Posts tagged ‘Li Keqiang’

« Older Entries  |   Newer Entries »
15/03/2013

* China confirms Li Keqiang as premier

BBC: “China’s leaders have named Li Keqiang premier, placing him at the helm of the world’s second-largest economy.

Mr Li, who already holds the number two spot in the Communist Party, takes over from Wen Jiabao.

Mr Li was elected for a five-year term but, like his predecessor, would be expected to spend a decade in office.

On Thursday, Xi Jinping was confirmed by legislators as the new president, completing the transition of power from Hu Jintao.

Li Keqiang’s widely-signalled elevation was confirmed by 3,000 legislators at the National People’s Congress, the annual parliament session, in Beijing. He received 2,940 votes to three, with six abstentions.

From humble beginnings, Li Keqiang has risen high in politics, but his career has not been without controversy. During the mid-1990s a scandal of stunning proportions devastated many rural communities in Henan. Thousands of farmers and their families contracted HIV after receiving contaminated blood transfusions. Most infections in the government-backed blood-selling scheme happened before Li Keqiang became the province’s party boss. But he was widely criticised for silencing those speaking out.

Many villagers still travel to Beijing every year to protest about the issue. One demonstrator told the BBC she hoped Li Keqiang would pay more attention, saying she had still not received any compensation. But others have seen a different side to the politician. One gay-rights activist told the BBC that Li Keqiang was very “easy-going” during a recent meeting. “He didn’t act at all like a government official,” said Kong Lingkun. “During the discussion he wanted everyone’s opinion and he encouraged us to speak freely.”

China’s new premier likes to project an image that he’s modern, sophisticated and ready to listen. But he has also shown he can be ruthless when the party’s reputation is at risk.

As premier, he will oversee a large portfolio of domestic affairs, managing economic challenges, environmental woes and China’s urbanisation drive.

The appointments seal the shift from one generation of leaders to the next. A raft of vice-premiers and state councillors will be named on Saturday, before the NPC closes on Sunday.

Mr Li, 57, who is seen as close to outgoing leader Hu Jintao, speaks fluent English and has a PhD in economics.

He has called for a more streamlined government, eliminating some ministries while boosting the size of others.

The son of a local official in Anhui province, he became China’s youngest provincial governor when he was tasked to run Henan.

But his time there was marked by a scandal involving the spread of HIV through contaminated blood.

Mr Li is expected to end the NPC with a press conference on Sunday, given by Wen Jiabao in the past.

via BBC News – China confirms Li Keqiang as premier.

Posted in 10 year leadership change, China alert, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , ,
10/03/2013

* China scraps railways ministry in streamlining drive

BBC: “China has dissolved its powerful railways ministry in a raft of measures aimed at boosting government efficiency and tackling corruption.

Travellers at the Beijing West Railway Station, Jan 2013

The railways ministry, which has been criticised for fraud and wasting funds, now comes under the transport ministry.

The family planning commission, which oversees the controversial one-child policy, joins with the health ministry.

China is holding its National People’s Congress, which will cement its once-in-a-decade leadership change.

Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will become president, replacing Hu Jintao, while Li Keqiang will replace Wen Jiabao as premier.

In his work report, which opened the congress last week, Mr Wen promised stable growth, anti-corruption efforts and better welfare provision.

The latest streamlining of ministries reflects the public’s and leadership’s concern at corruption and the wasteful overlapping of bureaucracy.

State Council Secretary-General Ma Kai told the congress that “breach of duty, using positions for personal gain and corruption” had not been effectively tackled.

 

He said poor supervision had led to “work left undone or done messily”.

Mr Ma said that overlapping of duties within various ministries had often led to officials passing the buck.

The streamlining abolishes four bodies and cuts the number of ministries by two to 25. The food and drug administration will become a fully fledged ministry, following a number of tainted product scandals.

The railways ministry has been slow to change.

Former railways minister Liu Zhijun was sacked in 2011 and is facing corruption charges.

The new structure will place construction and the management of services under the new China Railway Corp, while safety and regulation will come under the transport ministry.

It is unclear whether placing the family planning commission under the health ministry indicates a rethink of the one-child policy.

However, the Communist Party says it will continue to set policy on the issue, with family planning continuing “on the basis of stable and low birth rates”.

A number of maritime agencies are to be pulled into a single administration as China faces rising disputes over sovereignty in the East and South China seas.

The National Oceanic Administration will have control over the coastguard forces, customs and fisheries enforcement.

The two media watchdogs, the General Administration of Press and Publication and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, will also be merged.”

via BBC News – China scraps railways ministry in streamlining drive.

