Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Washington Post, is an informative article about post change of leader politics in China:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/chinas-hu-seeks-to-exert-influence-long-after-he-leaves-power/2012/11/05/4df5c190-1c24-11e2-ba31-3083ca97c314_story.html?hpid=z4

China’s Hu seeks to exert influence long after he leaves power

By William Wan

Published: November 5

BEIJING — After a decade in power, President Hu Jintao has been using his final weeks on the job to shore up his reputation, maneuver allies into key positions and elevate his interpretation of communist ideology — all in an attempt to preserve his influence over Chinese politics.

Hu’s recent moves fit a familiar pattern in China, where top leaders don’t simply retire. They linger behind the scenes, exerting powerful but often unseen leverage until death. How successful Hu and his supporters are in these remaining days could affect the direction of the country’s leadership for years to come.

Hu, 69, is battling strong head winds. He has long been seen as having a weak grip on power. And rampant criticism has bubbled up within the Communist Party about problems that have festered under his watch — including the increasing divide between rich and poor, widespread corruption and the growing need for economic reform.

But Hu’s biggest challenge is the same one he has faced throughout his tenure: his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, 86, who continues to be the dominant force in Chinese politics.

According to several current and former officials, party intellectuals, advisers and analysts — who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of heightened party sensitivities ahead of the once-a-decade leadership transition — Jiang is trying to secure key spots for his allies during the upcoming transition and, by many accounts, is succeeding. The most important appointments, to the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, will be announced during the party congress, which begins Thursday.

To help Hu make his case, the propaganda machine in Beijing has been in overdrive for months. Front-page stories have exalted “the golden decade” he has overseen, and state TV has reported pointedly on how incredibly happy the populace is these days. Last month, the government unveiled at least 20 books, eight brochures and nine documentaries chronicling “the brilliant achievements” made possible by Hu’s vague ideology of systematic progress through “scientific development.”

The furious competition between the two senior statesmen — and their large role in the patronage system that undergirds Chinese politics — only adds to the pressure on Xi Jinping, who is expected to take over the top job, becoming the first party leader in China’s history forced to contend with two former chiefs hovering over him.

“Hu is trying to do with his successor what Jiang did to Hu and what even earlier Deng Xiaoping did to Jiang,” said an editor of a party publication. “Each generation tries to hold sway over the next.”

‘A battle over personnel’

Some analysts caution against viewing China’s politics solely through the prism of Jiang vs. Hu. “It’s not always so clear-cut to say who is in which group,” one retired party official said.

There are also other players: the military, powerful state-owned enterprises and the rising class of “princelings” to which Xi belongs — leaders descended from former senior officials.

But there is widespread agreement that the two biggest centers of power in China today are Jiang and Hu.

Both were plucked from relative obscurity by Deng after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Deng hoped a clearer succession plan would add stability to the system; he appointed Jiang as his immediate successor and elevated Hu so that he could later take Jiang’s place.

Jiang built his camp of allies — called the “Shanghai gang” — drawing from his old base as the city’s party chief. He was known for a showman’s flair that remains rare among the party’s mostly wooden personalities.

Hu is more subdued. People who have met him describe a bland bookworm with a photographic memory, a stiff smile and an overriding sense of caution. His faction is often referred to as “tuanpai,” for the Communist Youth League he once led and mined for allies.

As the party congress has neared, Jiang has emerged from relative seclusion, making his presence felt with several highly public appearances. One of the first came in April, with reports of a meeting between Jiang and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, just a week after the party began its purge of former Chongqing communist chief Bo Xilai, for whom Jiang was considered a patron. That outing was seen as an early signal that Jiang intended to play a large role in the transition.

But one person with access to senior Chinese leaders warned that it is “not entirely fair to say this is a fight between two men.”

“It would also be a mistake to interpret the competition as personal hostility or disagreement,” the person said. “This is primarily a battle over personnel.”

A former party official agreed. Although Hu and Jiang had different focuses during their tenures, past leaders tend not to meddle directly in policy once retired, the former official said. “That’s why the appointments of their allies matter so much; it becomes their primary way of exerting any influence and protecting their interests.”

Hu has lost at least one major fight, failing to see his protege Li Keqiang named as his successor. Instead, Xi, a compromise candidate with Jiang’s approval, was chosen for the job in 2007, party experts say, and Li was positioned for the lower job of premier.

And if lists being circulated among party officials and experts are to be believed, Jiang has been similarly successful in elevating his allies over Hu’s into many of the next Standing Committee’s seats.

But some political watchers caution that Hu may be playing a deeper game, bargaining away slots on the Standing Committee for seats on the less powerful but more plentiful Politburo or perhaps preserving a seat for himself or Li on the commission that oversees the military.

A few also theorize that Hu is looking at this period in his presidency differently than Jiang — that he may want to leave the incoming leadership less vulnerable to the machinations of elders.

“You could argue that Hu sees himself as a selfless representation of the party, its integrity and institutionalization. He wields power but doesn’t play the game quite the same way Jiang does,” said Chris Johnson, a former top CIA analyst for China who is at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

A consensus-driven style

Much of Hu’s perceived weakness is a result of the difficult hand he was dealt when he took over as the top leader in 2002.

Jiang was so successful at consolidating power during his last days in office that at least five of the nine members of the Standing Committee were thought to be his strong allies. Jiang refused to give up his chairmanship of China’s military until Hu and others forced him out two years into Hu’s presidency.

“The best way to describe Jiang’s style is like a gangster,” said one party intellectual with close ties to senior officials from Jiang’s era. “He believed in an eye for an eye, but also in the flip side as well, returning favor for favor. That’s how he accumulated so much influence.”

By comparison, Hu rose quickly within the Communist Party bureaucracy in part by cultivating a reputation as studious and noncombative. At 39, he became the youngest at the time to enter the Central Committee, and at 43, the youngest provincial party secretary.

Surrounded by Jiang loyalists throughout his presidency, Hu adopted a consensus-driven leadership style, acting more to get folks on the same page than as a visionary, party analysts said.

“He is a manager who likes to tweak the machine. It is not in his nature to overhaul the whole thing,” said one former official, pointing to Hu’s training as a hydrology engineer.

Hu’s cautious approach, some experts say, has hindered his influence. Asked for his accomplishments, party members point almost reflexively to the unbridled economic growth of the past decade. A few mention better relations with Taiwan and the military’s expansion. When asked about the problems Hu leaves behind, the responses grow longer and more explicit.

“Ten years ago, when he took power, everybody was wondering what kind of leader Hu would be,” said David Shambaugh, an expert on Chinese affairs at George Washington University. “Now we know the answer. He is an arch-conservative, cautious, risk-averse, stability-obsessed apparatchik.”

Xi Jinping’s role

In many ways, the biggest factors in the future influence of Hu and Jiang will be Xi and his ability to quickly establish his own base of power.

Xi, though a princeling and someone Jiang supported, does not easily fit into any political camp. But many believe he will start his tenure with advantages that neither of his predecessors possessed — deep party connections nurtured through family and a growing sense that the country is in desperate need of reform.

“You have so many situations that now require proactive decision-making, and you have all the recent scandals and crises making many in the party eager to turn the page,” said Robert Kuhn, a businessman with ties to senior Chinese leaders.

“Ironically, because of that, Xi may actually be able to consolidate authority to get things done much faster than either Hu or Jiang in their first days.”

Others, however, say that if the past is any indication, Xi’s predecessors will not give up their influence easily.

“It is a natural thing when you have been the one in charge all along,” one party intellectual said. “It’s a hard habit to give up, especially in Chinese politics.”

Liu Liu and Zhang Jie contributed to this report.

I have written a few times about the divisions within the CCP's leadership with Jiang Zemin and his Shanghai Gang being on the right (capitalist/conservative) wing of the party and Hu Jintao and his Communist Youth League faction being closer to the left, but it's more complex than that and the above article provides a good explanation of who, what and why.

