Riches exposed

Communist Party leaders struggle to manage a tense transition

The Economist, 11/03/12

PATROLS are hunting for “reactionary” slogans appearing on the streets, internet censors work overtime, police are stepping up the surveillance of dissidents, and officials scour bookshelves for samizdat works. As the Communist Party prepares for a once-a-decade turnover of its leadership this month, officials are battling to stem rumours about what the leaders are up to, and to sweep away evidence of public discontent. Revelations that the family of the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, has acquired a colossal fortune during his decade in office have come at a bad time. So too has violent unrest in a large port-city.

Since the late 1980s the party has never faced so many scandals and crises this close to a leadership transition. As The Economist went to press the party’s 370-strong central committee began a meeting in Beijing to make final preparations for the handover extravaganza that will begin on November 8th. This will involve a party congress attended by more than 2,200 delegates, followed a few days later by the crowning of a new Politburo. Mr Wen is among those retiring from it (he formally steps down as prime minister in March).

An investigative report by the New York Times on October 25th has blown a hole in Mr Wen’s self-cultivated reputation as a thrifty man of the people from a modest background. The newspaper furnished evidence that close family members had acquired wealth of some $2.7 billion. This came hard on the heels of one of the party’s biggest scandals in decades that resulted in the purge of a Politburo member, Bo Xilai, for allegedly covering up a murder and for his family’s involvement in massive corruption. In June Bloomberg, an American news service, published the results of its own investigation into the business dealings of the family of Xi Jinping, who will take over from Hu Jintao as party chief this month and as president in March. It showed that Mr Xi’s relatives had also amassed considerable wealth.

The investigations confirm what has long been widely rumoured about the country’s ruling families (though the reported scale of their wealth stuns even hardened cynics). Combined with the party’s own allegations against Mr Bo, who until early this year was considered a likely candidate for one of the party’s highest positions in the upcoming shuffle, they confirm a nexus between wealth and power at the very top of the system. Though the conflicts of interest are evident, neither the New York Times nor Bloomberg accuses the leaders themselves of wrongdoing in connection with their families’ business affairs. But in a country rife with discontent over a growing gap between rich and poor, their findings compound public cynicism. China’s censors have blocked Bloomberg’s website since June, and now have now done the same to the sites in English and Chinese of the New York Times. A foreign-ministry spokesman accused the paper of that old fall-back, “ulterior motives”, suggesting it was out to smear China and foment unrest.

Certainly, the internet is frustrating the party’s efforts to control public opinion and stifle dissent during November’s meetings in the capital. This is China’s first leadership shuffle to be conducted in the social-media era. Twitter is blocked in China, but similar home-grown services are immensely popular and hard to crack down on—though China’s internet police have been frantically trying. Consider one measure of their concern: searches for even the prime minister’s family name (which also means “warm”) in combination with other words such as “assets” are now blocked on Chinese microblogs. So too are searches for “prime minister” together with “clan”. In a similar vein, China Digital Times, a media-monitoring website, says censors have been trying for at least a month to stop the media from saying any more about the political career of Liang Wen’gen, one of China’s richest businessmen who is a delegate to the party congress. The Chinese press had earlier reported that Mr Liang might become the first private entrepreneur to be appointed to the party’s central committee. Private-business owners had come to be cautiously welcomed into the party. Now any hint of a link between the party and wealth appears to be taboo.

Censors have been equally strenuous in their efforts to block news of protests involving thousands of people in October in the port city of Ningbo, about 150 kilometres (90 miles) south of Shanghai. The demonstrations were over plans to expand a chemical plant which residents feared could poison the environment. After several days of unrest, including violent clashes between police and demonstrators, the government announced on October 28th that the project had been halted.

Party leaders are obsessed with stability at this crucial political juncture. (Even Beijing’s taxis have been ordered to lock their rear windows, apparently to prevent passengers from throwing out dissident leaflets.) Ningbo’s turmoil must have been more than usually worrisome. In the build-up to the last leadership transition, a decade ago, the party’s biggest fear was of protests involving blue-collar workers whom state-owned companies were laying off by the millions. Today the party has long ceased to regard blue-collar support as critical to its grip on power. Instead, an emerging middle class is its most important bulwark. The protests in Ningbo were the latest in a series among middle-class urbanites that suggests this group cannot always be counted on. In July tens of thousands took to the streets in Shifang in the south-western province of Sichuan in opposition to a copper refinery. The same month similar numbers protested against a sewage pipeline in Qidong, not far from Shanghai. In both cases officials also gave in to the protesters’ demands.

These stresses, as well as external ones generated by a recently escalated feud with Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea, are doubtless complicating the struggles among senior leaders over the soon-to-be-unveiled line-up. It remains uncertain whether Hu Jintao will retain the powerful position of chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission. If he wants to stay on for a couple of years, as his predecessors did, he might use the party’s concerns about stability at home and abroad to justify retaining control of the army. The continuing influence of Mr Hu’s immediate predecessor, Jiang Zemin, is another complicating factor. Mr Hu and Mr Jiang are assumed to have a less than cosy relationship. Recent appearances by Mr Jiang, who is 86, appear aimed at signalling that he is still a force to be reckoned with. Mr Xi is thought to be closer to Mr Jiang than to the 69-year-old Mr Hu. But even after he takes over, he will have to be careful of both men.

