Posts tagged ‘Xi JinPing’

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02/12/2013

BBC News – David Cameron promises China ‘growth partnership’

David Cameron has promised to create a \”partnership for growth and reform\” as he visits China on a trade mission with more than 100 UK business leaders.

The prime minister also pledged to put his \”full political weight\” behind a proposed agreement to free up trading between China and the European Union.

He is due to hold talks with premier Li Keqiang on a separate China-UK deal said to be worth £1.8bn a year.

Some EU states fear a flood of cheap imports if a wider pact is approved.

However, the European Commission is due to begin investment treaty negotiations in the New Year.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Ed Miliband is to warn the government not to compete with China in a \”race to the bottom\” on pay, but to focus on creating a \”high-skill, high-tech, high-wage\” economy.

Mr Cameron\’s promise now to \’respect\’ and \’understand\’ China is the price he has had to pay to thaw what was a diplomatic deep freeze ”

Writing in Chinese magazine Caixin, Mr Cameron declared his ambition to use this week\’s visit to help forge \”a partnership for growth and reform that can help to deliver the Chinese dream and long-term prosperity for Britain too\”.

He welcomed signals from last month\’s third plenum of the ruling Communist Party that China wanted to open up more under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, who took up office a year ago.

Mr Cameron said he wanted to show that \”an open Britain is the ideal partner for an opening China\”.

He added: \”Britain is uniquely placed to make the case for deepening the European Union\’s trade and investment relationship with China.

My visit to China can plant the seeds of a long-term relationship which will benefit China, Britain and the world for generations to come”

\”Building on the recent launch of EU-China negotiations on investment, and on China\’s continued commitment to economic reform, I now want to set a new long-term goal of an ambitious and comprehensive EU-China free trade agreement.

\”And as I have on the EU-US deal, so I will put my full political weight behind such a deal which could be worth tens of billions of dollars every year.\”

Mr Cameron believes that eliminating tariffs in the 20 sectors where they are highest, such as vehicles, pharmaceuticals and electrical goods, could save UK exporters £600m a year.

During the first day of his second trip to China as prime minister, he is scheduled to attend the official opening of a new academy in Beijing for training technicians, salesmen and service staff for Jaguar Land Rover, which is signing a £4.5bn agreement to provide 100,000 cars to the National Sales Company over the next year.

via BBC News – David Cameron promises China ‘growth partnership’.

See also:https://www.asian-studies.org/eaa/watt.htm – Are there any parallels?

Qianlong meets MacCartney:

Collision of two world views

By JohnR Watts

“The Macartney mission of 1792–94 is a defining episode in the modern encounter between China and the West. It is the first major event in which British diplomats well read in the ideas of the European Enlightenment came face to face with the leadership of the world’s greatest and most populous land power. 

…

On the British side, the Macartney mission came armed with a series of goals appropriate to an industrializing nation that was rapidly developing a world-wide trading system. As Adam Smith had pointed out, the British were a nation of shopkeepers and traders, and trade was becoming the key to their access to power and prosperity. In the 1790s the British government of Pitt and Dundas was busy reconstructing the British mandate in India to reduce the political power of the East India Company and create a less mercantile and more open trading system. Because trade with China had become a significant factor in the development of British power in India, they wanted to cut through the restrictions of the Canton trading system imposed by the Qianlong government on European merchants in 1760 and negotiate a freer trade environment with China as a whole. They also wanted to establish a direct liaison—along European diplomatic lines—with the Qing Court. Because of his erudition, diplomatic experience, and familiarity with British policy in India, Macartney was in principle an ideal person to represent the British government on such a mission.

But beyond these goals, Macartney and his associates came to China with perceptions about trade and national intercourse which were certain to cause friction with their Chinese hosts. As heirs of Galileo, Newton, and Locke, and contemporaries of the French Enlightenment philosophers, they regarded themselves as representatives of a modern, rational and specifically scientific world outlook. Within their lifetimes British technicians had developed chronometers needed to determine longitude, which would greatly increase the power and profitability of British navigation. They lived in a world in which Adam Smith had worked out the advantages of trade, James Watt had harnessed the power of steam, and Captain Cook had explored vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean. Buoyed by such developments, the Macartney mission came to China not just to promote trade and diplomacy, but to assess China’s status as a rational order and to collect data on matters of interest to scientific as well as political colleagues. These latter goals were to some extent achieved, although not in a manner favorable to China’s reputation in Europe.