 

[sean m]

http://intelnews.org/2012/11/07/01-1126/#more-9582

Murdered British businessman ‘was MI6 operative’

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
An investigation by The Wall Street Journal has concluded that Neil Heywood, the British businessman who was murdered in China last November, was an active informant for British intelligence at the time of his death. The news appears to confirm intelNews’ assessment of April 2012 that Heywood was in fact connected with British intelligence. A highly successful financial consultant and fluent Chinese speaker who had lived in China for over a decade, Heywood was found dead on November 14, 2011, in his room at the Nanshan Lijing Holiday Hotel in Chongqing. His death led to the dramatic downfall of Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai, a husband-and-wife team of political celebrities who were found guilty in a Chinese court of killing the British businessman. Immediately after Heywood’s death, there was widespread speculation that he may have been a spy for MI6, Britain’s external intelligence service. On April 27, 2012, I argued that I was not aware of anyone “with serious knowledge of intelligence issues who was not completely certain, or did not deeply suspect, that Heywood had indeed collaborated with British intelligence at some stage during the past decade”. I wrote this in the face of an official denial by British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who had said earlier in the week that “Heywood was not an employee of the British government in any capacity”. Now an extensive investigation by The Wall Street Journal has concluded that the dead British businessman had been an MI6 operative “for more than a year” prior to his death. The paper said it concluded that based on several interviews with unnamed “current and former British officials” as well as with close friends of the murdered man. One source told The Journal that Heywood had been willingly and consciously recruited by an MI6 officer, who met with him on a regular basis in China. Heywood allegedly provided the MI6 officer with inside information on Xilai and other senior Chinese government officials. The article quotes an unnamed British official as saying that Heywood’s MI6 handler once described him as “useful” to a former colleague. According to the paper, Heywood’s MI6 work does not technically contradict the British Foreign secretary’s statement that the late businessman had not been “an employee of the British government”. This is because, according to sources close to Heywood, he was not paid for his services, nor was he ever tasked with specific intelligence operations. Rather he acted as an all-purpose informant, providing general background information on a voluntary basis. The Journal contacted the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which said simply that no British officials had been in contact with Haywood in the 48 hours prior to his death.

Hello,

To anyone who has been monitoring this case, this is a suprising revelation. I guess the most important question is how did they Chinese find out he was working for British intelligence. Does anyone have an idea as to why the British are using espionage against the Chinese. Is it a tit for tat issue?

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Brits, like the Americans, Brazilians, Canadians, Danes, etc, etc ... nearly ad infinitum, spy on the Chinese for as many reasons as you can imagine and many, many more.

The Chinese, like the Australians and Belgians and Chileans spy upon the Americans, Brits and Canadians for similar reasons.

Tit-for-tat killing, which is unlikely in itself, I think, is even more unlikely to have involved the wife of (then) a rising Chinese political star.

But it's a good story.


Edit: grammar  :-[

 

[Edward Campbell]

Some sympathetic and sensible advice for China in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/opinion/china-changes-leaders-deng-xiaopings-china.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Deng’s China

By EZRA F. VOGEL

Published: November 7, 2012

After months of political turmoil, China’s leadership is gathering this week for its once-in-a-decade conclave to transfer power to the next generation. In charting a course for China’s future, the new leaders would do well to master the lessons from Deng Xiaoping, the bold reformer who set China on its path to success after the tumult of the Mao years.

Deng took power in 1978, when China was in dire poverty. By the time he stepped down 14 years later, over 200 million people had been lifted out of poverty, and the policies he introduced set China on the path to become an economic powerhouse.

But in recent years China has lost its way. The public has become fed up with rampant corruption, the extravagant lifestyle of party leaders, the lack of full freedom and the inadequate procedures for correcting leadership abuses. Economic growth is slowing down while over a 100 million people still remain below the poverty line.

China badly needs political and social reform. To Deng, reform was a continuing process, and he would have moved boldly forward. Among the lessons from Deng:

In introducing bold reforms, experiment first. Deng thought it wise to try new ideas in areas where leaders supported reforms and conditions were favorable. When new programs worked, Deng brought in leaders to observe the successes and sent those who led the experiments around the country to explain how they succeeded. In Guangdong Province — including Shenzhen and other “special economic zones” — businessmen from Hong Kong flowed in to establish new enterprises and set new standards for efficient management. When they worked, lessons were extended elsewhere.

Support meritocracy. Deng believed only the best students should be asked to join the Communist Party. To reach the higher levels of the party, cadres had to prove themselves at the lower levels. Leaders were retired at a certain age.

Avoid polarization. In 1978, many officials opposed ending rural communes, even though the system had proven inadequate at feeding the population. Instead of confronting the opponents of change head on by abolishing communes, Deng told local leaders that if peasants were starving farmers should be allowed to adapt. Some villages then permitted farmers to provide for their own families after meeting production targets. Farms flourished. Surplus food was sold on the market. Deng invited journalists to report on the successes and within a year most of the country had chosen to end communes.

Establish good relations with all major countries. Deng had pleasant discussions with foreign leaders but was honest about differences. He believed the Soviet Union made a grave mistake by making enemies. He was the first leader in Chinese history to go to Japan, where he met the Japanese emperor. He negotiated and signed a treaty of peace and friendship with Japan, promoted people-to-people exchanges, and expanded imports of Japanese movies, TV programs and novels. He completed the normalization of relations with the United States. He made a triumphant visit to America, where he donned a cowboy hat, demonstrating that it was all right for the Chinese to imbibe American culture. In 1989, he welcomed Mikhail Gorbachev to Beijing to show the world that Sino-Soviet relations, broken since 1963, were back on track.

Deng presided over a far different China than the one the new leaders are inheriting, and it is not likely they will ever match his prestige and authority. He was part of the original generation of Communist revolutionary leaders who fought together, and a close comrade of Mao and Zhou Enlai. In many ways, today’s Communist Party is still working out the complex consequences of the prosperity and power that Deng brought to the country.

Where the next generations of leaders can draw a lesson is in Deng’s openness to risk and change, in his rejection of xenophobia, in his pragmatic view of the world, and in his support for meritocracy over privilege.

Ezra F. Vogel is the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard and the author of “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China.”

China is an enormous and enormously complex country but many of its problems are, relatively, simple, and Prof Vogel is correct is reminding Chinese leaders that Deng Xiaoping was a wise and accomplished Supreme Leader.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I'm not sure what this means, BUT:

1. Xinhua is as close as there is to an official news agency;

2. The CCP doesn't make announcements just to get its name in print; and

3. The Chinese Constitution empowers the Party in ways that are quite foreign to us, with our liberal, Anglo-Saxon cultural foundations.

Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from Xinhua.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-10/22/c_131922626.htm

It's all typical Chinese bureaucratic gobbledygook - and Chinese gobbledygook is even less transparent than the Western variety - BUT I think it must mean something and I'm guessing that incoming Paramount Leader Xi Jinping wants to change direction; but I cannot guess in which direction, except that the reference to "The whole Party should hold high the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, be guided by Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thoughts of the "Three Represents," and thoroughly carry out the Scientific Outlook on Development, according to the statement" might indicate a swing back to the right - free marketeer Deng overturned communist Mao's ideology and the "three Represents" is a Jiang Zemin idea and Jiang led the tooth and claw capitalist wing of the CCP.


Edit: spelling  :-[

More, this time reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the South China Morning Post (the authoritative and "free" of government interference Hong Kong daily), about the revised Chinese Constitution:

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1077395/hu-jintaos-scientific-development-live-revised-constitution

Hu Jintao's 'scientific development' to live on in revised constitution
Party to slot in more on scientific development, reflecting outgoing general secretary's thought

Cary Huang and Teddy Ng in Beijing

Thursday, 08 November, 2012

The Communist Party will incorporate more of general secretary Hu Jintao's pet theory into its revised constitution at its week-long national congress, opening today, in a move to further cement the retiring leader's political legacy.

Congress spokesman Cai Mingzhao told a press conference in Beijing yesterday it would "make further elaborations on the scientific concept of development" in an amendment to the party constitution. Hu's theory was enshrined in the party's constitution at its previous congress five years ago.

"The party congress will put forth fresh suggestions on deepening study and implementation of the scientific concept of development," Cai said.

He also announced that the congress, which will herald a once-a-decade leadership transition, would close next Wednesday. The newly selected Central Committee will hold its first meeting the next day, when the party's supreme Politburo Standing Committee will be ushered in to meet the media.

A string of recent of omissions of the term "Mao Zedong thought" from several party documents had stirred up speculation that the party might be about to remove it from the party constitution, but Cai made reference to it yesterday, alongside Marxism, as the party's guiding principles in an apparent effort to dismiss such speculation.

Gu Su , a Nanjing University law professor who is familiar with Chinese politics, said the party might elaborate on the "scientific concept of development" by stressing its goals of social harmony and even income distribution - both things strongly advocated by Hu over the past decade.

The elaboration of Hu's theory has parallels with the party's handling of his predecessor Jiang Zemin , who extended his legacy by adding his "theory of the three represents" to the party constitution.

"The elaboration is an attempt by Hu to give the impression that he has accomplished his political task," Gu said.

Gu said Cai's remark indicated that "Mao Zedong thought" would not be removed from the party constitution, although its new leaders were likely to put less focus on the late leader.

Hu is expected to deliver a report lasting more than two hours at today's opening ceremony. How he addresses the thorny question of political reform will be closely watched.

Cai gave a few clues about the future direction of political reform yesterday.

While insisting that it had always been a crucial part of China's reform plan, Cai ruled out any possibility of a Western-style democratic or pluralistic political system in the near future.