The party’s attempts at media control have failed to stem a spate of articles in official newspapers highlighting what many liberal intellectuals perceive as mounting social tensions. They are calling for faster political reforms. The calls appear designed to press Mr Xi to be more daring than the ultra-cautious Mr. Hu. The writings of the 19th-century French historian, Alexis de Tocqueville, have been enjoying an unusual revival in bookshops and in the debates of intellectual bloggers. His argument that revolutions tend to occur not when conditions are harshest but when they are improving appears to have struck a chord among those fretting about where the country is heading.

Chinese No Longer Bow to Autocratic Rule

The time of autocratic rule has passed for China's Communist Party. At one time it was understood that the people would obey, and everyone would get rich in return. But economic success will no longer suffice. Now the Chinese are demanding freedom and security too.

Bernhard Zand, Der Spiegel, 11/02/12

There wasn't a word to be found in China last week about the story that had splashed across headlines for several days everywhere else in the world. Not a single mention was afforded the $2.7 billion (€2 billion) that the New York Times reported has been amassed by the family of outgoing Prime Minister Wen Jiabao during his time in office.

But there was a brief blurb in the "Quotable" section on page two of the state-run China Daily News that quoted Ma Yun, chairman of the China's largest e-commerce company, the Alibaba Group, saying: "A person should never try to possess both money and political power. ... The two things, when brought together, are like detonating dynamite."

Ma was reportedly commenting on a book named after a 19th century business tycoon, if anyone wants to believe that. In reality, the quotation highlights how even journalists bullied by the state are finding ways to skirt censorship and speak the truth -- and get the last word in on a prime minister they have had to praise for 10 long years before he retires.

It also shows how difficult it will be for the new leadership to continue ruling China as its predecessors have done. On Nov. 8, two days after the United States presidential election, the 18th national congress of the Communist Party begins. The fourth generation, to which Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao belong, will be succeeded by the fifth generation of new Prime Minister Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping.

According to the party's plan, the change of power will remain within the unspoken contract that Mao Zedong made with the people over 60 years ago, and his successor Deng Xiaoping rewrote 20 years ago: We rule, you obey -- and we'll all get rich together, some sooner than others. In 10 years the sixth generation will take over, and in 20 years, the seventh generation will do the same.

Chinese People Demand More

But the course of history is unlikely to take such a direct route. The tasks ahead of the new leadership are different than those that Wen and Hu faced. China's economic growth, though still impressive at 7 percent, is slowly plateauing, while the demands of the Chinese have increased with prosperity. But above all, the once clear-cut balance of power between the leadership and the people has changed. For decades it was the people who feared the government, but now it is increasingly the case that the government fears the people.

Last week, thousands protested construction on a petrochemical plant with suspect filtering facilities for four days in Ningbo, one of China's richest cities. It was just one of countless "mass incidents" that have taken place in recent years. But the local government did something that would not have happened 10 years ago -- they stopped construction and promised to reconsider the factory. The time of unfettered autocratic rule -- which inspired wonder among foreign investors and was silently envied by Western politicians -- is over. Ecologically questionable projects, in particular, have become more difficult today than in some democratic countries, Western businesses are now beginning to admit.

Policy of Prosperity

In their growing confidence, the Chinese who are out protesting on the streets or making use of microblogs aren't leaving out any of the problems their swiftly developing nation suffers: the questionable food safety, the poor working conditions in many companies, violence and abuse in day care centers, the oppression of ethnic minorities and even the corruption and arrogance of their leadership.

When Vice President and designated new President Xi Jinping disappeared from the public eye without explanation for two weeks in September, China's bloggers commented on his silence with the same sarcasm they had used to address Wen Jiabao's rich clan last week. The subtext of many posts is that China's leaders are insulting the intelligence of their people with their Kremlin-like attitude. When the new autocrats take their posts next week, they will face an environment that isn't nearly as accommodating as it once was.

There is much to suggest that they will stick to the principle that their predecessors have since reformist leader Deng Xiaoping began the biggest economic boom of all time: In the last 10 years alone, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the nation quintupled, while the number of those who exist on less than $2 a day has gone down by 20 percent -- that's more than 250 million people. Fighting poverty is an instrument of human rights policy, they argue, and it's difficult to disagree, at least according to this scale.

Suffering From a Lack of Rights

But in the next 10 years, China can no longer be ruled according to the primacy of economic growth that strangles all resistance. "Many Chinese have become rich in recent years," explains economist Hu Xingdou. "But those that are still poor suffer mainly from a lack of rights." While the fourth generation was preoccupied with ensuring stability, he points out, the fifth generation needs to address social justice, including the rights of farmers and unions, the freedom of assembly and freedom of expression, and the establishing of the rule of law.

Powered by exports and the extension of the national infrastructure, China's growth might be impressive, says Hu, but what matters now is individual consumer clout. This can only be boosted by supporting individuals rather than once again raising state quotas and printing yet more money.

"Even problems that appear to have purely economic roots can in reality only be solved by political means," says writer Zhang Yihe, whose father -- like China's designated new leader Xi -- was one of the founders of the People's Republic of China. This also applies to the ever-widening prosperity gap as well as rural expropriation conflicts and the corruption that reaches from provincial authorities all the way to the Standing Committee of the Politburo, the party's leading body.