…”

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01/12/2013

For Cognac Makers, the Chinese Party is Over – Businessweek

French cognac makers won’t be toasting the Chinese New Year. After several years of double-digit growth, cognac sales in China have tanked as President Xi Jinping clamps down on conspicuous consumption.

Shares in Rémy Cointreau (RCO:FP), maker of Rémy Martin cognac, plunged nearly 10 percent on Nov. 26 after the company said it expected a “substantial double-digit decline” in profits because of weak Chinese sales.

The Chinese New Year, which falls on Jan. 31 in 2014, ordinarily would bring a sales windfall, with Communist Party leaders hosting cognac-soaked banquets and giving each other bottles costing $200 and up. But, Rémy Chief Executive Officer Frédéric Pflanz told Bloomberg Television, “We don’t necessarily expect a bettering of the situation” for the next few months. Chinese distributors are sitting on large, unsold stocks and aren’t placing new orders, he said.

via For Cognac Makers, the Chinese Party is Over – Businessweek.

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01/12/2013

China, Japan and America: Face-off | The Economist

China’s new air-defence zone suggests a worrying new approach in the region

THE announcement by a Chinese military spokesman on November 23rd sounded bureaucratic: any aircraft flying through the newly designated Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea must notify Chinese authorities in advance and follow instructions from its air-traffic controllers. America’s response was rapid. On November 26th Barack Obama sent two B-52 bombers to fly through the new zone without notifying China (see article). This face-off marks the most worrying strategic escalation between the two countries since 1996, when China’s then president, Jiang Zemin, ordered a number of exclusion zones for missile tests in the Taiwan Strait, leading America to send two aircraft-carriers there.

Plenty of countries establish zones in which they require aircraft to identify themselves, but they tend not to be over other countries’ territory. The Chinese ADIZ overlaps with Japan’s own air-defence zone (see map). It also includes some specks of rock that Japan administers and calls the Senkaku islands (and which China claims and calls the Diaoyus), as well as a South Korean reef, known as Ieodo. The move is clearly designed to bolster China’s claims (see article). On November 28th Japan and South Korea sent aircraft into the zone.

Teenage testosterone

Growing economic power is bound to go hand-in-hand with growing regional assertiveness. That is fine, so long as the behaviour of the rising power remains within international norms. In this case, however, China’s does not; and America, which has guaranteed free navigation of the seas and skies of East Asia for 60 years, is right to make that clear.

How worrying China’s move is depends partly on the thinking behind it. It may be that, like a teenager on a growth spurt who doesn’t know his own strength, China has underestimated the impact of its actions. The claim that America’s bombers had skirted the edge of the ADIZ was gawkily embarrassing. But teenagers who do not realise the consequences of their actions often cause trouble: China has set up a casus belli with its neighbours and America for generations to come.

It would thus be much more worrying if the provocation was deliberate. The “Chinese dream” of Xi Jinping, the new president, is a mixture of economic reform and strident nationalism. The announcement of the ADIZ came shortly after a party plenum at which Mr Xi announced a string of commendably radical domestic reforms. The new zone will appeal to the nationalist camp, which wields huge power, particularly in the armed forces. It also helps defend Mr Xi against any suggestions that he is a westernising liberal.

If this is Mr Xi’s game, it is a dangerous one. East Asia has never before had a strong China and a strong Japan at the same time. China dominated the region from the mists of history until the 1850s, when the West’s arrival spurred Japan to modernise while China tried to resist the foreigners’ influence. China is eager to re-establish dominance over the region. Bitterness at the memory of the barbaric Japanese occupation in the second world war sharpens this desire. It is this possibility of a clash between a rising and an established power that lies behind the oft-used parallel between contemporary East Asia and early 20th-century Europe, in which the Senkakus play the role of Sarajevo.

via China, Japan and America: Face-off | The Economist.