He said the overall direction of political reform was to "stick to political development with Chinese characteristics" and "stick to one-party rule".

While saying that greater efforts would be made to promote "intra-party democracy" and allow more consultation from outside the party, Cai said the current system of one-party rule was not up for debate in the coming decade.

"The Communist Party's leading position in China is a choice made by history and by its people," he said.

"Reform of the political system must suit China's national reality. And China's great achievements since the founding of the republic, and particularly since reform and opening up, prove that China's political-party system suits China's reality.

"We have to unswervingly stick to the right path blazed by the party."

A preparatory meeting yesterday appointed Xi Jinping , Hu's heir, as secretary general of the five-yearly congress. The meeting has also appointed a presidium including current leaders, Jiang and former premiers Li Peng and Zhu Rongji .

About 2,300 delegates, representing 82 million party members, will attend this year's congress.

The Chinese amend the Constitution, gradually, to reflect the current thinking and, eventually, to write socialism, Marxism and Maoism, in other words, communism, out of the Chinese Communist Party.

 

[Edward Campbell]

There are two informative articles in today's list, one by Timothy Garton Ash from the Guardian talking about what to expect or for which to hope from Xi Jinping and the other by Damien Ma from Foreign Affairs looking back at Hu Jintao's legacy. Since neither is behind a paywall, yet, I will not reproduce them.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Hu Jintao appears to be leaving the Chinese Communist Party Congress with two major warnings:

1. Corruption is public enemy number one and it is a grave danger to the legitimacy of the CCP; and

2. Inequality, especially between party officials and ordinary people is corrosive and threatens both social harmony and political legitimacy. He seems to be saying, as Deng Xiaoping did, that "wealth is glorious," but stressing that material wealth must be earned by one's own skill, talent and labour, not inherited or taken from the people through graft and corruption.

To bad he didn't say that more loudly, more clearly and more often over the past ten years - although, to be fair, he did do some things to attack corruption and he did warn, publicly, about inequality over the past several years.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here is more tea leaf reading, better informed than mine, in an article by Mark MacKinnon, the Good Grey Globe's Beijing based China correspondent, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/hus-final-speech-as-leader-signals-rift-among-chinas-ruling-elite/article5147217/

Hu’s final speech as leader signals rift among China’s ruling elite

MARK MACKINNON
BEIJING — The Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Nov. 08 2012

There was the speech Hu Jintao gave, and the one he wanted to give.

The outgoing leader of China’s ruling Communist Party gave a straight-up defence of his record – mixed with warnings about the dangers posed by official corruption – during a 101-minute speech at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday. Though Mr. Hu was obviously looking to cement his legacy as someone who led China through a period of astonishing economic growth, there were also rare signs of a behind-the-scenes rift with his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, who was prominent on stage during Mr. Hu’s speech.

Chinese President Hu Jintao, left, and former president Jiang Zemin at the opening session of the
18th Communist Party Congress held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Nov. 8, 2012.
(Ng Han Guan /AP)

Mr. Hu’s speech had some notable omissions from the longer, written version that was handed out afterward, leading to questions about who was able to censor what he said, from the podium, and why. There were concerns that Mr. Hu’s inability to deliver his full remarks may mean the party’s more liberal wing has lost a behind-the-scenes power struggle.

China is in the middle of a once-in-a-decade shift in power. The week’s events – and Mr. Hu’s speech – are being closely watched for signs the country is undergoing a change in direction, and how the balance between the reformers and hard-liners is playing out.

Left off the speech were comments calling for more internal party democracy – rather than the opaque process the Communists currently use to select new leaders – as well as criticism of how families of senior party members have accumulated vast wealth.

Taken together, the unprecedented omissions suggest Mr. Hu may have lost a power struggle to Mr. Jiang, who came on stage immediately after Mr. Hu at Thursday’s opening of a key Communist Party congress, to a swell of applause from the 2,270 assembled delegates. The two men sat alone before a backdrop of red flags, leaving the impression the 86-year-old Mr. Jiang, though theoretically retired, remains Mr. Hu’s equal when it comes to clout within the party.

Among the remarks Mr. Hu left unsaid was a blunt call for Communist Party leaders to be chosen based on their “merit” and “popular support,” words that could be interpreted as a last-ditch appeal by Mr. Hu to have the membership of the next Standing Committee of the Politburo – the most powerful body in China’s one-party system – selected by internal vote, rather than backroom manoeuvres.

It’s possible that it was Mr. Hu, 69, who chose to leave the potentially controversial remarks unspoken. He said at the outset of his address that he would not read the report in full, but would only “focus on some highlights.”

But Willy Lam, an expert in Communist Party politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said it was unprecedented to have two different versions of the general secretary’s work report, as the address to the party congress is known. In another break from tradition, the written version of the speech was made available to journalists only after Mr. Hu had finished speaking, making it difficult for anyone listening to notice what was being omitted.

The next Standing Committee, which is expected to be reduced to seven members from its current nine, will be introduced at the end of the week-long party congress. A pitched behind-the-scenes battle over membership of this all-important committee has exacerbated an old divide between Mr. Hu’s loyalists and those who owe their careers to Mr. Jiang.

The latter faction is comprised largely of party “princelings,” the offspring of famous Communist revolutionaries who believe it’s their turn to rule the country.

“We should improve the system of intraparty election, and standards governing multi-candidate nomination and election, and create procedures and a climate that fully embody the will of voters,” reads the written version of Mr. Hu’s report to the party congress.

“We should appoint officials on their merits, without regard to their origins,” Mr. Hu wrote, in a remark that could be seen as a shot at the party’s princelings. “[We should] promote officials who are outstanding in performance and enjoy popular support.”

The latter is seen as a reference to an internal party poll that was reportedly conducted in May, according to the South China Morning Post. Some 370 senior party members were asked who they would like to see on the next Standing Committee, as well as on the wider 25-person Politburo.

Two of Mr. Hu’s liberal-minded protégés, Guangdong governor Wang Yang and Li Yuanchao, the head of the party’s Organization Department, are rumoured to have done well in the poll. Some believe Mr. Hu’s unspoken plea may mean he has lost the internal party struggle with Mr. Jiang, and that Mr. Wang and Mr. Li have been left off the new Standing Committee list.

No one outside the upper echelons of the Communist Party knows how the next Standing Committee will be chosen, or whether the final list has already been set. The only certainty is that Xi Jinping, who is considered a princeling because his father was a famous revolutionary commander, will succeed Mr. Hu as general secretary at the end of the week-long congress. Mr. Xi, now vice-president, will also take over from Mr. Hu as president next year.

“Two of [Mr. Hu’s] protégés, Li Yuanchao and Wang Yang, are certain to now be outside of the seven [on the Standing Committee]. Hu wanted to put this at least in written form, just to tell the world he actually favours a more equitable and transparent system for picking leaders,” Mr. Lam said. “It could be a sign of his displeasure at his black box operation in which he was outfoxed by Jiang Zemin.”

If Mr. Hu was indeed signalling defeat, it could jar foreign investors, who are watching to see if Mr. Wang and Mr. Li are promoted, considering it a sign of whether China will press ahead with economic and political reforms. It’s believed that a Standing Committee dominated by princelings and Jiang loyalists would be more likely to slow or reverse economic reforms and perhaps even take as step back toward the country’s socialist past in an effort to address an income gap that has widened dramatically during Mr. Hu’s tenure.

Some of the most poignant remarks Mr. Hu did deliver involved corruption inside the Communist Party – something he warned delegates could “even cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state.”

Those remarks were sharp enough, coming in a year that has already seen one-time party star Bo Xilai charged with corruption and abuse of power. Mr. Xi, the heir apparent, and Premier Wen Jiabao have also seen their reputations damaged by foreign media reports detailing the vast wealth accumulated by their relatives. The Bloomberg news service traced upwards of $750-million (U.S.) in assets to Mr. Xi’s family, while the New York Times found Mr. Wen’s relatives were worth a combined $2.7-billion.

Mr. Hu seemed prepared to address the problem in public, but again left key written remarks unsaid. “Leading officials … should both exercise strict self-discipline and strengthen education and supervision over their families and their staff; and they should never seek any privilege,” reads the report. “We should ensure that strict procedures are followed in the exercise of power, and tighten oversight over the exercise of power by leading officials, especially principle leading officials.”

Mr. Lam said the comments about leading officials and their families were likely left out of the speech to avoid publicly humiliating Mr. Xi and Mr. Wen. Mr. Lam said Mr. Hu likely insisted on including the remarks in the printed report to protect his own legacy. “That’s for the record. He has to be seen saying something, even if he hasn’t done anything about it.”