'What's the Point of the Wealth We've Amassed?'

But economic progress was not just the goal of China's leadership -- it was the goal of the entire world. And as the apprehensive attitude of Europe and the US to Beijing's growth figures goes to show, it still is. But these days, some in China are now less concerned about further growth and more interested in its political dividends.

Writer Zhang says she's hoping to see the new leadership make some bold moves. The first would be to relax press censorship, she says, pointing to the example of Burma. It should also beef up the rights of minorities and then take a cue from Taiwan and give elections some careful consideration, she adds. But what she really hopes to see it do is take the unprecedented risk of admitting that the Tiananmen Square massacre was a mistake and compensating victims.

"That shouldn't be hard!" she says. "What's the point of the wealth we've amassed?"

As Bill Clinton liked to say: "It's the economy, stupid." It's a mantra that seems to hold universally true, but not necessarily in China, where perhaps people have started to tire of it.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/challenge-for-new-leaders-chinese-no-longer-bow-to-autocratic-rule-a-864998.html

China hints at reform by dropping Mao wording

Sui-Lee Wee, 10/22/12

BEIJING (Reuters) - The subtle dropping of references to late Chinese leader Mao Zedong from two policy statements over the last few weeks serves as one of the most intriguing hints yet that the ruling Communist Party is planning to move in the direction of reform.

Mao has always been held up as an ideological great in party communiqués, his name mentioned almost by default in homage to his role in founding modern China and leading the Communist Party, whose rule from the 1949 revolution remains unbroken.

Which is why the dropping of the words "Mao Zedong thought" from two recent statements by the party's elite Politburo ahead of a landmark congress, at which a new generation of leaders will take the top party posts, has attracted so much attention.

Also absent were normally standard references to Marxism-Leninism.

The omission in the latest such statement by the powerful decision-making body, a Monday announcement that the congress next month would discuss amending the party's constitution, has seen by some as sending a signal about its intent on reform. One of the constitution's key platforms is Mao thought.

"It's very significant," Zheng Yongnian, the director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, said of the removal of a reference to Mao Zedong Thought and the implications of that for the direction leaders were taking.

The wording has in the past talked about "holding high the banner of Mao Zedong thought and Marxism-Leninism" in carrying out the party's work, and is often included at the end of statements almost as a mantra.

But the latest two statements mentioned only that the party should follow "Deng Xiaoping theory", the "three represents" and the "scientific development concept".

Late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping introduced the idea that China can be both communist and have market-based reforms, while the "three represents" refers to former President Jiang Zemin's policy which formally allowed capitalists to join the party.

The last idea is current President Hu Jintao's thinking of promoting more rounded economic development.

Mao Zedong Thought adapted the original theories of Marxism that grew out of industrial Europe to the conditions of largely rural China when Mao took over in 1949.

"Before the fall of Bo Xilai, that direction was not so clear. But now it's become quite clear. I mean, less Maoism, but more Dengism," Zheng said.

Bo, a former high-flying politician supported by leftists, was ousted this year in China's biggest political scandal in two decades.

By removing Mao Zedong Thought, the top leaders were signaling a push for reforms, Zheng said, in the same way Deng introduced landmark market reforms in the late 1970s that turned China from a backwater into an economic powerhouse.

There was also no reference made to Mao thought in a previous announcement on the date of the party congress.

Doctrinal differences between reformist and leftist factions reflect an internal debate about the direction of the new leadership whose taking up of the reins of power starts at the congress opening in Beijing on November 8.

The debate has been under the spotlight since the rise and subsequent fall of Bo, who, as party boss of the southwestern city of Chongqing, drew support from leftists critical of aspects of the market-based reform agenda.

China heads into the congress with the economy heading for its slowest annual growth rate in at least 13 years, while social stresses, such as anger over corruption, land grabs and unmet welfare demands, stir protests.

"NOT POSSIBLE"

State media, as well as experts close to the government, have made increasingly strident calls for bold reform to avoid a crisis, though nobody seriously expects a move towards full democracy.

This week, for example, the Study Times, a newspaper published by the Central Party School which trains rising officials, lauded Singapore's form of closely managed democracy and its long-ruling main party for having genuine popular support.

"If you want to win people's hearts and their support, you have to have a government that serves the people," it wrote.

Despite his ruthless political campaigns in which tens of millions died, Mao, whose portrait looms large on Tiananmen Square, has always been largely revered as a charismatic ruler who stood up to foreigners and unified the country.

Mao's legacy in China remains tightly guarded by a Communist leadership bent on preserving his memory to shore up their own legitimacy, which, unlike his, was not forged in war.

In 2003, on the 110th anniversary of Mao's birth, Hu declared that "the banner of Mao Zedong Thought will always be held high, at all times and in all circumstances".

An enormous slogan outside the central leadership compound in central Beijing, boldly states: "Long live invincible Mao Zedong thought!"

Some cautioned that it may be too soon to write off Mao.

"This is just not possible," said Wang Zhengxu, a senior research fellow at University of Nottingham's School of Contemporary Chinese Studies in Britain, on speculation that Mao thought and Marxism-Leninism would be removed from the party's constitution.