Posted in China alert, GeoPolitics, Politics, Territorial dispute | 5 Comments »

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01/12/2013

Cameron tweets in Mandarin on Weibo for China trip | South China Morning Post

British Prime Minister David Cameron has joined Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, and posted his first message ahead of a visit to Beijing, Downing Street said Saturday.

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“Hello my friends in China. I’m pleased to have joined Weibo and look forward to visiting China very soon,” he said in English and Mandarin in his first message.

It has since been forwarded more than 24,000 times.

Cameron has attracted more than 101,000 followers since setting up his account, which helpfully points out that he has the star sign Libra.

A Downing Street spokesman confirmed to AFP that the account was genuine.

The British premier’s social media savvy has come a long way since he said in 2009 that he was not joining Twitter because “too many twits might make a twat”.

He set up his own Twitter account in October 2012 under the handle David—Cameron, which now has more than 525,000 followers.

Cameron is due to leave for China on Sunday on a trip aimed at fostering good relations with the new leadership in Beijing and forging business links.

He will be accompanied by a delegation of ministers and business leaders on the visit, his first to the Asian powerhouse since President Xi Jinping took office in March.

via Cameron tweets in Mandarin on Weibo for China trip | South China Morning Post.

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23/11/2013

Reform in China: Let quite a few flowers bloom | The Economist

THE jury is in. After months of speculation and an initial summary last week, the final 22,000-character overview of China’s “third plenum” was published on November 15th. In the economic sphere the document turned out to be bolder than the initial summary suggested. The new party boss, Xi Jinping, wants to push through changes that have stalled over the past decade. As the document itself says: “We should let labour, knowledge, technology, management and capital unleash their dynamism, let all sources of wealth spread and let all people enjoy more fruits of development fairly.” Quite.

It is by no means certain that Mr Xi will be able to do all he wants to (see article), but it is clear he has won the battle so far. Economically, he is proving himself an heir to Deng Xiaoping, China’s great reformer, and not the closet Maoist that some had feared. Conservative forces seeking to stifle reformist voices have been quieted, at least for the time being.

The document’s interest lies not just in the economic reforms, which were anticipated. More striking were some of the social changes the document announced, such as the relaxation of the one-child policy. A couple in which one parent is an only child will be allowed to have two children, and the policy is likely to be loosened even further. In another widely welcomed move, labour camps—in which around 190,000 people, including political and religious activists, are detained—are to be abolished.

But possibly the most important announcements were buried deep in the document and grabbed fewer headlines. Two moves in particular showed that the party is sensitive to the ferment in Chinese society and the demands for greater liberty and accountability that accompany it.

In the past 30 years China has gone from a totalitarian society to one in which people can usually work where they want, marry whom they want, travel where they want (albeit with varying degrees of hassle for those from the countryside and ethnic-minority regions). In ten years internet penetration has gone from minimal to almost universal. Old welfare structures have broken down, with little to take their place. Ordinary people are being empowered by new wealth and participation, through microblogs, and by becoming consumers and property owners. Change is bubbling up from the bottom and the system cannot contain it.

An uNGOvernable state

Society is becoming too complex for the old structures to handle. Hence the government’s decision to allow the development of what it calls “social organisations”. In essence these are NGOs. The party dislikes the idea of anything non-governmental and has long regarded NGOs as a Trojan horse for Western political ideas and subversion, but it is coming to realise that they could solve some of its problems—caring for the sick, elderly and poor, for instance. The growth of civil society is not just important in itself. It is also the bridge to the future, linking today’s economic reforms to whatever putative future political reform might come.

Equally important is the issue of judicial reform. China’s hopelessly corrupt judges are unpopular. The party resolution floats the idea of “judicial jurisdiction systems that are suitably separated from administrative areas”; that is, local judiciaries that are not controlled and paid for by local officials. Though some observers doubt this will happen, if it does it could be the start of a system of basic checks and balances, which would make officials more accountable.