I have mentioned the divisions within the CCP several times; they are well known but, normally, less than visible to ordinary Chinese as they go about their daily lives. The search for "democracy" within the Party is - seems to me, anyway - to be a little more public: part of the CCP's recruiting problem is that the "best and brightest," the people Deng Xiaoping believed must be recruited, are less than enthusiastic about joining a party where advancement may owe more to accident of birth or, more likely, corruption than to real, demonstrated merit.

In some respects the divisions within the Party are analogous to the left-right split which, still, bedevils the Liberal Party of Canada. That split opened, initially, in the 1920s when King shifted farther left - along with the rest of the world - than Laurier would even have gone. St Laurent shifted the party, economically, back towards the fiscally conservative right; Pearson followed St Laurent, but less diligently; Trudeau lurched, massively, left; Turner wanted to move right; Jean Chrétien campaigned from the left but governed from the right and so on. It is important to remember that both Jiang Zemin and Hu Jinta were handpicked by Deng Xiaoping and put in place to contest for the leadership. Deng understood the political, factional dynamics and proposed to let each faction try its model ... I think. Xi Jinping, the new Paramount Leader is the first of a new generation that does not owe its preference to either Zhou Eblai or Deng Xiaoping. His position on the factional spectrum remains to be seen.

This, murky as it is, all matters because China (and India) will soon be a globally dominant economy and we need to try to understand how the leadership works and thinks.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from Walter Russell Mead's blog ViaMeadia, is his take on a bit of Hu Jintao's speech that I missed:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/11/09/china-makes-it-official-game-of-thrones-is-on/

China Makes It Official: Game of Thrones Is On

November 9, 2012

China’s response to the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia is now enshrined in Communist party documents as official policy, the FT reports:

          Hu Jintao, China’s outgoing president, has called for China to become a “maritime power” in language that will fuel concerns among its neighbours and in the US
          over how it deals with a host of territorial disputes.

          Mr Hu told the opening session of the Communist party’s 18th Congress yesterday that it “should [. . . ] resolutely safeguard China’s maritime rights and interests,
          and build China into a maritime power.” [. . .]

          Much of the funding from double-digit defence spending increases over more than a decade has been used to modernise China’s weak navy.

          Non-military departments such as fisheries and maritime surveillance have also seen their fleets expanded and modernised.

China is going to become a more powerful and aggressive maritime state, building up its naval power to assert and protect its interests—especially in its territorial disputes with Japan and other neighbors like Taiwan and Vietnam.

We will have to see what this means in practice, but a major military build up in East Asian waters now looks inevitable. U.S. defense planning and expenditure will have to reflect this.

This will make cuts to the US defence budget even more difficult ... which may be what China has in mind.

Few nations benefit as much from US guaranteed freedom of the seas as does China.

 

[a_majoor]

Looks like Alfred Thayer Mahan has won another convert....

 

[Edward Campbell]

Changes in the Chinese leadership, according to this report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-xi-20101019,0,604801.story

My guess is that Xi is not Hu’s first choice as successor. I think that Xi is from the ‘right,’ pro-business wing of the Party, sometimes called the Shanghai Gang which was led by Jiang Zemin. Hu is from the ‘new left’ wing and he ousted Jiang et al around the year 2000.

It's been two years since we learned that Xi Jinping would ascend to the Parmount Leader's position and we, Westerners, have been (relatively) in the dark about him. The Wall Street Journal, in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of Copyright Act, gives us a good, accessible introduction:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324439804578106860600724862.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet

China's New Boss
Xi Jinping has charisma, a common touch and a beloved pop-star wife. But can he reform a Communist elite accustomed to the fruits of corruption?

THE SATURDAY ESSAY By JEREMY PAGE, BOB DAVIS and TOM ORLIK

November 9, 2012

Where is a new leader of China to turn for advice? Xi Jinping, who takes the country's top post on Thursday, knows better than to look to Mao, the revered founder of the Communist regime who vowed never to take "the capitalist road." Tell that to the hundreds of millions of Chinese who, in the past three decades, have risen from poverty thanks to market-oriented reforms.

Mr. Xi might instead dig deeper into Chinese history, to the austere ancient wisdom of Mencius, the Confucian scholar who advocated the "mandate of heaven" principle that an unjust Emperor could be overthrown. "Why talk of profit?" Mencius asks a ruler in his most famous work. If a king seeks profit over humanity and duty, so will his lords and common people, he says. "Then everyone high and low will be scrambling for profit, and the nation will be in danger."

And there indeed is the rub for Mr. Xi and the rest of China's new leadership. China as a whole has benefited enormously from the "scrambling for profit" of the great masses of Chinese, but the lords on high have been unable to resist doing the same, taking advantage of their privileged positions in a system that is far from being a true market.

Mr. Xi, who is 59, takes the helm in a year of extraordinary revelations about corruption and abuse of power in the Party—most notably the murder last November of a British businessman and MI6 informant by the wife of Bo Xilai, a rising star in the Party.

Even Hu Jintao, who has led China since 2002, acknowledged the scale of the corruption problem in a speech Thursday on the opening day of the 18th Communist Party Congress—a gathering of almost 3,000 Party delegates that will anoint the new generation of leaders. "If we fail to handle this issue well, it could prove fatal to the party and even cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state," said Mr. Hu in his final speech as Party chief.

It now falls to Mr. Xi, as figurehead of the "fifth generation" of Chinese leaders since 1949, to find a way to adapt a Leninist system of government to 21st-century economic problems and the political dynamics of the social media age. Mr. Xi, currently vice president, has several apparent advantages over Mr. Hu, whose relatively weak leadership is blamed by many in the Party for the lack of economic and political reform since 2002.

Mr. Xi's father was a revolutionary hero who fought alongside Chairman Mao Zedong, only to be purged in the 1960s then reappointed to senior Party posts in the 1980s, when he was a key architect of early market reforms. That furnished the younger Mr. Xi with a network of allies who are fellow "princelings"—as the offspring of Party leaders are known—and now occupy senior posts in the civilian and military leadership. Mr. Hu's father ran a tea shop.

While Mr. Hu spent his early career in inland provinces with little private business or foreign investment, Mr. Xi has spent most of the past 30 years problem-solving and supporting business in eastern provinces that are the engine of China's economic growth. He has a far greater affinity than Mr. Hu for the West, especially the U.S., which he visited first in 1985 when he stayed with a family in the small city of Muscatine, Iowa. His daughter is an undergraduate at Harvard.

A fan of soccer and Hollywood war movies, Mr. Xi also cuts a more likable figure than Mr. Hu among many Chinese people, thanks in part to his burly frame, his deep, sonorous voice and a glamorous wife who is a hugely popular folk singer, although she has adopted a somewhat lower profile in recent years.

"Xi is confident of his party background, his administrative background, his PLA [military] background and his father's political pedigree," said Kevin Rudd, the former Australian prime minister who also served as a diplomat in Beijing and has met Mr. Xi several times. "Therefore he is a man at ease with himself. I also believe he fully grasps the dimensions of the challenge before him."

The question is whether Mr. Xi can use his revolutionary heritage, his elite contacts, his personal charisma and his extensive administrative experience to take on the vested interests within the Party and set China on a new path of development.

Economists inside and outside China warn that to continue growing, the country needs to rely more on private enterprise and consumer spending. That means clipping the power of state-owned firms, curbing land grabs by corrupt local officials and creating tens of millions of new consumers in the cities by giving migrant families better access to welfare.

China is also confronting mounting tensions with its neighbors over disputed territory, even as the U.S. shores up defense and trade ties in the region.

Such is the sense of crisis in the Party elite, according to some insiders, that top leaders recently held study sessions on the ideas of the 19th-century political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville, who argued that the French Revolution ultimately replicated the "ancien regime" that it sought to replace.

Still, the new leadership is unlikely to try pushing through big changes overnight. China's central bank head, Zhou Xiaochuan, a financial liberalizer, warned a former U.S. official recently not to expect a big reform push until at least next October, the official said. Mr. Xi also will be hobbled by a collective decision-making process that values compromise over decisive action and requires new leaders to consult retired ones on key policy changes.

In an interview with a Chinese magazine in 2000, Mr. Xi warned against being too ambitious when taking a new Party post. "You always want to do something new in the first year," he said. "But it must be on the foundations of your predecessor. It is a relay race. You have to receive the baton properly, then run well with it yourself." He also quoted Guanzi, an ancient Chinese philosopher, who said "Don't try to do the impossible. Don't try to obtain the unobtainable."

Family friends say that Mr. Xi's most likely source of inspiration will be his father. The elder Mr. Xi was an economic reformer and a relative political liberal, speaking out in defense of the purged reformist Party leader Hu Yaobang in 1987 and condemning the violent 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters, according to Party insiders. Xi Jinping has never spoken about his father in public, but friends say that he is both proud of his family legacy and wary of the risks of moving too fast, without the support of other Party leaders.