Despite China's all-pervasive Internet censorship - "Mao Zedong" and "Mao Zedong Thought" are both blocked on microblog searches - some users were able to discuss the issue, with opinions split on the possible removal of Mao thought.

"Mao Zedong Thought is the soul of the People's Republic of China ... and it is a light leading people towards justice," wrote one user.

Still, Singapore's Zheng said Mao's vision had become irrelevant as many Chinese were apathetic about him. The doctrine could be de-emphasized in the amendment to China's constitution during the congress, he said.

"Only the left side cares about it," he said. "For most people, for the young generation, they don't care about it. The memory is gone."

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Ben Blanchard, Robert Birsel and Ron Popeski)

http://news.yahoo.com/china-hints-reform-dropping-maos-legacy-085508233.html

China's future captured in perfect lead paragraph/sentence

Thomas P. M. Barnett, 10/22/12

Here it is from a WSJ piece:

China's latest evidence of sputtering growth underlnes a dilemma for its incoming leaders: They can shore up the economy by doubling down on an exhausted growth model, or take a risky political bet on reforms that could worsen the slowdown in the short term

That not only captures where China is today (as in, this quarter), it basically captures where China is for the next decade or so. I mean, what happens to a "communist" party when the progressive era necessarily arrives?

Well, the first instinct is to try and run it yourself, maintaining single-party rule, but that's basically impossible. The pain meted out will create blowbacks, no matter whether you direct it at the "gilded age" elite or the increasingly demanding middle class or the decidedly put-upon working class. Worse, in the end, you'll need to disappoint them all on some level, which is where that throw-the-bums-out dynamic comes in handy: a party wins and does what is necessary, outlives its welcome, and then gets tossed. But in a sustainable progressive era, the opposition party that then comes in also does its bit, just tackling a different segment until its welcome is worn out. And so on.

That's how the US did it 1890 onward. When the Dems or GOP won, they won big and ruled big and changed big, and we got a much better country for it.

China lacks that ability due to the stultifying nature of single-party rule, which, contrary to our green-eyed fantasies, is NOT more agile or adept or bold or visionary in its leadership. Instead, it is self-preserving in the extreme. It's bread-and-circuses. It rules by fear and in fear of its own public.

The WSJ piece is all about giving more money to consumers and the "dangers" inherent to that process. It's a proxy description of the coming democratization of China, because giving money to consumers is giving decision-making power to the average citizen, versus hoarding it within the elite. It's the economic prelude to the democratic denouement.

China has already reached the democratizing point. I still believe it will muddle along with years before taking the plunge, in part because of that stultifying nature of single-party rule. If we're lucky, Xi Jinping will be a real leader, but even if he is, we'll most likely have to wait a good 5-7 years to see that turn out. That's how long it will take him to consolidate power as the evidence for the needed change piles up all around him.

And yes, those two dynamics are deeply intertwinned.

America's job? Don't provide any stupid excuses for Beijing to avoid facing their own realities.

The "strategic pivot" is just such an excuse, which tells me Obama and Co. don't really understand China.

Sad to say, Romney's answers are beyond stupid and have no chance of being implemented (thank God).

References (1)

References allow you to track sources for this article, as well as articles that were written in response to this article.

Source:

China's next leaders face growth dilemma

by Tom Orlik and Bob Davis at Wall Street Journal on October 19, 2012 (需訂閱)

http://thomaspmbarnett.com/globlogization/2012/10/22/chinas-future-captured-in-perfect-lead-paragraphsentence.html

As the name entails, A2/AD is strictly a defensive strategy. It should not matter to the U.S. unless the latter intends to invade or attack China.

Last I heard America is in decline. As far as I know, America may have the fantacy for invading China, but she does not have the strength nor the will to carry it out.

So, why does it matter?

-- A brief comment on the article by Mr.  H. Kazianis.

Why China's Anti-Access Strategy Matters

Harry Kazianis, 10/14/12

There is no greater threat to the United States in terms of strategic peer competitors than the capabilities of the People's Republic of China.

For over the past decade, China's military has developed capabilities that, broadly stated, attempt to slow, limit or deny a superior armed force from conducting threatening military operations. Termed Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD), such a strategy attempts to place a superior opponent on "the wrong side of physics." The combined military capabilities of diesel and nuclear submarines, mines, cyberwarfare, anti-satellite weapons and swarm attacks by ballistic and cruise missiles would be utilized in an advanced form of layered defense. Chinese strategists in most scenarios assume United States military forces would be the intended target.

Such a strategy is based on study of the last twenty plus years of warfare. Chinese strategists have paid special attention to the First Persian Gulf War. Chinese military planners were impressed but horrified to see Iraqi military forces destroyed through combined military operations, superior communications, and advanced American military technology. Chinese planners have also studied military operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Second Gulf War. They have decided to adopt military planning capable of waging "local wars under conditions of informatization."

China's A2/AD strategy is a central component of its geostrategic goals. Chinese planners have concluded "the first two decades of the 21st century as a ‘period of strategic opportunity' for China's growth and development. They assess that this period will include a generally favorable external environment, characterized by interdependence, cooperation and a low threat of major power war." China's leaders may have also theorized as the U.S. waged a "global war on terror" combined with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the first twenty years of this century would be a time where China could develop its overall A2/AD capabilities without pressing competition in the Asia-Pacific. As U.S. forces are now 'pivoting' or 'rebalancing' in the region, Chinese planners may decide to expedite the growth of their A2/AD capabilities.