That these two gestures towards reform were mentioned at all is encouraging; that they were barely visible to the untrained eye shows the party’s ambivalence towards liberalisation. But it must push ahead. Its planned economic reforms will surely generate not just wealth, but more pressure for political change. Unless the party responds, there could be an explosion. If Mr Xi is inclined to wobble, he should remember the advice in the plenary document: “Dare to gnaw through even tough bones, dare to ford dangerous rapids, break through the fetters of ideological concepts with even greater resolution.”

via Reform in China: Let quite a few flowers bloom | The Economist.

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21/11/2013

As Xi Jinping Reforms China, Expect Power Consolidation, Not Democracy – Businessweek

Chinese President Xi Jinping is all about reform. That’s “reform” as in “kicking butt.” The main take-away from the Third Plenary Session of the Communist Party’s 18th Central Committee is that Xi has consolidated power remarkably quickly and is eager to use it. Some parts of his agenda impress outsiders, such as further relaxing the one-child policy and closing reeducation labor camps. Such steps defuse popular anger toward the regime. Other Xi initiatives are decidedly less appealing, like the vow to “utilize and standardize Internet supervision,” which is code language for censorship. But whether liked or disliked outside China, everything Xi intends to do is directed toward one goal: to consolidate the Communist Party’s central and permanent role as the leader of the nation.

As Xi Jinping Reforms China, Expect Power Consolidation, Not Democracy

Democracy is the yielding of power from the party to the people. That’s not what Xi wants. He wants to gather power inward on the theory that only a strong leader can govern a country in which the mountains are high and the emperor is far away. Getting local governments to toe the line “requires a lot of political brute force, and it’s something you can only achieve if you are extremely vigorous,” says Arthur Kroeber, Beijing-based managing director of economic research firm GK Dragonomics. Kroeber says Xi’s anticorruption campaign seems to warn, “Look, this is the way it’s going to be, and if you don’t like it, we have a lot of space in the jails for you.”

The theme of the third party plenum, held on Nov. 9-12, was “reform and opening up.” That’s a phrase consciously copied from an earlier third party plenum—the one in December 1978 at which Deng Xiaoping began to launch China into the global economy. Deng helped lift hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty, giving the world’s most populous nation what is now the world’s second-biggest economy. Xi wants to show his countrymen he’s determined to carry on Deng’s legacy, yet he draws inspiration from the man Deng repudiated: Chairman Mao Zedong. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, fought alongside Mao. According to the official story, Mao saved him from execution, and the elder Xi repaid the favor by sheltering Mao and his troops at the end of the Long March retreat from the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek.

As a princeling, Xi is determined to demonstrate his ties to the founding generation. Intent on returning China to a purer past, he has presided over a crackdown on corruption that has netted senior party officials—even as members of his own extended family have become rich. He’s brought back the Maoist notion of a “mass line” that enforces ideological discipline by requiring officials to “listen to the people,” introspect, and cleanse themselves of any deviations from party doctrine. He isn’t making it easy for the people to speak, though; in September, China’s top court said Web users could face jail time if “defamatory” rumors they put online were read by more than 5,000 people or reposted more than 500 times.

Xi doesn’t trumpet his differences from his predecessors as an American would. Chinese leaders worry that the people will lose faith in the party if it seems to be swerving in different directions. (“Unswerving” is a big word in China.) So in its 60-point resolution, the Central Committee dutifully name-checks “Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of ‘Three Represents,’ and The Scientific Outlook on Development”—those last two being the slogans of past presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, respectively. It’s as if Barack Obama obsessively paid tribute to President George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism.”

via As Xi Jinping Reforms China, Expect Power Consolidation, Not Democracy – Businessweek.

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20/11/2013

The party plenum: Everybody who loves Mr Xi, say yes | The Economist

COMMUNIST Party plenums are rituals of unchanging arcana. The closed-door, four-day conclave of some 370 senior party leaders that ended in Beijing on November 12th was a typical example, as usual summing up its decisions in a gnomic communiqué full of ambiguities. Yet a parsing of the document suggests President Xi Jinping (pictured above, centre) is tightening his grip on power, and with it his ability to achieve breakthroughs in economic and social reforms.