"One man cannot change China," said one old family friend of Mr. Xi. "If he tries to tackle the interest groups around him too quickly, he will meet the same fate as Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang." Mr. Zhao was another reformist Party leader, purged in 1989.

Mr. Xi learned about the cutthroat nature of elite Chinese politics at an early age. He grew up in relative luxury in Beijing in the 1950s, when the families of senior leaders lived in large courtyard houses with nannies and cooks and were driven around in Soviet-made cars. They went to elite schools and had access to foreign books and films. Those privileges ended suddenly in 1962, when his father was accused of supporting a book deemed critical of Chairman Mao and placed under house arrest, where he remained for 16 years.

Mr. Xi is also part of the generation that bore the brunt of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when Chairman Mao closed schools and ordered students to join groups of ultraradical "Red Guards" and then sent them to be "re-educated" by working in the countryside.

Mr. Xi was too young to join the Red Guards, and in his interview in 2000, he recalls being captured by a group of them when he was 14. They threatened to execute him and sent him to a "youth prison," but he narrowly escaped when Chairman Mao sent students to the countryside in 1968.

Mr. Xi was dispatched in a group of 20 to 30 teenagers to Liangjiahe in northern Shaanxi province, where his father was renowned for helping to establish a partisan base in the 1930s. The younger Mr. Xi stayed there for seven years, most of it spent living in a spartan cave dwelling and working with villagers to dig ditches and extract methane from pig waste. He struggled to adapt at first, burying himself in the books he had brought from Beijing, but he later embraced village life, according to his own accounts in state media.

Eventually, local officials helped him to gain party membership and a place at Beijing's Tsinghua University, where he studied organic chemistry in the late 1970s. His first job after university was as a personal secretary to one of his father's old comrades in arms, Geng Biao, a vice premier and defense minister.

But in 1982, Mr. Xi made a strategic decision to shed his uniform and return to the countryside, taking a job as deputy Party chief of Zhengding county, a pig-farming region in the northern province of Hebei. That soon led to a job as deputy mayor of the eastern port of Xiamen, working for another protégé of his father, and to other posts in the surrounding province of Fujian.

In Fujian, Mr. Xi developed his business acumen and honed his political skills by tackling the sensitive question of relations with Taiwan—the island Beijing regards as a rebel province. Fujian lagged behind other coastal provinces economically, in large part because Beijing viewed it as a military frontier, just 85 miles from Taiwan, and focused on improving military installations there rather than roads and ports.

Mr. Xi ingratiated himself locally, playing ping pong at local sporting events, though he was only "so-so" with a paddle, said a former Fujian colleague of Mr. Xi. Mr. Xi's father had overseen the first foreign investment in Guangdong province, near Hong Kong, in the 1980s. To try to replicate his father's success, Mr. Xi turned to Taiwan and its thriving export-led economy. Many business executives there had family roots in Fujian and were attracted by the province's low labor costs.

But political relations were fraught: Beijing feared that Taiwan was moving toward independence and fired missiles into the sea near the island in 1995 and 1996 as a warning. Some Taiwanese real estate developers headed home. But Mr. Xi met regularly with Taiwanese groups to try to prevent a larger exodus. In 1999, Mr. Xi publicly endorsed a free-trade pact between China and Taiwan, with lower tariffs and other incentives to Taiwanese business.

Mr. Xi had a similarly positive reputation among business leaders in the province of Zhejiang—another hub of private enterprise—when he was Party chief there from 2002 to 2007.

A U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks suggested that Mr. Xi helped FedEx, Motorola and Citibank establish operations in the province. The three companies all expanded in Zhejiang, but they declined to comment on their dealings with Mr. Xi.

Mr. Xi also helped McDonald's  overcome obstacles to its expansion in the region, according to Gregory Gilligan, who was a senior manager with McDonald's at the time but now heads APCO's Beijing office. Party officials "take limited risks as they ascend," said Mr. Gilligan. "Xi is different because of his family background. He has a sense of confidence that the steps he took would be acceptable to others."

Since his promotion in 2007 to the Politburo Standing Committee, the country's top governing body, Mr. Xi has been more guarded in his public and private comments. Former U.S. officials who have met him say he can appear responsive to questions, but on closer examination, his answers are often ambiguous.

He has at times sounded a nationalistic note in public, notably during a speech in Mexico in 2009. "Some foreigners with full bellies and nothing better to do engage in finger-pointing at us," he said. He also delivered a stern message on a territorial dispute with Japan to U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in Beijing in September.

But during his first visit to the U.S. as vice president in January, Mr. Xi succeeded in charming his hosts in a way that Mr. Hu never could. China's departing leader was renowned for being awkward on overseas visits.

In addition to visiting the family that he had stayed with in Muscatine in 1985, Mr. Xi became the first Chinese leader to attend a National Basketball Association game in the U.S. and met with sports stars, including David Beckham and Magic Johnson.

Many analysts saw the trip as a conscious attempt to emulate Deng Xiaoping, who donned a Stetson at a rodeo on his visit to the U.S. in 1979. But Mr. Xi was also following in the footsteps of his father, who visited Iowa, Los Angeles and other parts of the U.S. in 1980.

At a dinner in Washington in January, Mr. Xi was presented with an album of photographs taken during his father's U.S. trip. One showed the elder Mr. Xi wearing a flower garland in Hawaii. Another showed him next to Mickey Mouse in Disneyland. Mr. Xi opened the album, smiled broadly, and leafed through each page, naming every Chinese official accompanying his father. Two minutes had been allocated to present the gift. Mr. Xi lingered over it for 10.

"It was a very animated, very lively, very human response," said Steve Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, who presented the album. "His father was a very charismatic figure and greatly affected by his time in the U.S. We all hope the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

There is an informative Infographic here.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Washington Post, is David Ignatius' take on things.

It will be interesting to see if Hu Jintao holds on to the CMC.

Bloomberg speculates that: "Xi Jinping may have to wait two years to gain control of the world’s largest army after he takes the Communist Party’s top job this week, a delay that may weaken China’s ability to address tensions with Japan and the U.S." The article suggests that Hu Jintao's faction may work to keep him as Chair of the Military Commission for two years, as long as he, Hu, had to wait for Jiang Zemin to hand over the reigns of power and for as long as Jiang had to wait for Deng Xiaoping to vacate the Military Commission back in 1989.

I had guessed, earlier, that Hu would hang on for a year but this suggests I was being optimistic.

 

[tomahawk6]

An interesting wild card is Xi's wife,famous folk singer Peng Liyuan.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinas-next-first-lady-a-folk-singer-who-threatens-to-shake-up-political-life-8305020.html

One prominent figure missing from the crucial 18th Communist Party congress, which continues this week, is China's first lady-in-waiting.

Known to hundreds of millions of Chinese for her career as a singer of stirring folk tunes, Peng Liyuan's fame has long eclipsed that of her husband, China's next president, Xi Jinping – which may be one reason the pop star has been keeping a low profile.

Ms Peng, 49, a civilian member of the army's musical troupe and charity worker, is not China's typical first lady, as anyone who has seen her sing during the annual Chinese New Year special on state television can attest. This is one of the world's most-watched TV programmes.

"If this were the West, one would say [Ms Peng] has the perfect requirements for being a leader's wife: beauty, stage presence, public approval," one party intellectual told The Washington Post. "But things are different in China."

While a Western spin doctor might be chomping at the bit to get Ms Peng on to the world stage, her fame presents the leadership with the challenge of how to marshal her skills and fame, without allowing her to gain more public influence than is comfortable for China's political elite.

As the country's leaders worked behind closed doors over the weekend to come up with the final details of the leadership transition – which is expected to be announced this week, with Mr Xi named as President on Thursday – the international community has been quick to note that very few members of China's political elite are women. Liu Yandong is the only female member of China's current Politburo, but is not a member of the powerful Standing Committee.

Some have suggested that Ms Peng, who was appointed UN Goodwill Ambassador for Tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, and took part in an anti-smoking campaign with the Microsoft founder Bill Gates earlier this year, may be the woman to change the precedent.

Lin Chong-pin, a professor of international affairs at Tamkang University in Taiwan, told the Focus Taiwan news channel that having a "bright and beautiful" wife gives Mr Xi an advantage over previous leaders, describing her as "a PLA [People's Liberation Army] major-general and a singer whose appearance on the international arena will dim the lights for all her previous counterparts."

Ms Peng has certainly been forthcoming in her praise for her husband, discussing their relationship in an unusually candid style. "When we first met, I felt in my heart that this is the ideal husband of my dreams – straightforward and honest and thoughtful," she told People.com in February.

However, if Ms Peng does try to change the role of the first lady, it will not be easy.

Since the excesses of the Mao Tse-tung era, when the Great Helmsman let loose a Cultural Revolution (1966-76) that destroyed millions of lives and left wounds that are still raw, the Communist Party has sought to distance itself from cults of personality. Solid, dull technocrats have run the show, with the focus instead placed on the Party as a unified entity.