Posted in China alert, Politics, Restructuring | 1 Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , ,
09/03/2013

* Where Have China’s Workers Gone?

Bloomberg: “Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are taking over China’s leadership at a time when growth has slackened and labor issues have become more complex.

China's Disappearing Surplus Labor

Reports that businesses such as Foxconn Technology Group are raising wages and struggling to recruit workers in China have intensified debate over just how many surplus workers the country still has. Meanwhile, a boom in college-educated Chinese has raised concerns of an impending threat to U.S. competitiveness. These seemingly disparate concerns about China’s labor force are actually linked by common underlying factors, with critical implications for China’s ability to remain the growth engine of the world.

China’s large pool of surplus labor has fueled its rapid industrial growth. Now this “demographic dividend” may be almost exhausted, and its economy reaching a Lewis turning point: a shift named after the Nobel prize-winning Arthur Lewis, who was the first to describe how poor economies can develop by transferring surplus labor from agriculture to the more productive industrial sector until the point when surplus labor disappears, wages begin to rise and growth slows.

Citing periodic labor shortages and unskilled wages that have risen since 2003, prominent Chinese economists suggest that time has come. The International Monetary Fund disagrees and puts the turning point much later — between 2020 and 2025, based on a model analyzing labor productivity. A third view is that China’s surplus labor is still plentiful, given that about 40 percent of the labor force is still underutilized in the rural sector, mostly in agriculture, which accounts for only 10 percent of gross domestic product.

Mobility Restrictions

In China, many market imperfections impede the mobility and use of labor. Thus, actual availability may fall far short of what is potentially available. The hukou residency system that restricts migrant workers from accessing services where they are employed is the most glaring example of this kind of imperfection. Less obvious is the extent to which China’s rural- support policies, including subsidy programs, may be encouraging workers to stay in agriculture longer than they should.

Surplus workers may not be in agriculture as in the original Lewis model but in smaller towns, underemployed at depressed wages. The result is that China has the highest rural- urban income disparity in the world.

Why don’t these workers move to more productive jobs in more dynamic settings? In formal terms, it is because their “reservation wage” has increased — that is, the minimum wage they demand to move is much greater than their current wage, because for a generation that didn’t experience the hardships of the Mao Zedong era, the monetary and emotional costs of relocation have risen. Many workers won’t move to major cities that lack affordable housing. They may also have rights to land that can’t be sold for full market value — thus, staying in familiar surroundings is now a more attractive proposition.

If recent decades saw a huge migration that “brought workers to where the jobs are” along the coast, the future may mean the reverse, involving “bringing the jobs to where the workers are” with profound implications for China’s economic geography.

In lesser known provinces such as Henan, with a country- sized population of 100 million, large numbers of young workers seek factory positions but are unwilling to relocate to seemingly foreign places in coastal China. As China becomes more consumption-oriented with rising incomes and urbanization, the center of economic gravity will naturally move inland where two- thirds of the population resides.

College Graduates

Just as young workers are demanding more satisfying jobs, they also increasingly feel entitled to a college education. Government policy has expanded access to higher education. From 2000 to 2010, the percentage of college-age cohorts enrolled in universities more than tripled in China, a rate of increase far above that of India, Malaysia and Indonesia. China wants to produce 200 million college graduates by 2030; they will make up more than 20 percent of the projected labor force, more than double the current ratio. The push to expand higher education means the number of college-educated has leapfrogged — and excessively so — ahead of those holding only vocational or junior college degrees.

These college-educated workers are unwilling to settle for factory work and compete for office-based positions. College graduates are four times as likely to be unemployed as urban residents of the same age with only basic education, even as factories go begging for semi-skilled workers. Given the underdeveloped service sector and still-large roles of manufacturing and construction, China has created a serious mismatch between skills of the labor force and available jobs.

As the economy moves up the value chain, substituting more capital-intensive manufacturing for unskilled labor-intensive assembly, a shortage of semi-skilled workers is appearing. But the excessive growth of college graduates has outpaced the structural transition and prematurely shifted the labor supply from semi-skilled manufacturing workers to more knowledge- intensive service professionals. More emphasis on vocational training and industry-specific engineering skills will help China fill its immediate need for manufacturing workers.”

Yukon Huang and Clare Lynch are, respectively, a senior associate and a junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. The opinions expressed are their own.

via Where Have China’s Workers Gone? – Bloomberg.