China’s state-controlled media have hailed the meeting, known as the third plenum of the 18th Central Committee, as “a new historical starting point”. Global Times, an English-language newspaper, said it was just as important as the most famous plenum in the party’s history, which brought Deng Xiaoping to power in 1978 and ushered in profound changes that turned China into the world’s second-largest economy. There is little in the communiqué to back such bullish assertions, but the summary of the proceedings offers hope that the pace of reform will pick up.

For the first time in such a document, the party has called for markets to play a “decisive” role in the allocation of resources. This has been glossed by official media as a step up from previous party language that described the role of market forces as merely “basic”. This new language, according to an academic quoted by Global Times, aroused much debate during preparations for the plenum. Semantics can be very important. The party’s decision in 1992 to create a “socialist market economy”, not just a socialist one, caused an upsurge of reformist zeal, including the privatisation or closure of tens of thousands of state-owned enterprises, as well as market-opening measures that paved the way for accession to the World Trade Organisation a decade later.

As expected, this week’s communiqué contained few indications of specific new policies. These will become clearer in a few days or weeks when the resolution is published, and after senior economic officials meet in December to decide on the country’s economic strategy for the year ahead. There was no mention of financial reforms to allow market forces to determine interest and exchange rates, which many economists view as crucial. On rural land reform, also closely watched, the document merely repeated language introduced at a plenum five years ago about the need to unify urban and rural property markets. Despite its reassuring words about the role of the market, it said the state sector should remain the “main body” of the economy, an odd concept, especially since China’s GDP is now largely generated by the private sector.

But at party plenums, repetition of familiar language is not necessarily a sign of inertia. The meeting in 1978 was laden with Mao-era rhetoric, but led to the ditching of Mao’s economic policies. More important were the signals it sent about Deng’s grip on power, including the return to central roles of many of Deng’s allies who had been purged by Mao. The just-concluded plenum announced two institutional changes that suggest Mr Xi has moved fast to consolidate his position.

The first of these is the setting up of a “state-security committee”. Details of this have not been revealed. It may be Mr Xi’s attempt to rein in a security apparatus that had become too powerful in recent years. Some of its functions are expected to mirror those of America’s National Security Council, which advises the president on foreign policy and tries to ensure that all government agencies are well co-ordinated. China’s new body is thought likely to include representatives from the army and police as well as ministries responsible for foreign and economic affairs. It would be a sign of Mr Xi’s growing power if he has at last persuaded the security forces to act more in concert with the rest of the bureaucracy.

The other notable change is the establishment of a “leading small group” to supervise reforms. Such groups count. They report to the Politburo and help to form and implement policy decisions. Again, no details have been given of the new body, but it could help to overcome bureaucratic rivalries that often stymie reforms. It may even be chaired by Mr Xi. The communiqué calls for “decisive results” by 2020 in unspecified “important areas” of reform.

Not surprisingly, given a fierce crackdown on political dissent in recent months, the document said little about political reform (although for the first time in the history of party plenums, Chinese television indulged in a show of glasnost by broadcasting scenes of group discussions, though participants’ voices could not be heard). The communiqué favourably mentions democracy 12 times, but plenum-watchers learned long ago that this particular count is best ignored.

via The party plenum: Everybody who loves Mr Xi, say yes | The Economist.

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20/11/2013

The Trouble With China’s Reform Plan – Businessweek

The Chinese leadership’s 60-point reform plan announced two days after the close of the Communist Party of China’s third plenum on Nov. 15 went way beyond most expectations. It proposes sweeping changes across broad swathes of the economy, dealing with all of the critical issues and challenges facing China as it reaches for the next stage of development.

The plan’s overarching goals hit all the right reformist notes: “The core issue is to handle the relationship between government and the market”; “In allocating resources the market must play a decisive role”; China “must actively and steadily push forward the breadth and depth of market-oriented reforms,” and “vigorously develop a mixed-ownership economy” (meaning the private sector along with state-owned), says the document, formally called the “Decision on major issues concerning comprehensively deepening reforms.”