 

[Edward Campbell]

An interesting wild card is Xi's wife,famous folks singer Peng Liyuan.
...
Ms Peng, 49, a civilian member of the army's musical troupe and charity worker, is not China's typical first lady, as anyone who has seen her sing during the annual Chinese New Year special on state television can attest. This is one of the world's most-watched TV programmes.

"If this were the West, one would say [Ms Peng] has the perfect requirements for being a leader's wife: beauty, stage presence, public approval," one party intellectual told The Washington Post. "But things are different in China."

While a Western spin doctor might be chomping at the bit to get Ms Peng on to the world stage, her fame presents the leadership with the challenge of how to marshal her skills and fame, without allowing her to gain more public influence than is comfortable for China's political elite ...

She's certainly not "typical:"

 

 

Deng Xiaoping and his wife Zhuo Lin            Jiang Zemin and his wife Wang Yeping                                                                                                                                              Hu Jintao and his wife Liu Yongqing in 2005   
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Peng Liyuan, wife of Xi Jinping

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here is a report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from The Atlantic, on an "up and comer" in the Chinese Communist Party:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/12/11/the-chinese-party-congress-for-new-ideas-look-to-the-younger-guys/265084/

The Chinese Party Congress: For New Ideas, Look to the Younger Guys
Hu Jintao's opening address revealed just how closely the Communist Party is still wedded to Mao Zedong's legacy. But the party's next generation after Hu may have different ideas.

Damien Ma
Damien Ma is a China analyst at Eurasia Group.  He writes on Chinese energy policies and climate change, politics, innovation, U.S.-China relations, social policies, and Internet policies, among other topics. He has written for Slate, The New Republic, and Forbes.

Nov 12, 2012

The conclusion of the party congress' opening ceremony and Hu Jintao's keynote speech is followed by days of breakout sessions among the provincial congresses and their delegates. Theoretically, it is a period during which every provincial delegate is supposed to studiously review Hu's speech and learn the key concepts. But in reality, these are occasions for schmoozing and to take stock of several rising stars in the Communist Party firmament, some of whom will soon earn the rarified status of a Politburo or standing committee member.

First, pre-congress speculation that the Communist Party is prepared to throw Mao Zedong under the bus seems to be just that -- speculation. Not only did Hu's speech invoke the Great Helmsman again, a high-level official at the influential state think tank Chinese Academy of Social Sciences did not mince words when he publicly stated that "Mao Zedong thought will always be the ideological guidance of the party. His place in history is firmly enshrined in the party's constitution."

Mao may live on existentially, but the Chinese are more lost than ever on the path forward. Even Hu himself seems rather puzzled -- spouting the line, "we will neither walk down the close, rigid old path, nor will we change banners and walk down a crooked path" -- that either left many mocking it or scratching their heads. Call it triangulation Chinese style, which recalls Deng Xiaoping's formulation that the party can't move too far left or too far right, and must find its own middle way. It seemed a spirited defense of Deng's defining pragmatism that called for "crossing the river by grasping for stones," a reference that many Chinese Web users picked up. In short, Hu's position is that he has no position. After a decade in power, Hu merely repackages the ideas of the last century for a country that no longer resembles its former self. No wonder many Chinese bemoan the dearth of visionaries in China's political class -- Deng was China's Steve Jobs and Hu is his Tim Cook.

Beyond the art of wringing meaning out of indecipherable political language, the Guangdong provincial congress received more attention than others from Hong Kong and Western media. That's because everyone wanted to get impressions of Wang Yang, the party secretary of Guangdong who may or may not get the promotion into the standing committee. The secretary has captured unusual attention.

Does the subtle and skillful Wang Yang represent the next generation of Communist Party leadership?

Wang is viewed as the newest torchbearer in a long list of Chinese reformers that includes Zhao Ziyang and Zhu Rongji -- both of whom governed crucial coastal provinces. And Wang himself is reputed to be more "Western" in his political personality, not least because he has let his hair grey naturally rather than suppress age with CCP-certified hair dye. Perhaps going grey is the preferred signal from one reformer to another on where they stand. Here is former Premier Zhu Rongji at the congress, evidently not shy about his silver locks:

Even Wang's style is reportedly straight-forward and frank. According to Malcolm Moore of Britain's The Telegraph, who had been live-tweeting the Guangdong delegate meeting, Wang had a sarcastic wit about him. When one effusive delegate proclaimed that he was so excited to be at the party congress, Wang quipped that perhaps it would help if he sat down. At times, Moore described Wang as outright bored as delegates droned on. Wang even effectively parried tough questions with a practiced fluency that suggests he's not the robotic automaton when it comes to press conferences. For instance, when a reporter from Japan's NHK asked him about Sino-Japan relations, he first dodged a direct answer by saying the foreign ministry has issued formal statements nearly every single day, and that should be referred to as the official position. Then he followed up with this:

          The Chinese and Japanese people have a long history of friendship [...] for instance, Japan was influenced by Han culture and many friendly Japanese visitors came to China. And Sun Yat-sen, who is from Guangdong, received a lot of support from his
          Japanese friends during the most challenging times of his revolution. I believe, if the Japanese government can approach the Sino-Japan dispute in the right way, a return to Sino-Japan friendliness is well worth it.
         
This is a man who clearly understands that his province depends overwhelmingly on foreign investment, including Japanese auto manufacturing plants. His response was measured, while still subtly put the blame on the Japanese government to align with what the Beijing mandarins want to hear.

Wang represents a younger generation of Chinese politicians who are perhaps more comfortable in their own skin and less concerned about political orthodoxy and ideological rigidity. For Wang, it may simply be the Guangdong influence, which always seemed to have tilted closer to the "Hong Kong way" than the "Beijing way." Yet most of the younger cohort, including Wang, will likely have to wait their turn to reach the top of the political hierarchy.

It is early to speculate about Xi Jinping's successor but he, almost certainly a he, will come from the "inner circle" that is being selected this week in Beijing.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This should come as no surprise to those who follow my posts about China, but, this report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from China Daily, makes it clear that China does not intend to adopt Western style liberal democracy:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012cpc/2012-11/12/content_15919157.htm

China never to copy Western political system

(Xinhua)

Updated: 2012-11-12

BEIJING - Anyone trying to keep track of the development of China's political system must have got an unequivocal answer at the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Hu Jintao solemnly declared in his report at the opening of the congress that "we will never copy a Western political system."

"We should place high importance on systemic building, give full play to the strength of the socialist political system and draw on the political achievements of other societies," Hu said in the report.

He pointed out that the reform of the political structure is an important part of China's overall reform. The CPC must continue to make both active and prudent efforts to carry out reform of the political structure, and make people's democracy more extensive, fuller in scope and sounder in practice.

In the report, Hu elaborated on the importance of "keeping to the socialist path of making political advance with Chinese characteristics" and said that the CPC will promote reform of the political structure in seven respects:

-- support and ensure the exercise of state power by the people through people's congresses;

-- improve the system of socialist consultative democracy;

-- improve community-level democracy;

-- promote law-based governance of the country in an all-around way;

-- deepen reform of the administrative system;

-- establish a sound mechanism for conducting checks and oversight over the exercise of power;

-- consolidate and develop the broadest possible patriotic united front.

Liu Xuejun, a professor with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said the multiple arrangements clearly show that the CPC highlights and upholds the principal status of the people's democracy in political realm.

Since China initiated reform and opening up, it has made continuous progress in democracy.

In Southwest China's Guizhou province, the CPC committee and village committee of Xinshi village spend three days every month consulting with local residents over village affairs. It was through consultation that the village decided to build more roads and determine the amount of compensation to be paid for land.

In Yuanbao village in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, the CPC committee has a morning meeting every day to address people's complaints and demands. Depending on importance, all village affairs have to be decided in meetings of the CPC committee, CPC members and villager representatives, or through a big gathering of all villagers.

Zhi Fen, delegate to the 18th CPC National Congress and also secretary of the CPC committee of Gaobeidian village in Beijing, won the secretary post in a direct election by grabbing all 316 votes.

On the sidelines of the congress, Zhi told Xinhua, "I was thrilled to tears at the time (when being elected). Their ballots were affirmation of my work and brought me greater sense of duty and pressure."

Zhi said it's essential in obtaining people's trust and support at the grassroots. It requires Zhi and her colleagues to be impartial in obeying rules, put people's interests first, and consult with people on important matters in resident representative or CPC member meetings.

Dai Yanjun, a professor with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, told Xinhua that democratic consultation will be the inevitable way for various parties of interests to find common ground as the development of the socialist market economy is bringing about a society of increasingly diverse aspirations.

