Posts tagged ‘Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China’

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14/11/2012

* Respected China banker tipped to head anti-graft effort

Let us hope that Mr Wang does get included in the Central Committee of the Politburo; and that he retains his integrity and zealousness. Unless corruption is reduced substantially within the next five years, the future hold of the CPC on China will gradually but surely slip away.

Reuters: “A respected trade negotiator and former banker is likely to head China’s fight against corruption, a top priority for the world’s second-biggest economy, following his appointment to a key council at the end of the 18th congress of the Communist Party.

Known as “the chief firefighter”, Wang Qishan, 64, sorted out a debt crisis in southern Guangdong province where he was vice governor in the late 1990s. Later, he replaced the sacked Beijing mayor after a cover-up of the deadly SARS virus in 2003.

Wang is now a shoo-in for the elite standing committee, the highest level of decision-making in China, after being elected to the party’s central committee and its graft-battling Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

“The bad news is that we are going to lose one of the most capable economic affairs managers in the country,” said Bo Zhiyue, a Chinese politics expert at the National University of Singapore.

“The good news is that the new Chinese leadership is really interested in doing something about corruption,” he added. “With the nickname ‘firefighter’, I think he would be one of the most capable leaders of the Politburo Standing Committee.”

via Respected China banker tipped to head anti-graft effort | Reuters.

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06/11/2012

* Understanding China’s 18th Communist Party Congress

Reuters: “China’s ruling Communist Party opens its 18th Congress on Thursday, a complicated political coronation that will install the country’s fifth generation of leaders.

Here is how the process works and some pointers to what is at stake in this congress.

AGENDA

– The five-yearly congress elects about 370 full and alternate members of the party’s elite Central Committee in a session lasting about one week, drawing from a pre-selected pool of candidates expected to be only slightly larger than 370.

– The new Central Committee’s first session, held the day after the congress ends, then selects some two dozen members of the decision-making Politburo, again drawing from a list of candidates already selected by the party’s leadership over months of political jockeying.

– The new Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s top echelon of power which currently has nine members, will then be unveiled after the one-day Central Committee plenum ends. It is widely expected to be shrunk to seven, facilitating decision-making needed to push through key reforms.

– A series of other appointments will also be made over the congress period, and in some cases before it. These include provincial party chiefs and governors and heads of some state-owned enterprises.

– Vice President Xi Jinping is set to take over as party general secretary from President Hu Jintao at the end of the congress. Xi then takes over as head of state in March at the annual full meeting of parliament.

One uncertainty is whether Hu will also give up his job as military chief. His predecessor, Jiang Zemin, stayed on in that role for two years after stepping down as party chief.

POLICIES

– Hu will give a keynote report to the opening session of the congress, appraising the meeting of the party’s work over the past five years and mapping out challenges ahead for the next five years. Details of the speech remain a closely guarded secret ahead of time.

– The catchphrase in state media and among academics ahead of the congress has been “reform”. China experts say that unless the new leadership pushes through stalled reforms, the nation risks economic malaise, deepening unrest and ultimately even a crisis that could shake the party’s grip on power.

– Advocates of reform are pressing Xi to cut back the privileges of state-owned firms, make it easier for rural migrants to settle permanently in cities, fix a fiscal system that encourages local governments to live off land expropriations and, above all, tether the powers of a state that they say risks suffocating growth and fanning discontent.

– There may also perhaps be cautious efforts to answer calls for more political reforms, though nobody seriously expects a move towards full democracy.

The party may introduce experimental measures to broaden inner-party democracy – in other words, encouraging greater debate within the party – but stability remains a top concern and one-party rule will be safeguarded.”

via Factbox: Understanding China’s 18th Communist Party Congress | Reuters.

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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 »

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05/11/2012

* Premier Wen Jiabao calls for party probe into claims of family’s ‘hidden fortune’

Premier Wen is showing his true colours as a reformist and someone who believes that he is ‘clean’. Let’s hope the results of the investigation are made public so that we can all see how his family grew their fortune however vast or meagre.  This act also shows that he would dearly love to have the long-overdue “sunshine law” – which would require a public declaration of family assets by senior leaders – be finally put into effect.

SCMP: “The communist party leadership has launched a probe into the alleged family wealth of Wen Jiabao at the premier’s request, according to sources.

scm_news_wjb05.art_1.jpg

In a letter submitted to the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s top decision-making body of which the premier is also a member, Wen asked for a formal inquiry into claims made by The New York Times.