The optimists, who have long said the new leadership would meet their lofty expectations and deliver a new vision at the plenum, clearly have been vindicated. The plenum also shows that the new leaders, and Party Secretary Xi Jinping in particular, have decided that major reform is necessary for the continued growth of the Chinese economy. (We already knew that’s where Premier Li Keqiang’s allegiances were.) Good news indeed.

This, however, doesn’t change what has always been true: Defining what specific policies will be adopted to carry out these sweeping reforms, and even more, implementing them, will be extremely difficult. Each of the reforms will have costs for, and adversely affect powerful players in, the Chinese system. The party leaders have set the year 2020 as a target for implementing all of this, presumably in a nod to how tough it will be. And, of course, there’s no guarantee that these reforms won’t be delayed or even abandoned, as the scale of the obstacles ahead becomes more and more apparent.

Very quickly the reforms will come head to head with vested interests that stand to lose huge power. Those include state enterprises, local governments, banks, well-connected princelings, security authorities, and ultimately the party itself.

That is the central paradox of what has been proposed: On the one hand, China can’t continue growing the way it has, and indeed risks social and economic fracture if these reforms aren’t carried out. On the other hand, by pursuing these reforms the party is diluting its control in multiple ways: its privileged role controlling the purse strings, if more and more lending is to go through non-state banks; its leading position guiding the economy’s development, if the private sector starts to move into areas long controlled by state enterprises; and increasingly its sway over the people, as the party loosens the hukou and allows migrants to move more freely where they want, and as it gives farmers more power over the land they occupy. (All with the associated possibility of greater social unrest if huge new numbers of people flow into the cities and feel less inclined to be quiet when they feel the state has mistreated them.)

via The Trouble With China’s Reform Plan – Businessweek.

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19/11/2013

Reform in China: Every move you make | The Economist

DO YOU understand “the three represents” or “the six tightly revolve-arounds”? Have you fully embraced “ecological development civilisation” or “socialist modernisation construction”? No, neither have we. The communiqué issued after the Communist Party’s third plenum of the 18th Central Committee is as opaque and dense as ever. As usual, optimists can find cause for hope and pessimists will see their worst fears confirmed. The one thing they both agree on is that it is unusually important. Third plenums have a special place in Chinese politics as the venue for big changes in direction—and President Xi Jinping had hinted that this one would be no different.

Will this third plenum turn out to transform China as Deng Xiaoping’s did in 1978? More details will emerge. But on the basis of the document, issued on November 12th, and the choreography before the plenum, we are optimistic.

SOE far, so good

With an increasingly vocal Chinese public making growing demands on its leaders, Mr Xi, like his predecessor, Hu Jintao, has learned to talk a good reformist game. But Mr Hu failed to change much, partly because he never found a way round the mass of vested interests, including state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and local governments, who benefit from the current system and so stand in the way. Although the communiqué laying down Mr Xi’s priorities contains plenty of party-speak (just as Deng’s did in 1978), some of its content suggests that this chief may be more serious about reform than Mr Hu was.

In economic policy the communiqué calls for the market to play a “decisive” role in allocating resources. Until now, party literature has said the role of market forces should be “basic”. Words matter in China. This tweak is a sign that Mr Xi wants the market to play a bigger part in shaping the economy; it may even signal that he wants to take on the SOEs, which squander vast amounts of capital. In the political arena, the communiqué proposes the setting up of a new “leading small group” to oversee reforms. Made up of senior party leaders, these groups report directly to the Politburo. The job of this new one will probably be to bang together the heads of obstructionist SOE bosses and provincial leaders to make them work together better, and Mr Xi himself could well chair it.

A new “state-security committee” could be more contentious. In foreign affairs, this is expected to mirror America’s National Security Council, which advises the president and helps co-ordinate government agencies. America has long complained about the lack of coherence within Chinese policy-making, which leaves its most important bilateral relationships vulnerable to unpredictable hiatuses and sudden changes in direction. The committee is expected to include the army and police. If so, it could be a sign of Mr Xi’s growing clout and determination to rein in the free-wheeling security forces to ensure that they work with the rest of the state.