Wang Huan, another congress delegate from Beijing, was impressed by the section of improving the system of socialist consultative democracy in Hu's report.

Wang, also a member of the Beijing municipal committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said socialist consultative democracy is an important form of people's democracy in the country. The report gives a clear roadmap on how to improve the system of socialist consultative democracy.

"The report makes clear that political consultation must be incorporated into decision-making. This requirement will reinforce the effectiveness of democratic consultation and help take in more advice from different sectors of the society. All of this bears testimony to the vitality of socialist democracy," said Wang.

Xie Chuntao, a history professor with the CPC Central Committee Party School, said the momentum of democracy in China is unstoppable but must proceed with emphasis on stability and order.

Li Junru, former vice president of the CPC Central Committee Party School and a member of the CPPCC National Committee, held that the combination of electoral democracy and consultative democracy is a significant feature of the democratic development in the country over the past decade.

Democracy is always pursued within the CPC. As of July this year, the leadership reshuffle of Party committees at the provincial, city, county, and village levels had been completed. Promoting democracy and ensuring Party members' rights have featured the process of the reshuffle.

In April 2011, the secretaries of CPC committees of Wuxi, Nantong and Suqian cities of Jiangsu province were elected through multi-candidate competitive elections.

Electoral democracy is recognized in the electoral system of lawmakers, or deputies to people's congresses, as well.

In March 2010, the National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament, adopted an amendment to the Electoral Law with landslide votes, which grants equal representation in legislative bodies to rural and urban people.

It requires "both rural and urban areas adopt the same ratio of deputies to the represented population in elections of people's congress deputies."

In Hu's report to the CPC congress, He stressed the rule of law, saying that no organization or individual has the privilege of overstepping the Constitution and laws, and no one in a position of power is allowed in any way to take one's own words as the law, place one's own authority above the law or abuse the law.

He also asked the CPC to tighten intra-Party, democratic and legal oversight as well as oversight through public opinion to ensure that the people oversee the exercise of power and that power is exercised in a transparent manner.

"Intra-Party democracy is the life of the Party. We should adhere to democratic centralism, improve institutions for intra-Party democracy, and promote people's democracy with intra-Party democracy," Hu said.

For China's late leader Deng Xiaoping, there are three important criteria for judging the soundness of a country's political system or structure and of its policies.

First, whether the country is politically stable; second, whether the system and policies help to strengthen unity among the people and to raise their living standards; and third, whether the productive forces keep developing.

The path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the system of theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the socialist system with Chinese characteristics are the fundamental accomplishments made by the Party and people in the course of arduous struggle over the past 90-plus years. These accomplishments should be upheld all the time and enriched continuously, Li Junru said.

China should draw on the political achievements of other societies during the process of promoting reform of the political structure, but it will never copy a Western political system, Li said.

China does not have a liberal culture so a liberal democracy would, most likely, fail. It is a very conservative, Confucian society so look to Singapore as a model: it's a democracy, just not one with e.g. freedom of speech or assembly.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Actually the TPP may be a dead end.

China is trying ~ I'm not sure if it will succeed ~ to separate Japan and South Korea from the TPP, which China sees as having too much America, and enticing them into a tripartite free trade area. Rumours in some parts of the Asian media are that both Japan and SK are very interested. The TPP will still go ahead and I agree that Canada should join (and I agree our joining will mean the end of "supply management" for some agricultural sectors which I think is a very good thing for 99.9% of Canadians) but we ought not to expect miracles.

Perhaps the Chinese are also trying to entice us (and Australia? and New Zealand?) into their free trade area and, de facto lessen America's "hold" on us all.

This report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the (South Korean) Yonhap News Agency, seems to suggest that all is not well on the China-Japan-South Korea front, but this is East Asia so the report might, equally, indicate exactly the opposite:

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2012/11/13/27/0301000000AEN20121113007900315F.HTML

Trilateral summit with Beijing, Tokyo unlikely at ASEAN meeting: Seoul

2012/11/13

SEOUL, Nov. 13 (Yonhap) -- South Korea is unlikely to hold a trilateral summit with China and Japan on the sidelines of an upcoming Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Cambodia next week, Seoul's foreign ministry said Tuesday.

It will be the first time the three nations have skipped a three-way summit at the annual ASEAN meeting since 1999, ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young said, as relations among three of Asia's largest economies remain under severe strain over territorial rows.

"No agreement has been reached among the three nations to hold a Korea-China-Japan summit on the sidelines of the upcoming ASEAN meeting," Cho said. "At this point, there is no plan to hold a summit."

A senior ministry official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said China, which was due to have hosted the next trilateral summit, has not proposed such a summit at the Cambodia meeting.

Leaders from ASEAN and other Asian nations, as well as the United States, Russia and India will join the ASEAN meeting and the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh next week.

Relations between Seoul and Tokyo remain tense after Tokyo's renewed claims to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo. Tokyo and Beijing have separately been at odds over the ownership of a group of islets in the East China Sea, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

Cho also ruled out the possibility of holding a bilateral summit between President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda during the Cambodia meeting, saying South Korea has yet to receive an "official proposal" to hold such a meeting from Japan.

It is important to remember two things:

1. China is not the only player in the "game of islands," several countries have competing claims; and

2. As a general rule: money trumps flags in Asia and claims of sovereignty can be massaged to achieve greater prosperity. East Asians have, for millennia, been putting George Orwell's Big Brother to shame in the fields of historical revisionism, newspeak and memory holes.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This is in the China thread because Singapore and the PAP have been a model for how the Chinese want to develop; Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew makes regular (twice yearly?) visits to Bejing where he usually spends a full day closeted with Hu Jintao (consider that Obama spends 40 to 90 minutes with a visiting Israeli PM – Hu is just as busy running China as Obama is running America). The  most senior Chinese officials and leadership aspirants are also regular visitors to Singapore - to meet with the Mentor.

   

Chinese President Hu Jintao meets with visiting Singaporean                    2011 年 5 16, Lee Kuan Yew (right) and China's Defence Minister Liang Guanglie (left)
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in Beijing Nov. 16, 2007. (Xinhua Photo)    Tang Zhi Wei photo

The article is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is big news from Asia:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/singapores-minister-mentor-steps-down-but-not-out/article2030582/

Singapore is a complex society: it is about 85% ethnic Chinese which helps explain the extraordinary entrepreneurial spirit that is coupled with deeply ingrained Confucian (very conservative) social values. It has the political and legal system to which many educated Chinese aspire and which those same Chinese believe must come in lock-step – increased protection for fundamental rights (life, liberty, property) must come with increased respect for an deference to elders and governors.

The precipitous decline in PAP support will not, in itself, worry the Chinese leaders – what frightens them is the very sight of effective political opposition parties. There is still much for the Chinese to learn in Singapore.

More on China <> Singapore, this time, in an article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from The Diplomat and deals with Singapore as a "model" for China:

http://thediplomat.com/pacific-money/2012/11/12/is-singapore-worth-emulating/

Is Singapore Worth Emulating?

By Anthony Fensom

November 12, 2012

Singapore has attracted admirers for its success in transforming from one of Asia’s less developed countries into an international economic powerhouse. Now, with China seeking to do the same for itself and double per capita income by 2020, could the tightly controlled but economically vibrant city-state help show Beijing’s communist leaders how to maintain their grip on power?

According to an article in China’s Study Times, published by the Communist Party’s Central Party School, China’s incoming president Xi Jinping has for several years “led a team investigating the Singapore model and how it might be applied to China”.

'[Singapore’s] People's Action Party [PAP] has won consecutive elections and held state power for a long time, while ensuring that the party's high efficiency, incorruptibility and vitality leads Singapore in attaining an economic leap forward,'' wrote Song Xiongwei, a lecturer at the Chinese Academy of Governance.

Despite the differences between the two countries, not least including China’s 1.3 billion people, Singapore’s city-state of 5.3 million has much worth emulating.

The island nation already reportedly leads the world in GDP per capita, as well as boasting one of the most competitive international economies in global rankings.

A report released in August 2012 by Knight Frank and Citi Private Wealth estimated the country’s GDP per capita in purchasing power parity terms at U.S. $56,532 in 2010, ahead of Norway, the United States and Hong Kong. Singapore is expected to maintain its high ranking through 2050, followed by neighbors Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

Singapore’s wealth is undoubtedly inflated by the world’s highest concentration of millionaires, with the ultra-rich including Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, part of a class which is expected to increase another 67 percent over the next four years.

The Southeast Asian trading center was rated this year as the easiest place in the world for small and medium-sized enterprises to do business, according to a World Bank and International Finance Corporation report.

Measuring such factors as the complexity of procedures needed in starting a business, enforcing contracts and registering property, Singapore came in first ahead of its neighbor Hong Kong, with the United States ranking fourth.

