubt that the young Xi certainly made an impression, and Xi was soon off to Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University, where he studied engineering. Xi also holds a doctorate in law.
He spent much of his early career in Fujian, a province of nearly 37 million people on the Chinese coast just north of Guangdong province.
In 2002, Xi became the Party secretary of Zhejiang province, the province that lies immediately south of Shanghai, is home to 54 million people and is generally one of China’s most prosperous provinces, with double-digit growth rates during much of Xi’s tenure. Kuhn reports that Xi was untainted by allegations of corruption and, indeed, had ‘zero tolerance’ for corruption and dishonesty — a fact that bodes well at a time when the Party’s been struck with corruption scandals that touch everyone from outgoing premier Wen Jiabao to the disgraced former Party secretary of Chongqing municipality, Bo Xilai.
Although Xi was appointed Party secretary of Shanghai municipality in 2007, he was appointed in the same year to the Politburo Standing Committee, and he quickly left the Shanghai position to assume the PRC vice presidency where, among other duties, he was responsible for overseeing the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Notably, his wife is Peng Liyuan, who until very recently was more well-known in China than Xi. Peng is a popular singer and entertainer with the People’s Liberation Army (she’s technically a major general). Perhaps even more interesting, however, is that Xi’s first wife, Ke Lingling is the daughter of a former Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom, and Ke still lives there today (and not in China).
But there’s also much we don’t know about Xi, notably in the way he hopes to lead the People’s Republic of China over the next decade. Continue reading Fifth Generation: Who is Xi Jinping?
This is the sixth in a series of posts examining the Chinese leaders named to the Politburo Standing Committee during the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (中国共产党) that concluded November 14. Prior installments on Zhang Gaoli here, Zhang Dejiang here, Liu Yunshan here, Yu Zhengsheng here and Wang Qishan here.
Unless something incredibly drastic happens in the coming months, Li Keqiang (李克强) seems likely to succeed Wen Jiabao (温家宝) as the premier of the government of the People’s Republic of China at the opening of the 12th People’s National Congress in March 2013.
Along with China’s presumptive new ‘paramount leader,’ Xi Jinping (习近平), Li is one of just two of the previous nine members of the Politburo Standing Committee who remain on the committee after this week’s Congress, which concluded Wednesday. In addition to Xi and Li, five new members joined the committee (although all are over age 64, hardly making them ‘new’).
After today, however, Li is essentially the second-most important government official in all of China, and he is expected to be a cautious reformer who’s keen on narrowing economic inequality in China and widening the social safety net.
Li, as noted, has been a member of the Politburo Standing Committee since 2007 and he’s been the PRC’s executive vice premier since 2007 as well. He is also the youngest member, at age 57, on the committee.
He was a Party secretary in Liaoning, a province of 43 million people, that borders North Korea, from 2004 to 2007, spearheading a campaign to revitalize China’s northeast.
Previously, he served as the governor and the Party’s vice secretary of Henan province, China’s third most-populous province in the east-central heartland of the country with 94 million people, and one of the largest provincial economies in the country. Although Henan province’s economy grew during Li’s tenure (indeed, with an emphasis on agricultural modernization that saw rural growth exceed already-high levels of province-wide growth), he also presided over a mini-scandal involving the contamination of blood that may have infected up to one million people with HIV.
A BBC profile notes that Li has attacked corruption that has plagued the Chinese government:
A US diplomatic cable released by whistle-blowing website Wikileaks described Mr Li as “engaging and well-informed”.
In a private conversation with the US ambassador in 2007, he called China’s economic figures “unreliable” and warned that official corruption was the biggest cause of public resentment, according to the leaked cables.
That puts him at odds with Wen, whose family allegedly holds over $2.7 million assets, as reported in the past weeks by The New York Times. Hu’s speech kicking off the congress, too, emphasized the need to stem corruption in China’s official ranks.