Related articles

Posted in China alert, Economics, employment, higher education, labour reform, labour shortage, Migrant workers, Uncategorized, wage rises | 2 Comments »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
04/03/2013

* Reforms and Restructuring at the Chinese NPC Session: Managing Expectations

China Policy Institute: “This year’s Lianghui, the National People’s Congress (NPC) and People’s Political Consultative Conference (PPCC), is important in the sense that a new government will be “sworn in”.

npcd

Following last November’s Party Congress, the Premier-in-waiting will be confirmed at the NPC session. He will take up his position together with a whole new cabinet—following the forming of a new Central Committee of the Party, ministers are expected to be reappointed as well, with a five year term ahead.

But the more critical question is what policy initiatives will the new government press ahead in order to show that it is the right government for the country. The new Party leadership emerged out of the last November’s Party Congress carries a strong mandate of “reform”. Now that the honeymoon effect between the new leadership team and the country is starting to fade away, citizens are watching carefully what the leadership indeed has to offer in terms of real actions.

Before the Party’s Congress, there was already indication that the new leadership team would take structural reforms quite seriously. There was indication that Xi Jinping was already commissioning reform proposals throughout the last 1-2 years. Li Keqiang, to be confirmed as Premier at this Lianghui, was also quick to signal that he was a reform guy and his government will take concrete reform measures. But it will be too early to expect the leadership team to roll out a comprehensive reform plan at this Lianghui. Between the conclusion of November’s Party Congress and this Lianghui, there was simply not enough time to forge a consensus among the Party elite.

The main preoccupation of the last three months have been lining up the provincial leaders and working out the political appointments of state agencies, which will be unveiled at the end of the NPC session. In fact, the Party Plenum (the second of this new Central Committee) that closed last night (28 Feb 2013) explicitly said in its communique that it had agreed on the political appointment list for state agencies. It did not give explicit promises of reform policies that are soon to come.”

via China Policy Institute Blog » Reforms and Restructuring at the NPC Session: Managing Expectations.

Related articles

Posted in 10 year leadership change, China alert, Economics, Politics, Reform | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , ,
03/03/2013

* Migrant workers feel like outsiders in mainland cities, says survey

SCMP: “Despite spending years working in mainland cities, migrant workers still feel like outsiders and say their only sense of happiness comes from their families, a Renmin University survey has found.

tpbje20130302255_34381845.jpg

They also see themselves as the bottom of society and feel alienated because they have no influence on their lives or society in general, the survey found, with young migrant workers even gloomier about their prospects.

The findings underscore the challenge facing the new administration in realising premier-in-waiting Li Keqiang‘s high-profile commitment to people-oriented urbanisation.

The survey of 2,011 migrant workers, conducted in 20 major cities, found their sense of happiness came mainly from the satisfaction of their basic needs, such as income and education, how close they were to home and how often they could see their children.

Most said they felt that their social standing was very low and they were less happy than those who thought more highly of themselves. More than half of those with low opinions of themselves felt lonely, bored and incapable of having an impact on their lives or society.

The survey also found that migrant workers were not necessarily happier in more economically developed cities, with those in central and western regions where competition was less fierce generally more content.

Professor Hu Ping , from Renmin University’s psychology department, which conducted the survey, said the government should pay more attention to the well-being of migrant workers.

“Not just their basic living requirements and food but also their social needs such as being recognised, accepted and respected by society,” Hu said. “Their needs to participate in social life should also be met.”

Compared with a similar survey last year, migrant workers’ living standards had improved but their sense of happiness from social involvement and social standing had dipped.

Wang Junxiu , a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Science, said the survey showed that the sense of happiness of migrant workers was not entirely based on how much money they made but also how they felt about the future.

“The core of urbanisation is how to make these migrant workers urban residents and from the survey we see the migrant workers are not … wanting different levels of needs one by one,” Wang said. “Instead, they need to fulfil their needs at the same time and the government should do more to make them integrate into society.”

Hu said the government should be alert to the class awareness of migrant workers and work out strategies to effectively resolve conflicts among different social strata to avoid conflict.

Professor Ye Yumin , from Renmin University’s school of public administration and policy, said urbanisation should mean not only that people could move from place to place but also allow them to move up the social ladder. “Otherwise it is not successful,” she said.

Ye said it was the government’s job to create a fair channel for migrant workers to move up and the most effective way was through education.

via Migrant workers feel like outsiders in mainland cities, says survey | South China Morning Post.

Related articles

Posted in China alert, Economics, Migrant workers | 1 Comment »

Tags: , , , ,
01/03/2013

* China plans bond overhaul to fund $6 trillion urbanization

Reuters: “China plans major bond market reform to raise the money the ruling Communist Party needs for a 40 trillion yuan ($6.4 trillion) urbanization program to buoy economic growth and close a chasm between the country’s urban rich and rural poor.