One of the most troubling aspects U.S. armed forces must consider when devising strategies to deal with A2/AD challenges is the centrality of missile technology. Chinese Anti-Access strategy is by its very nature missile-centric. Chinese forces have stationed vast quantities of ballistic missiles ready to strike Taiwan if conflict were to occur. Chinese strategists have also developed battle plans to target U.S. carriers, supporting vessel's such as AEGIS missile defense ships and American and allied airfields. Such targets could be swarmed with missiles - leading to a debate over whether or not U.S. missile defenses would be adequate to counter such weaponry.

Particularly noteworthy is China's recent development of advanced anti-ship ballistic missile technology (ASBM), notably the DF-21D. Dubbed by popular media as a "carrier-killer," the weapon would be fired from a mobile truck-mounted launcher into the atmosphere, with assistance from over-the-horizon radar, satellite tracking and possibly unmanned aerial vehicles, with the warhead reaching a terminal velocity of Mach 10 to Mach 12. The system is thought to have a range of "over 1500km+."

Having a clear understanding of A2/AD tactics and strategy is of significant importance. Nations such as Iran, Syria and North Korea have made significant investments in developing A2/AD weaponry and have studied China's advances. Considering the financial costs of developing weaponry able to compete with U.S. forces in terms of numerical and technological superiority, anti-access weapons based on asymmetric tactics seem to be offer clear advantages. A firm understanding of such a strategy will be critical as U.S. military planners consider new procurement, strategic planning and force structure concepts in the years and months ahead with smaller budgets compared to the recent past.

Harry Kazianis is a WSD-Handa Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies: PACNET. He is also editor of The Diplomat.

http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2012/10/14/why_chinas_anti-access_strategy_matters_100285.html

上一篇貼文 -- 《中國前景難料》(China's Uncertain Path – J. Levine) – 所陳述下一任中國領導人及其團隊將面臨的一些議題中，有一些是大多數人都同意，而且也都認為相當嚴重。例如：全球經濟衰退所引起的經濟成長問題和可能導致的危機；近30年高成長帶來的人民對生活品質的期望與要求；中國一黨專政的制度能不能有效的進行必需落實的政治改造等等。

這些議題我也曾多次觸及。新一屆的中國領導班子必須解決這些問題來奠定中國「長治久安」的基礎，殆無疑義。不過，我不認為它們以及該文作者提到另外兩個議題的殺傷力有他與其他西方評論家想像的那麼不可補救。

我這個看法的根據是中國社會的「文化」和中國人口的「數量」不同於西方社會國家。前者會使中國人民的反應模式不同於西方人；後者會使這些議題的震撼度或殺傷力強度減低很多。我稱後者為「大塊頭理論」，也就是說，如果一個人的塊頭大，他/她能吸收或承受的能量或衝擊力比塊頭小的人要高。

中國社會或「文化」和西方社會不同的一個重要之處在「儲蓄」傾向。這一點很多經濟學家提到，也有統計數字為佐證。中國的人均GDP雖然很低，但人均「儲蓄值」遠高於寅吃卯糧的美國人。即使中國經濟成長遇到瓶頸，大多數中國人還有吃老本的能力與後路。這個特色可以讓中共領導人及其團隊比美國多個5 - 10年時間來「以拖待(全球經濟之)變」與調整適應。如果中共領導人及其團隊沒有能力執行必需的改造，中國前景自然難料。

民族主義也不會造成大問題。在5,000年中國文化薰陶下，大多數中國人都很世故或習於「自掃門前雪」。很少人或百分比很低的中國人會狂熱的為這個或那個「主義」走上街頭。做為一個政治藝術或工具，在處理「民族主義」議題上，積90年經驗的中共，應該能「收放自如」。

「人口老化」的確會導致生產力和其他許多社會與經濟議題。如作者指出，中國「文化」或中國人的生活方式培養了照顧自己家中老人的習慣或行為模式。雖然這種行為的比率在日漸減少中，但比起美、日，這個問題大概要到30或50年後才會成為嚴重的問題。在這之前，中國領導人有其他更迫切的議題需要解決，中國才有機會面對「人口老化」所導致的問題。

西方評論家的盲點在於他/她們使用西方政治/經濟學的「典範」或「思考模式」來看中國問題。我並不是「中國獨特地位」論者或「中國例外」論者。我只是認為，如果不考慮個別國家的文化或歷史，只是習於所見、囿於所聞的來觀察，往往流於霧裏看花、隔靴搔癢，或在深夜中以為所有自己看到的牛都是黑色的。

因此，如果新一屆的中國領導班子能了解中國在政治和經濟兩個層面都必須立即改弦更張，採取有效的因應調整來適應新的現實環境，我相信中共能夠順利完成第二次或「制度」面的「長征」。

China's Uncertain Path

Jonathan Levine, 10/12/12

With the announcement that November 8 will mark the official Chinese leadership transition, the country brings to a close what has at times been a painful process. The decennial communist ritual has been marred this year by a series of embarrassing scandals, including Bo Xilai’s fall from grace and the dismissal of a corrupt railways chief.