Unlike many of the newly appointed members of the Politburo Standing Committee who are protégés of former president Jiang Zemin (江泽民), however, Li is more a protégé of outgoing current president Hu Jintao (胡锦涛), whom he encountered in the leadership of the Party’s youth league in the 1980s. With Hu stepping back from active government, however, Li may have few natural allies with a relatively older and conservative group now comprising the Politburo Standing Committee.
Cheng Li, director of research and a senior fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center, surmises that although Li lacks Wen’s political charisma, he may well be central to many key policy issues over the next decade:
Based on his previous work and the populist policy agenda he shares with his mentor Hu Jintao, Li’s hot-button policy issues will include increasing employment, offering more affordable housing, providing basic health care, balancing regional development, and promoting innovation in clean energy technology.
Interestingly, Li’s wife, Cheng Hong, is a professor of English language and literature in Beijing, and Li himself is fluent in English, just as fellow Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Qishan.
Like Xi, he spent time during the Cultural Revolution working in rural China, on a farm, and like Xi, Li also has a doctorate — in Li’s case, in economics.
As predicted last week: the new Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party is as follows:
The Politburo Standing Committee has been reduced from nine members to just seven. Interestingly, the five new members (Xi and Li were already members) are relatively old — and so old that they will not be eligible for re-appointment in 2017 at the next National Congress because each will be older than the 67-year age limit for members of the committee.
Both Zhang Gaoli and Zhang Dejiang, as well as Yu Zhengsheng are firmly protégés of former president Jiang Zemin (江泽民), who preceded current president Hu Jintao (胡锦涛), who is stepping down to make way for Xi.
Left out are two key Hu allies: Li Yuanchao, currently director of the Party’s organization department, and Wang Yang, Party secretary in Guangdong province and perhaps the most notable advocate for political reform.
Liu Yandong, the only woman serving on the Politburo, also failed to make the cut.
As has been predicted in recent days, Xi will become the general secretary of the Party and will also immediately assume the chairmanship of the CPC Central Military Commission.
Xi is currently speaking to the press now, and his speaking style surely seems much more relaxed and expressive than Hu’s.
The 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (中国共产党) concluded today, but the photo above comes from a plucky photo essay at China People’s Daily, entitled ‘Beautiful Scenery,’ and depicts 14 photos of women delighting at various moments during the Congress.
As stated in the slideshow: ‘beautiful ritual girls, female reporters and delegates to the Party congress become beautiful scenery during the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.’
Hat tip goes to Kathleen McLaughin, who’s been keeping a daily diary of the Congress for Foreign Policy, and who argues that gender disparity in China is perhaps getting worse, not better:
While 521 women serve as delegates in this party congress — 23 percent of the total, up from 18 percent a decade ago and higher than the 20 percent that women make up in the U.S. Senate — the members of China’s ceremonial electorate have far less influence over the process than their U.S. counterparts.
Gender discrimination often seems to be getting worse in China: Although a large percentage of Chinese women are employed (70 percent, compared with 25 percent in India), urban Chinese women earn about 67 percent of what men make, according to a 2010 survey from the All-China Women’s Federation. This summer, women in Guangzhou shaved their heads in protest of growing discriminatory policies around the country that require girls to score higher than boys on college entrance exams.
The Party hasn’t historically been incredibly welcoming to women, and in its history, it has yet to elevate a single woman to the Politburo Standing Committee, the chief governing body of the Party (and, accordingly, the Chinese government). The members of the Politburo Standing Committee are likely to be announced by the end of this week.
One woman with an outside chance of being named to the Politburo Standing Committee is Liu Yandong (刘延东), who’s been a member of the Politburo (the only woman currently serving on the Politburo) since 2007 and who has served as a state councilor since 2008. Liu (pictured immediately above) is a ‘princeling,’ as her father is Liu Ruilong, a former vice minister of agriculture, and she’s been close to outgoing Chinese leader Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) for three decades — notably, they worked together with the Party’s youth league in the 1980s. Continue reading The role of women in the CCP: just so much ‘beautiful scenery’?