A man walks past a construction site for a new stadium in Mentougou district, suburb of Beijing February 28, 2013. REUTERS-Kim Kyung-Hoon

The Party aims to bring 400 million people to cities over the next decade as the new leadership of president-in-waiting Xi Jinping and premier-designate Li Keqiang seek to turn China into a wealthy world power with economic growth generated by an affluent consumer class.

The urban development would be funded by a major expansion of bond markets, sources with leadership ties, and a senior executive at one of China’s “Big Four” state banks, who was formerly at the central bank, told Reuters.

“The urbanization drive will push the domestic capital market liberalization agenda,” the senior bank executive said on condition of anonymity. “Urbanization is Li Keqiang’s big project. He has to get it right and he is willing to pursue innovation to make it a success.”

Set to be confirmed as premier at the end of the annual meeting of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, which opens next week, Li must find ways to pay for the urban development that he has made a policy priority.

Central and local governments, as well as bank loans, will fund the costs, the sources said. But, sweeping reforms to create a fully-functioning municipal bond market, boost corporate and high-yield bond issuance and actively steer foreign capital into the sector, are crucial to raising the sums of money China will need, they added.

Despite its ranking as the second-largest economy globally after three decades of stellar growth, China remains an aspiring middle-income country riven with inequality and dependent on state-backed investment.

“If we continue to walk down the path of government spending, it’ll be like wearing new shoes, but walking the old road,” a source with leadership ties said, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions for speaking to foreign media without authorization.”

via Exclusive: China plans bond overhaul to fund $6 trillion urbanization – sources | Reuters.

Posted in Chindia Alert, Economics, urban development | 1 Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
30/12/2012

* Chinese state secrets revealed: Details of leaders’ families

Is this the first signs of China’s ‘glasnost’?

Straits Times: “China’s top two leaders have revealed photographs and details of their families, breaking a long-held taboo where such information is considered a state secret.

A picture taken in 1988 shows a young Mr Xi (above), then the secretary of the&nbsp;Ningde Prefecture Committee of the Communist Party, participating in farm work&nbsp;during a visit to the countryside in Fujian province. -- PHOTO: XINHUA<br />

In a surprise move, clearly aimed at boosting their public support, the official Xinhua news agency released previously unpublished photographs of Communist Party chief Xi Jinping and incoming premier Li Keqiang late on Sunday night.

It also carried lengthy profiles that chronicled their careers from early grassroots days up to their recent activities since taking over the helm of the Communist Party last month.

But what struck observers most was the information on the pair’s families, including what is believed to be the first mention in state media of the name of Mr Xi’s daughter.”

via Chinese state secrets revealed: Details of leaders’ families.

Related articles

Posted in Censorship, China alert, Openness, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , ,
30/12/2012

* China Pledges Rural Reforms to Boost Incomes, Consumption

Another angle on narrowing the wealth gap.

Bloomberg: “China said it will better protect farmers’ land rights and boost rural incomes and public services to help narrow the divide with urban areas.

China Pledges Land Reforms to Boost Incomes as Wealth Gap Grows

A farmer works in a field in Pinggu, on the outskirts of Beijing. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

The government will increase agricultural subsidies and ensure “reasonable returns” from planting crops, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Dec. 22, citing an annual work conference to set rural policy.

The goals, which include increasing rural incomes by at least as much as those in urban areas, reflect a new leadership’s focus on reforming the land system and addressing wealth disparities as it encourages migration into towns and cities to boost consumption. Li Keqiang, set to take over from Wen Jiabao as premier in March, is championing urbanization as a growth engine.

“A completely new policy approach is emerging under Li Keqiang,” said Yuan Gangming, a researcher in Beijing with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “It’s about giving farmers a bigger share from land deals, it’s about changing local governments’ reliance on revenues from land, and it’s ultimately about a fairer system of sharing China’s economic growth.”

Yuan said he expects the government to be appointed in March to announce “a slew of policy initiatives” from changes to the household registration, or hukou, system to trading in land-use rights as part of Li’s urbanization drive.

The Shanghai Composite Index closed up 0.3 percent. Some Asian markets are closed today, while trading hours are restricted in some others.”

via China Pledges Rural Reforms to Boost Incomes, Consumption – Bloomberg.