While China’s current lame-duck cadres do their best to mop things up before the big day, their woes of the last few months are only dress rehearsals for the far more consequential difficulties that will face the incoming leadership of president-“elect” Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. Over the next decade, China will have to grapple with a number of structural dilemmas, and the potential solutions go well beyond the current reforms. Whether the new leadership is up to the task remains an open question, but no one can deny that Mr. Xi will enter office next year with a very full plate.

Islands of Instability

In 1831, the underwater volcano Empedocles erupted off the coast of Sicily and resulted in the emergence of new island, Ferdinandea. But before the lava had even cooled, England, France, Spain and the Kingdom of Sicily had laid claim to the simmering rock, stoking waves of popular nationalism in the press. Conflict was only averted when erosion caused the fiery island to sink back into the sea. It is doubtful that China and its Asian neighbors will be so lucky in their island disputes.

As I have written before, China’s international actions over various disputed islands have caused a balancing coalition to form, which seems likely to become a long-term geopolitical headache for leaders in Beijing. But the islands’ effect on China’s domestic landscape may prove a much more profound predicament.

As popular protests convulsed the capital and major cities last month, the world saw firsthand one of China’s great demons: nationalism. The force of popular anger has toppled more than one government in China’s past. Today, rather than being an organic outgrowth, it has been harnessed by the Communist Party as a tool of statecraft, a straw man on an international scale. If the people’s rage can be kept simmering at Japan, the United States or Taiwan, it is less likely to be directed at the Communist Party—and its excesses.

However, nationalism is at best a double-edged sword and at worst puts the party in a straightjacket. China-Japan trade is an extensive $345 billion enterprise and recently the two nations marked (quietly) the fortieth anniversary of normalized relations. In short, heeding the angry calls of nationalists for economic boycott and worse would be catastrophic for China, especially as mounting evidence of economic slowdown has begun to emerge.

By creating nationalism and then ignoring it, leaders in Beijing open themselves up to charges of weakness. Mao and Deng, secure in their own command, could brush it off, but Beijing’s new technocrats are far less secure within China’s immature civil-military institutions. They are more vulnerable to the anger of the mob if they seek compromise. The end result is a Faustian choice where the only thing worse than ignoring the mob would be obeisance to it. Xi Jinping will have to navigate through this dilemma if he hopes to name his successor in 2022.

The End of the Miracle

Doomsayers have been predicting the end of China almost since the beginning of China as we know it in the late 1970s. They have been wrong for over thirty years, and those still predicting the elusive “hard landing” and subsequent collapse probably are still mistaken. However, that does not mean China’s growth will not slow down, perhaps considerably in the coming years. The last thirty years in China have been described as an economic miracle, and anyone on the ground can attest that this is no exaggeration. Yet it is very likely that we are at the end of the miracle, and that future Chinese growth, like that in all developing countries, will slow to lower and more sustainable levels.

The most salient factor in this slowing growth is China’s size. Unlike other nations that have experienced breakneck growth and then slowed—like Japan or Germany—China’s uniquely large population presents obvious difficulties. Germany’s population of around eighty million is roughly equivalent to the population of Sichuan Province, China’s fourth largest. All normal indicators must be adjusted for China’s vastness. As a result, even if China’s growth slows to 6 percent a year—still an enviable figure in any absolute sense—it would have the effect of creating a functional recession for a population long engorged on 10 percent growth and a skyrocketing standard of living.

The Chinese challenge is best summed up in a telling anecdote from Decision Points, the memoir of President George W. Bush, who recounted asking Chinese president Hu Jintao “what keeps him awake at night.” The Communist Party chairman did not need to think very hard. “Creating 25 million jobs a year,” he replied.

If Chinese economic growth cannot produce those jobs for the next generation, it will undermine the central argument for the Communist Party’s continued existence. The shotgun social contract—economic growth in exchange for one-party rule—could become untenable. Slowing global demand, slowing direct investment, a deflating housing bubble, immature financial instruments and bloated public spending are only the most apparent drags that the new Chinese leadership will have to ameliorate or accommodate going forward.

The Devil in Demography

U.S. policy makers look to the soon-to-be-retiring baby-boomer generation with nothing short of terror. Now on the cusp of an entitlement windfall, they are well on track to overwhelm the entire federal budget unless those programs are reformed. Yet as bleak as our situation is, the Chinese soon will confront the same problem on a scale of biblical proportions.

China’s one-child policy by some estimates may have prevented up to four hundred million births, but it has also brought the long-term fertility rate to historic lows. Today it is roughly 1.56, well below the rate of replacement of about 2.1, the size required to keep the population relatively constant. This has generated a vicious phenomenon known as 4:2:1—one child, two parents, four grandparents. Even with thirty years of supersonic growth, China is not wealthy enough to offset the effect of the avalanche of pensions and insurance claims that are on the horizon. As The Economist succinctly put it, China will become old before it becomes rich. For the youth, who are culturally enjoined to tend to their elders, it will be an enormous and lasting burden.

