beyond xi

We really know so little about the key people.  Here are several who would be acceptable when Xi steps down.

The last is outside China but is also a creditable spokesperson for opposing opinions.

Watching China since Mao, this is a welcome view of active members of the leadership that has never been possible for us.

beyond xi

Monday, March 29, 2021

There was never going to be a thaw when top American and Chinese diplomats met in Anchorage earlier this month for the first time since President Joe Biden took office. But the winds blew even colder than expected, and it’s unclear how Biden will approach ties with Beijing. What’s indisputable? No matter what happens between Washington and Beijing, China’s importance is only going to grow — for America, the world and for you. Today’s Daily Dose takes you into the fascinating, fast-changing world of Chinese politics, business, culture and foreign relations. It’s a world you could once afford to ignore. Not anymore.

beyond xi

Pallabi Munsi, Reporter 

1. Sun Chunlan

When Communist China’s founding leader, Mao Zedong, famously declared that “women hold up half the sky,” he might not have imagined that 66 years later the country’s top boardroom — the Chinese Communist Party’s 25-member Politburo — would feature just one woman: 70-year-old Vice Premier Sun. But this former clock factory worker got her timing just right. Sun is President Xi Jinping’s coronavirus czar, and her success in rapidly bringing the crisis under control has turned her into a household name, raising her political stature as China leads the world out of the pandemic-spawned recession — even though the virus originated there and an early attempted cover-up hampered progress. Now she’s on a mission to speed up free COVID-19 vaccinations so China can win that race too.

2. Liu He

He’s the man Xi trusts to keep China’s economy steady. From trade talks with the U.S. to improving GDP numbers, the 69-year-old Harvard-educated economist is Xi’s point person, a quiet puppeteer charting the future path of the world’s second-largest economy. Now “Uncle He” is leading a war against China’s credit boom — and fintech giants like billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Group are in his crosshairs. The scope of his campaign will tell us just how much Xi wants to control the Chinese private sector that has unleashed the country’s economic potential over the past 40 years.

3. Han Zheng

What Liu is to China’s economy, Han is to Xi’s plans to firmly bring Hong Kong to heel. Han was just 48 when he became mayor of Shanghai in 2003 — the youngest person in half a century to hold one of China’s most coveted political posts. Now in charge of Hong Kong and Macao for the CCP, he has the difficult task of convincing Hongkongers that Beijing wants to support the city’s development, while cracking down on all signs of democratic dissent. He’s the face of China’s latest controversial step to only allow only “patriots” to run for elections in Hong Kong. If China breaks with the One Country, Two Systems model it promised Hong Kong when it regained control of the island in 1997, you’ll know it was Han who rocked the cradle.

4. Cai Xia

If Sun, Liu and Han represent the satellites in Xi’s narrow orbit of trust, Cai is the opposite. A teacher at the Central Party School, Cai was a CPC insider, the daughter of revolutionaries who sacrificed much to set up Communist China. But she was expelled from the party last year after she called Xi a “mafia boss.” Now in exile abroad, Cai has emerged as one of the Chinese president’s most potent critics. Her background and decades of loyalty to the party make it hard for Beijing to paint her as a Western stooge. As for Cai, she believes Xi has abused the ideals of Communist China her parents fought for. Pushing back is her ode to them.