In addition, Singapore ranked second behind Switzerland in the World Economic Forum’s 2012 Global Competitiveness Index, which compared nearly 150 economies across a wide variety of criteria including infrastructure, education, innovation and efficiency.

Ruled by the PAP since attaining self-governance in 1959, the former British colony has earned plaudits from the IMF for its “prudent macroeconomic and financial policies,” including persistent fiscal surpluses and a large stock of public sector external assets, along with “political stability and an effective rule of law.”

In an email interview with The Diplomat, ANZ economist Aninda Mitra said Singapore had set a good example for other regional countries to follow.

"Singapore is often viewed as a role model for other multi-ethnic, post-colonial small or island states which have failed to live up to their full potential, such as Fiji or Sri Lanka,” Mitra said.

“It is also seen as a model for urban planning and bureaucratic efficiency by larger states across the region.”

‘Middle income trap’

However, if Beijing’s policymakers see in Singapore a future path to follow, they may have to look carefully, according to a recent World Bank report.

Named “China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative High-Income Society,” the report by the World Bank and Beijing’s Development Research Center found that just 13 of 101 economies identified in 1960 as middle income made the transition to high-income economies.

Described as the “middle income trap,” countries are said to remain stuck when the factors that contributed to strong early growth, such as low-cost labor and early technology use, reach their limits and economic momentum slows.

Among those that broke free of the trap, including Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, less governmental intervention in both the economic and political spheres has been seen as a significant factor.

China’s outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao has argued in favor of political reform, warning his Communist Party comrades that “without successful political structural reform, it is impossible for us to fully institute economic structural reform and the gains we have made in this area may be lost. The new problems that have cropped up in China’s society will not be fundamentally resolved, and such historical tragedies as the Cultural Revolution may happen again.”

The World Bank report called for structural reforms in a number of politically challenging areas, including “redefining the role of government, reforming and restructuring state enterprises and banks, developing the private sector, promoting competition, and deepening reforms in the land, labor and financial markets.”

While seemingly on track to supplant the United States as the world’s biggest economy, China faces the risk of growing old before it gets rich, with its working age population set to peak in 2015 as reported by The Diplomat.

Democracy flight?

Singapore’s exclusive residential enclaves, luxury boutiques and multi-million dollar properties along with low taxes have helped attract the super-rich.

According to the Wall Street Journal Asia, a survey of wealthy individuals ranking cities in terms of “economic activity, political power, quality of life, knowledge and influence” found Singapore was the fifth-most popular behind London, New York, Hong Kong and Paris.

Yet even respondents in Asia put Western cities ahead of Singapore and Hong Kong – “an indication that economic growth may not be the most important factor when a high-net worth individual chooses his city of residence.”

The report by Knight Frank and Citi noted that Chinese cities “performed significantly less well for freedom of expression and human rights – something that may hinder any future ascent to the top of the overall ranking”.

Singapore has efficiently addressed two of the key domestic development issues in East Asia, comprising an excellent education system to train future leaders as well as making corruption unattractive. But can it attract and retain top global talent?

According to one recent U.S. visitor, the country’s push to “convince the global elite that Singapore is the best place to live” may be a challenge.

“In Singapore and in other parts of Asia, I heard several anecdotes of people expressing frustration with Singapore’s tightly controlled society. For how long can elites put up with partial freedom?

“I heard several people saying that the best and brightest in Asia prefer to move to freer societies with the U.S. as the top destination, then Europe, and then Australia,” said Devin T. Stewart, Senior Fellow at Carnegie Council.

According to Peter Hartcher, the Sydney Morning Herald’s international editor, the political, media and housing controls implemented by Singapore have shown China “a potential halfway house between authoritarianism and liberal democracy”.

Economic challenges

Meanwhile, Singapore’s push to restructure itself toward a productivity-based economy less reliant on foreign workers is seen affecting its growth prospects.

Growing income inequality, rising living costs and house prices were prominent issues in the May 2011 general elections which saw the PAP secure its lowest ever share of the popular vote.

Non-resident foreign workers make up around a third of Singapore’s labor force – one of the highest proportions in the world, with the exception of some countries in the Middle East. The high number has been blamed for low productivity growth and strains on public infrastructure, fueling anti-foreigner sentiment.

“Singapore has taken on a tough task in trying to restructure itself toward a more innovation-driven model,” said ANZ’s Mitra.

“This will likely result in greater economic integration with its neighbours, and shifts in economic activity toward higher value-added sectors. But it also implies slower growth than in the past, with stronger efforts to enabling and equalizing opportunities for all its residents.”

While forecasting 4.5 percent GDP growth in 2013, ANZ’s economists note “growing downside risks” including weak labor productivity coupled with tight monetary policy, producing a “tough growth-inflation trade-off”.

Singapore narrowly avoided recession this year through a revision of its second-quarter GDP figures to growth of 0.2 percent. Its third-quarter GDP shrank an annualized 1.5 percent from the previous quarter, worse than economists’ forecasts of a 1 percent decline.

With trade amounting to four times its GDP, Singapore remains susceptible to any further weakening in global demand. Yet for China’s leaders, its success in escaping the middle income trap while maintaining political control is the real lesson to be studied.

The Chinese leadership has several imperatives:

1. Maintain itself in power ~ this involves creating and maintaining a self sustaining political meritocracy, not on building a Western style liberal democracy in a HUGELY conservative (Confucian) country;

2. Develop a better "one country n systems" model that can accommodate Hong Kong and Taiwan and, possibly, I'm guessing, Tibet and maybe even Xinjiang, too;

3. Become a regional (East Asia) hegemon which involves replacing the USA as the protector of Japan, Singapore, South Korea and ... and

4. Do all that while maintaining "social harmony" (which depends upon sustained economic growth ~ even if a couple of recessions are inevitable) until, say, 2060.

Singapore is a real democracy, even though certain rights that we take to be fundamental (freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, for example) are highly circumscribed. But it is a conservative democracy, not a liberal one. We, especially in the USA, are conceited enough to believe that only our liberal model provides "real" democracy; we are wrong. The real fundamental rights (life, liberty, conscience, property) are all at least or better respected in Singapore than in Australia, Britain, Canada or the USA. IF China ever becomes somewhat, maybe even semi-democratic it will be by following Singapore's model.

(Hong Kong, by the way, is a somewhat more liberal society than is Singapore ... much more like Japan or Taiwan than like China. The reintegration of Taiwan into China might drive China, itself, in a more liberal direction.)

 

[Edward Campbell]

Just two days ago, and a few posts above this, I posted a news item about "new ideas needing new leaders" which talked about Wang Yang; the article suggested he was a "might be" member of the Central Committee. According to this article, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from China.org.cn, he, along with (no surprise) Xi Jinping and 10 other were "elected" to that Committee:

http://china.org.cn/china/18th_cpc_congress/2012-11/14/content_27108938.htm

10 top leaders elected into new CPC Central Committee

Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Wang Qishan, Liu Yunshan, Liu Yandong, Li Yuanchao, Wang Yang, Zhang Gaoli, Zhang Dejiang and Yu Zhengsheng were elected into the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Wednesday morning at the closing of the 18th CPC National Congress.

Xi Jinping, 59, is member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 17th CPC Central Committee, vice president and vice chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission.

Li Keqiang, 57, is member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 17th CPC Central Committee and vice premier.

Wang Qishan, 64, is member of the Political Bureau of the 17th CPC Central Committee and vice premier.

Liu Yunshan, 65, is member of the Political Bureau of the 17th CPC Central Committee, member of the Secretariat of the 17th CPC Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee.

Liu Yandong, 67, is member of the Political Bureau of the 17th CPC Central Committee and state councilor.

Li Yuanchao, 62, is member of the Political Bureau of the 17th CPC Central Committee, member of the Secretariat of the 17th CPC Central Committee and head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

Wang Yang, 57, is member of the Political Bureau of the 17th CPC Central Committee and secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the CPC.

Zhang Gaoli, 66, is member of the Political Bureau of the 17th CPC Central Committee and secretary of Tianjin Municipal Committee of the CPC.

Zhang Dejiang, 66, is member of the Political Bureau of the 17th CPC Central Committee, vice premier and secretary of Chongqing Municipal Committee of the CPC.

Yu Zhengsheng, 67, is member of the Political Bureau of the 17th CPC Central Committee and secretary of Shanghai Municipal Committee of the CPC.

 

[Edward Campbell]

While Wang Yang made it to the Central Committee he did not go the last step, to the (reduced to seven members in order to "make consensus easier") Standing Committee. Its members are:

China's new Politburo Standing Committee members: Leader of China Communist Party
Xi Jinping (centre), (clockwise from top left) Zhang Dejiang, Li Keqiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan,
Wang Qishan, Zhang Gaoli
Photo: Reuters
Source: The Telegraph