Much was made recently when China surpassed Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy as measured by overall GDP. Given China’s size, this milestone was inevitable, just as it is equally inevitable that China will one day surpass the United States by this metric. Lost in the weeds, however, was the real number that matters, GDP per capita. Here China is losing big. According to the CIA World Factbook, the United States and Japan, both of whom face rapidly aging societies, have GDPs per capita of $49,000 and $35,200. China, by contrast, languishes at $8,500. This translates to an individual living standard comparable to Bosnia or East Timor. In other words, Japan, despite its perennial hangover from the lost decade and its being on track to become the oldest society the world has ever known, will be more than capable of managing its aged, as will the United States. For China, this is far from certain.

Since Deng Xiaoping’s opening up and reform, the Chinese government and people have been consumed with two missions, undoing the damage wrought by Mao Zedong and making money. But as new generations emerge that have no firsthand recollection of Mao’s deprivations, this will not be enough. As Abraham Maslow famously posited in his “Hierarchy of Needs,” after food, water, shelter and basic physiological necessities are met, humans will demand more. Things such as safety, clean water and property rights begin to come to the fore. On top of mitigating all of the above challenges, Xi Jinping and his cadres will have to raise quality of life for their people as well, and in ways that are increasingly complicated and intangible.

China’s Communists face another long march—and this time it may be one they do not finish.

Jonathan Levine is a lecturer of American Studies and English at Tsinghua University in Beijing and a contributing analyst at Wikistrat, a geostrategic consulting group. You can follow him on Twitter at @LevineJonathan.

The Talk of China

Thomas L. Friedman, 09/15/12

HERE is the story of today’s China in five brief news items.

STORY NO. 1 For most of the last two weeks, Xi Jinping, the man tapped to become China’s new Communist Party leader, was totally out of sight. That’s right. The man designated to become China’s next leader -- in October or early November -- had disappeared and only resurfaced on Saturday in two photos taken while he was visiting an agricultural college. They were posted online by the official Xinhua news agency. With the Chinese government refusing to comment on his whereabouts or explain his absence, rumors here were flying. Had he fallen ill? Was there infighting in the Communist Party? I have a theory: Xi started to realize how hard the job of running China will be in the next decade and was hiding under his bed. Who could blame him?

Chinese officials take great pride in how they have used the last 30 years to educate hundreds of millions of their people, men and women, and bring them out of poverty. Yet, among my Chinese interlocutors, I find a growing feeling that what’s worked for China for the past 30 years -- a huge Communist Party-led mobilization of cheap labor, capital and resources -- will not work much longer. There is a lot of hope that Xi will bring long-delayed economic and political reforms needed to make China a real knowledge economy, but there is no consensus on what those reforms should be and there are a lot more voices in the conversation. Whatever top-down monopoly of the conversation the Communist Party had is evaporating. More and more, the Chinese people, from microbloggers to peasants to students, are demanding that their voices be heard -- and officials clearly feel the need to respond. China is now a strange hybrid -- an autocracy with 400 million bloggers, who are censored, feared and listened to all at the same time.

So Xi Jinping is certain to make history. He will be the first leader of modern China who will have to have a two-way conversation with the Chinese people while he tries to implement some huge political and economic reforms. The need is obvious.

STORY NO. 2 In March, Chinese authorities quickly deleted from the blogosphere photos of a fatal Beijing car crash, believed to involve the son of a close ally of President Hu Jintao. The car was a Ferrari. The driver was killed and two young women with him badly injured. “Photos of the horrific smash in Beijing were deleted within hours of appearing on microblogs and Web sites,” The Guardian reported. “Even searches for the word ‘Ferrari’ were blocked on the popular Sina Weibo microblog. ... Unnamed sources have identified the driver of the black sports car as the son of Ling Jihua, who was removed as head of the party’s general office of the central committee this weekend.” It was the latest in a string of incidents spotlighting the lavish lifestyles of the Communist Party elite.

Chinese authorities are so sensitive to these stories because they are the tip of an iceberg -- an increasingly corrupt system of interlocking ties between the Communist Party and state-owned banks, industries and monopolies, which allow certain senior officials, their families and “princelings” to become hugely wealthy and to even funnel that wealth out of China. “Marx said the worst kind of capitalism is a monopolistic capitalism, and Lenin said the worst kind of monopolistic capitalism is state monopolistic capitalism -- and we are practicing it to the hilt,” a Chinese Internet executive remarked to me.

As a result, you hear more and more that “the risks of not reforming have become bigger than the risks of reforming.” No one is talking revolution, but a gradual evolution to a more transparent, rule-of-law-based system, with the people having more formal input. But taking even this first gradual step is proving hard for the Communist Party. It may require a crisis (which is why a lot of middle-class professionals here are looking to get their money or themselves abroad). Meanwhile, the gaps between rich and poor widen.

STORY NO. 3 Last week, the official Xinhua news agency reported that authorities in the city of Macheng, in Hubei Province in central China, agreed to invest $1.4 million in new school equipment after photos of students and their parents carrying their own desks and chairs to school, along with their books, “sparked an outcry on the Internet. ... The education gap in China has become a hot-button issue.”