Related articles

Posted in agriculture, China alert, Economics, Good news, income-wealth gap, Low income | 1 Comment »

Tags: , , , , ,
15/11/2012

* China names conservative, older leadership

For the last 20 years, the majority of the standing committee, Politburo (then 9 members)  have been engineers. Now only two of the seven-member of the central committee are experienced engineers, including the president-designate (chemical engineering). The other seven count amongst them the following academic disciplines: law, economics, Korean, politics, and history. One wonders whether the hitherto strong focus on infrastructure and major new engineering will take a back seat?

Reuters: “China’s ruling Communist Party unveiled an older, conservative leadership line-up on Thursday that appears unlikely to take the drastic action needed to tackle pressing issues like social unrest, environmental degradation and corruption.

Xi leads top leadership, meeting press

New party chief Xi Jinping, premier-in-waiting Li Keqiang and vice-premier in charge of economic affairs Wang Qishan, all named as expected to the elite decision-making Politburo Standing Committee, are considered cautious reformers. The other four members have the reputation of being conservative.

The line-up belied any hopes that Xi would usher in a leadership that would take bold steps to deal with slowing growth in the world’s second-biggest economy, or begin to ease the Communist Party’s iron grip on the most populous nation.

“We’re not going to see any political reform because too many people in the system see it as a slippery slope to extinction,” said David Shambaugh, director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

“They see it entirely through the prism of the Soviet Union, the Arab Spring and the Colour Revolutions in Central Asia, so they’re not going to go there.”

Vice-Premier Wang, the most reform-minded in the line-up, has been given the role of fighting widespread graft, identified by both Xi and outgoing President Hu Jintao as the biggest danger faced by the party and the state.”

via China names conservative, older leadership | Reuters.

See also: profile of seven new leaders – BBC

Posted in 10 year leadership change, China alert, Politics | 1 Comment »

Tags: , , ,
06/11/2012

* China leaders consider internal democratic reform

Even if it seems to be somewhat internal, such a move would be the first step towards openness and transparency.  And who knows where that might lead.

Reuters: “China’s outgoing leader and his likely successor are pushing the ruling Communist Party to adopt a more democratic process this month for choosing a new leadership, sources said, in an attempt to boost its flagging legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

A man walks past a logo of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at a media center for the upcoming18th National Congress of the CPC, which starts Thursday, in Beijing November 5, 2012. REUTERS-Jason Lee

The extent of the reform would be unprecedented in communist China where elections for the highest tiers of the party, held every five years, have been mainly exercises in rubber-stamping candidates already agreed upon by party power-brokers.

The Communist Party, which has held unbroken power since 1949, is struggling to maintain its popular legitimacy in the face of rising inequality, corruption and environmental degradation, even as the economy continues to bound ahead.

President Hu Jintao and his heir, Xi Jinping, have proposed that the party’s 18th Congress, which opens on Thursday, should hold elections for the elite Politburo where for the first time there would be more candidates than available seats, said three sources with ties to the party leadership.

The Politburo, currently 24 members, is the second-highest level of power in China from which the highest decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee, is chosen.

They are chosen by the roughly 200 full members of the Central Committee which is in turn chosen by the more than 2,000 delegates at this week’s Congress.

Under their proposal, there would be up to 20 percent more candidates than seats in the new Politburo in an election to be held next week, the sources said. It was unclear if competitive voting would also be extended to the Standing Committee.

“Hu wants expanding intra-party democracy to be one of his legacies,” one source said, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions for discussing secretive elite politics.

“It would also be good for Xi’s image,” the source added.

Xi is considered certain to replace Hu as party chief at the congress, with Li Keqiang, currently a vice premier, tipped to become his deputy in the once-in-a-decade transition to a new administration. Xi would then take over as president, and Li as premier, at the annual full session of parliament in March.

China experts said a more competitive election for the Politburo would mark a historic reform that could lead to surprises in the formation of Xi’s administration, with wider implications for further political reform.

“This is a very, very important development,” said Cheng Li, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

“It would provide a new source of legitimacy. It would not just be dark-box manipulation … The party’s legitimacy is so low that they must do something to uplift the public’s confidence.”

However, Li and other experts remained skeptical that the proposal would be adopted, given that it could still be vetoed by party elders or conservatives.

via Exclusive: China leaders consider internal democratic reform | Reuters.

Posted in 10 year leadership change, China alert, Democracy, Good news, Politics, Reform, Transparency | 1 Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
« Older Entries  |   Newer Entries »
CCChang

Law of Unintended Consequences

continuously updated blog about China & India

ChiaHou's Book Reviews

continuously updated blog about China & India

What's wrong with the world; and its economy

continuously updated blog about China & India