A report on October 26 alleged his family had amassed at least US$2.7 billion of assets during his premiership. The Standing Committee had agreed to his request, the sources said.

It is unclear what the inquiry is likely to dig up, or when the results will be published, if at all.

The probe is expected to focus on the family’s alleged shares in Ping An, one of the mainland’s largest insurance companies.

The Times report, citing regulatory filings and corporate documents, said that in 2007 Wen’s family had a US$2.2 billion stake in Ping An.

It also alleged Wen’s 90-year-old mother had US$120 million of shares in the company.

According to the sources, several conservative party elders known to dislike the premier’s more liberal stance have urged him to provide detailed explanations on all the major allegations in the Times report, especially on the Ping An holdings.

Businesswoman Duan Weihong, whose company Taihong was described by the Times as the investment vehicle for the Wen family, told the newspaper she used the names of Wen’s relatives to register the ownership of the Ping An shares.

The party elders argued that this process, which would require registering their official ID numbers and obtaining their signatures, raised immediate questions about how Duan could obtain such personal details without consent from the Wen family.

Wen’s wife and his son have been plagued by corruption allegations for years.

But the family issued a statement, through two lawyers, for the first time on October 27, hitting back at the Times allegations about their “hidden riches” and threatening legal action.

It is unclear whether the family will publish further clarifications or go to the courts.

It is also understood the party elders were “unhappy” about the fact that major overseas Chinese websites – which usually swoop on negative news about the mainland’s top leaders – have carried a barrage of articles supporting Wen, quoting sources close to his family.

According to their reports, Wen had seized the opportunity to demand that a long-overdue “sunshine law” – which would require a public declaration of family assets by senior leaders – be finally put into effect.

He also said he would be happy to make public his family’s assets.

This would appear to be more than just an attempt by the image-conscious outgoing premier to defend his name, analysts say.

They say it shows he is keen to use the inquiry as one last chance to push forward the long-stalled “sunshine law”. Professor Zhu Lijia, of the Chinese Academy of Governance, said: “It is a ground-breaking step towards greater government openness and transparency.””

via Premier Wen Jiabao calls for party probe into claims of family’s ‘hidden fortune’ | South China Morning Post.

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04/09/2012

* China’s next leader buoyed by fresh setback for Hu

Reuters: “China’s next leader, Xi Jinping, looks to have emerged politically stronger after ruling Communist Party elders foiled a second attempt by outgoing President Hu Jintao to stack the top echelon of the new administration with his own allies.

China's Vice President Xi Jinping speaks with Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi (not pictured) during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing August 29, 2012. REUTERS/How Hwee Young/Pool

Hu had been maneuvering to promote his star protege, Hu Chunhua, to the party’s supreme decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee, as part of the current leadership transition, but other senior party figures have opposed the idea, two independent sources said.

Hu Chunhua, who is not related to Hu Jintao, is instead likely to be given one of China’s biggest but also most testing political assignments as new party chief of southwestern Chongqing, the job from which disgraced politician Bo Xilai was ousted, said the sources with ties to the top party leadership.

The sideways move for Hu Chunhua, currently party boss for Inner Mongolia, follows the demotion of another of Hu Jintao’s closest allies at the weekend – both taken as signs that Xi may have a relatively freer hand to forge consensus among peers.

“Hu’s (Jintao) loss is Xi’s gain,” one of the sources with ties to the leadership told Reuters, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject. “Xi is in a less difficult situation.”

China, currently mired in an economic downturn, faces growing calls for it to step up the pace of economic and social reforms, a task that could prove trickier for Xi if the Standing Committee were to include politicians reluctant to make changes to the cautious direction set by Hu over the past decade.

But the situation remains fluid, with the make-up of the new Standing Committee, currently comprising nine members, still to be finalized in a once-in-a-decade transition to be unveiled at the party’s 18th congress, expected next month at the earliest.”

via China’s next leader buoyed by fresh setback for Hu: sources | Reuters.

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10/08/2012

Once again, some signs that China is ‘softening’ on contovertial cases. Question is: is it a general policy or only for this year, the year of leadership change?

Posted in China alert, Citizens's rights, Good news, Human rights, Illegal practices, Justice, Politics, Reform, Rule of law | Leave a Comment »

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