Pessimists will find plenty to be gloomy about. Asian markets fell when the plenum made its announcements, perhaps because of the lack of news about financial reform. The communiqué barely mentions the need for changes in rural land ownership let alone household registration (hukou). Although it nods towards judicial reform, it does not speak of allowing any more political freedom. There are fears that the security committee could be used for internal repression. Some see it as a power grab by Mr Xi to give himself a more direct role in the security apparatus.

Yet if Mr Xi is to overcome China’s conservative interests, these changes or something like them are necessary. Too many people do too well out of today’s system to make change easy. The new small leading group should act as an economic commando force, tackling obstacles to reform within the bureaucracy and the party. The state-security committee could aim to ensure that factions do not embroil China in disputes abroad that escalate to the central leadership only very late, when much of the damage has been done.

The new committees leave Mr Xi with more power than any Chinese leader since Deng. A lot depends on what he does with it. If the coming years see more changes, such as economic reform in the countryside, curbs on the party’s clout and greater recognition of the rule of law, then people will look back on the plenum as the start of a better China just as they do now to the 1978 meeting. If Mr Xi does nothing, the country will be heading in a dangerous direction.

via Reform in China: Every move you make | The Economist.

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19/11/2013

New Chinese Agency to ‘Manage’ Social Unrest | StratRisks

Source: RFA

The ruling Chinese Communist Party on Tuesday said it would establish an agency to “manage” growing social unrest, as part of a set of reforms largely focusing on the economy.

The new “state security committee” will tackle social instability and unify other agencies in charge of increasing security challenges, both foreign and domestic, the party’s Central Committee said in a statement after a four-day plenary meeting in the nation’s capital ended Tuesday.

State news agency Xinhua said the committee would “improve the system of national security and the country’s national security strategy” so as to “effectively prevent and end social disputes and improve public security”.

But it gave no further details of how the new plan, which was announced amid a raft of economic reforms, would be implemented.

China’s nationwide “stability maintenance” system, which now costs more to run than its People’s Liberation Army (PLA), tracks the movements and activities of anyone engaged in political or rights activism across the country.

Under this system, activists and outspoken intellectuals are routinely put under house arrest or other forms of surveillance at politically sensitive times.

However, analysts said that the agency was likely a bid by China’s new leadership under President Xi Jinping to curb the powers of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, which administers the “stability maintenance” budget and has been slammed for behaving like a law unto itself.

“I think they have suddenly decreed the creation of this state security committee because the political and legal affairs committees have got such a bad name now,” said Chen Ziming, a former student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy movement who is now based in the United States. “Maybe they want to give it a makeover.”

“Also, they want to boost their overseas contacts,” he said. “It’s not just anti-terrorism; it has to do with many aspects of internal security and diplomatic relations.”

“All of those will be strengthened via this new agency,” he said.

New curbs

Shenzhen-based independent commentator Zhu Jianguo said the new committee would likely herald further attempts by the government to stamp out activism and curb online freedom of expression.

“This is exactly what everybody was afraid would happen,” Zhu said. “It will set new curbs and limitations on freedom of speech and thought.”

“If these reforms were genuine, they would be encouraging freedom of thought and expanding opportunities for public supervision [of government],” he said.

He said there had been no signal from China’s leadership that any reforms of the political system were in the pipeline.

“This is very far from any reform of the political system,” he said.

Cheng Li, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and an expert on Chinese politics, said Xi’s administration had taken inspiration from the U.S.’ National Security Council, and was aiming to place more power in the hands of president.

“The official line is to better coordinate the very different domains: the intelligence, military, foreign policy, public security and also national defense,” Cheng told Reuters.

“This gives tremendous power to the presidency,” he said.

Sensitive session

Authorities in Beijing detained or dispersed hundreds of petitioners who tried to voice grievances against the government during the plenary session of the party’s Central Committee.

Police appeared to be on full alert after detaining or intercepting more than 300 former PLA officers last week.

The requisitioning of rural land for lucrative property deals by cash-hungry local governments also triggers thousands of “mass incidents” across China every year.

Many result in violent suppression, the detention of the main organizers, and intense pressure on the local population to comply with the government’s wishes.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

via New Chinese Agency to ‘Manage’ Social Unrest | StratRisks.

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