I expect that these
pending reforms will be extremely important and will warrant extensive review
and consideration. The original reforms
worked but like all systems have become creaky.
It is certainly time for this.
The question right now
is just what will change. Sometimes
minor things are way more important than anything else. In my mind in 1978 Deng’s decision to send
10,000 students per year to USA colleges alone guaranteed the result. Of course it was a mixed blessing but it
effectively jump started the Chinese capitalist reformation however much it
remained a servant of the party and the military.
Today we struggle with
the usual antique nationalist aspirations of both China and the USA making both
parties nervous. Chinese consolidation
and American resurgence will quickly end that and both are now inevitable.
China eyes economic
reforms at party meet
Nov
9, 2013, 06.36 AM IST
BEIJING:
China's ruling Communist Party will hold its key leadership
meeting here on Saturday to unleash a new "wave of reforms", stated
to be the biggest in over three decades after the country moved away from Mao
Zedong's "chaotic class struggle" to market-oriented policies.
The 18th plenum of the Party comprising 376-member Central Committee, one of its highest policy bodies, would hold its four-day meeting under the leadership of President Xi Jinping to deepen economic reforms and to halt the slide of the world's second largest economy which fell from double digit growth rates to around 7% in the last two years.
While official media was abuzz with impending wave of reforms, experts say plenums in the past acted as launch-pads for many of China's major reforms.
The leadership headed by Xi is working on a 'master plan' to unveil at the plenum, which will be largely devoted to provide ideological direction to economic reforms for the next five years.
This year's plenum is being billed just as significant as the one in December 1978 that marked the start of market-oriented reforms in China over three decades ago under Deng Xiaoping, who succeeded Mao and reversed the ideological course of China. Not much resistance was expected for reforms unlike in Deng-era as he had to contend to remove resistance from hardliners headed by Mao's widow Jiang Qing who was ousted.
On the contrary, Xi who emerged as the strongest leader in recent decades is expected to have smooth sailing as any left-wing resistance to reforms was ironed out with the ouster of disgraced party leader Bo Xilai who was sentenced to life recently for corruption and misuse of power.
Since taking over this year, Xi is pushing for more reforms as China's economy struggled to meet the 7.5% official GDP target this year. New leadership asserts that reforms are necessary to avert a Soviet style collapse of the Communist system in China.
And here we have the follow up 15 nov 13
The Strategic position is as follows;
The
Chinese middle class is asserting interest and influence over the fabric of
decision making.
Chinese
economic linkage is expanding globally to everyone’s natural advantage but also
powerfully contains China’s behavior.
China
is now facing a demographic collapse of the available man years while the value
of each man year will jump sharply. This
means aggressive outsourcing into South Asia generally even over the next few
years.
The
centralization of the Security is disturbing however.
Otherwise they are in the market to do
business’
China: The Next Phase Of Reform
The commitment and
ability of China’s leaders to follow through on new policies and to meet rising
expectations will be tested as they strive to balance competing social,
economic, political and security challenges. Three decades ago, China embarked
on a new path, creating a framework that encouraged the country’s
rapid economic rise. The successes of those policies have
transformed China, and the country’s leadership now faces another set of
strategic choices to address China’s
new economic and international position.
The much-anticipated Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist
Party of China Central Committee concluded Nov. 12 after four days of
closed-door deliberations among top political elites. The full document
containing the policy proposals will not be released for days or even a week,
but the initial information suggests China’s leaders are seeking more
significant changes in their policies to try to stay ahead of the challenges
the country faces.
Analysis
According to the
communique broadcast by state mouthpiece China Central Television, important
policy changes include the establishment of a committee to guide the country’s
comprehensive reform agenda, the establishment of an integrated National
Security Committee responsible for coordinating public safety and national
strategy, and the easing
of the country’s 33-year-old family planning policy to
allow more couples to have a second child. The communique also stressed that
Beijing is committed to carrying out comprehensive economic reform over the
next decade in accordance with China’s economic, social and political
transformation.
In light of China’s
imminent demographic imbalance, the changes to family planning were expected.
The country’s massive pool of cheap labor previously underpinned its economic
and social transformation, but as China prepares to transition toward a
consumer-based economy, its aging population is a problem.
No details have been given on the structure of the National Security
Committee. The goal was to merge different institutions in charge of diplomacy,
security, military and intelligence into a coordinated agency under the
authority of the president. However, the decision — which is far more than an
institutional change – came after a re-evaluation of China’s internal and
external security environment and of the country’s emerging role in the
international community. Beijing recognizes the need for a more delicate and
coherent team to handle the country’s strategic issues and pursue its national
interests.
China is now at a turning point. The country’s economic growth
has firmly cemented Chinese businesses and national interests around the globe.
It has raised the living standards, but also the expectations, of China’s
citizens. There is a growing sense of Chinese patriotism that exists beyond
the confines of the Communist Party. The emerging educated middle class has
traveled the world, has seen multiple systems in action and is taking a greater interest in local and national
political decisions. Modern forms of communication such as social media
give Chinese citizens the ability to rapidly share successes and grievances
across the country, to identify and single out cases of political corruption
and to more actively keep the Party and leadership under scrutiny. At the
same time, the expanded Chinese imports of raw materials and exports of
commodities have substantially expanded China’s active foreign interests,
requiring a more nuanced and potentially a more activist foreign policy.
Beijing wasted no time
ratcheting up public expectations over its reform agenda prior to the meeting.
Proposals included financial liberalization, the restructuring of state-owned
enterprises, the readjustment of fiscal structures between central and local
government, steps to counter official corruption, the expansion of property
taxes and pricing reform. At the same time, top leaders were busy setting
expectations for a new economic transformation. This led many to believe that
the meeting would bring the country to the next stage of economic prosperity
and social development, like Deng Xiaoping did in the post-Cultural Revolution
meeting in 1978.
Admittedly, China has moved well beyond the massive economic
mismanagement and social disorder of the post-Cultural Revolution period.
However, the inevitable loss of the demographic advantages that sustained
the country’s economic miracle, combined with the prevailing social inequality
and regional disparities as well as the rising political awareness of the
middle class, mean the new leadership is facing even greater challenges to
preserve its legitimacy. Doing so requires a constant commitment by political
leaders to respond to China’s changing internal and external environments. It
also requires a path toward reform that meets public expectations while
overcoming anti-reform elements.
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