STORY NO. 4 President Hu Jintao suggested that it would be good if the people of Hong Kong learned more about the mainland, so Hong Kong authorities recently announced that they were imposing compulsory “moral and national education” lessons in primary and secondary schools. According to CNN, “the course material had been outlined in a government booklet called ‘The China Model,’ which was distributed to schools in July.” It described China’s Communist Party as “progressive, selfless and united” and “criticized multiparty systems as bringing disaster to countries such as the United States.” High school students from Hong Kong, which enjoys more freedom than the mainland as part of the 1997 handover from Britain, organized a protest against Beijing’s “brainwashing” that quickly spread to parent groups and universities. As a result, on Sept. 8, one day before local elections, Hong Kong’s chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, Beijing’s man there, announced the compulsory education plan was being dropped -- to avoid pro-Beijing candidates getting crushed.

STORY NO. 5 A few weeks ago, Deng Yuwen, a senior editor of The Study Times, which is controlled by the Communist Party, published an analysis on the Web site of the business magazine Caijing. According to Agence France-Presse, Deng argued that President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao “had ‘created more problems than achievements’ during their 10 years in power. ... The article highlighted 10 problems facing China that it said were caused by the lack of political reform and had the potential to cause public discontent, including stalled economic restructuring, income disparity and pollution. ‘The essence of democracy is how to restrict government power; this is the most important reason why China so badly needs democracy,’ Deng wrote. ‘The overconcentration of government powers without checks and balances is the root cause of so many social problems.’ ” The article has triggered a debate on China’s blogosphere.

This is just a sampler of the China that Xi Jinping will be inheriting. This is not your grandfather’s Communist China. After three decades of impressive economic growth, but almost no political reforms, there is “a gathering sense of an approaching moment of transition that will require a different set of conditions for Chinese officials to maintain airspeed,” observed Orville Schell, the Asia Society China expert. The rules are going to get rewritten here. Exactly how and when is impossible to say. The only thing that is certain is that it will be through a two-way conversation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/opinion/sunday/friedman-the-talk-of-china.html?_r=1

China is again at a fork in the road

Manoranjan Mohanty, 09/03/12

The Hu-Wen decade has been marked by impressive economic and diplomatic initiatives, but the socio-political record is mixed. Which way will the new Xi-Li leadership go?

The media focus on the dismissed leader of Chongqing, Bo Xilai, and his convicted wife Gu Kailai has been so extensive that adequate attention has not been paid to the political transition due to take place shortly at the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Unfulfilled goal

During the decade since CPC General Secretary, President Hu Jintao, and Premier Wen Jiabao came to power in 2002, China achieved many high points. Yet some of the major initiatives for which the Hu-Wen leadership would be remembered did not achieve their desired results. China confidently coped with the global economic crisis in 2008, and in 2010 it became the second largest economy in the world. China’s per capita income rose from $1000 in 2002 to over 2500 now. Many events such as the Beijing Olympics and astronauts in space missions were major achievements. But the distinction of this leadership was its attempt to reorient the strategy of fast economic growth to address the problems of social inequality, regional disparity, environmental pollution and increasing corruption under a programme of balanced, multi-dimensional development which Hu Jintao called “scientific outlook on development”. This came after Jiang Zemin’s call for building a ‘well-off society’ by 2020. Unfortunately, the market forces released by the 30 years of economic reforms were so strong and the Party’s method of using an authoritarian state apparatus was so effective in getting both the support of people at home and rising status in the world that the goal of this leadership largely remained unfulfilled.

One of the most important achievements of the Hu-Wen leadership was the smooth process of transition it has ensured. Political succession had seen tumultuous times before. After the Tiananmen Demonstrations in 1989, when Deng Xiaoping appointed Jiang Zemin as the leader, several principles were put into action. One was to choose relatively younger leaders, limit their five-year terms to two, make them retire at 70 and put them in position on the line of succession five years earlier. Thus Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang who are the likely successors to Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, were put in the Standing Committee of the Party Politbureau at the 17th Party Congress in 2007, and made Vice-President and Vice-Premier respectively in early 2008.

The Hu-Wen leadership’s record on building democracy is a matter of much debate. On the one hand, the leaders can be credited for maintaining a fairly stable polity that saw a prospering economy. This was in the face of labour strikes, ethnic riots and some 180,000 ‘mass incidents’ in 2010, most of which were peasant protests over transfer of land for commercial purposes. On the other hand, they have firmly ruled out adoption of western style multi-party democracy. In fact, during the last two years, some intellectuals had a discussion on an alternative model called Confucian democracy that puts in power “wise, benevolent, pro-people” rulers.

Small steps forward

The election of the 2,270 delegates to the Congress including 23 per cent women and 11 per cent minorities saw some small steps forward. The choice was widened and more youths were nominated. However, no woman or ethnic leader seems to be an obvious choice for the Standing Committee, with the possible exception of Liu Yandong, the only woman member in the outgoing Politburo. Fujian leader Sun Chunlan is a rising star.

After coming to power, the Hu-Wen leadership revived the old Maoist slogan of ‘serve the people’, called the anti-corruption campaign a matter of life and death for the party and pledged to promote human rights. In fact, the Charter of 2008 signed initially by 350 intellectuals was a landmark document pleading for that. But the repression of human rights activists and ethnic demonstrators in Xinjiang and Tibet continued.

At the same time, the regime launched a large number of programmes for the minority regions. The Western Region Development Strategy was continued from the Jiang Zemin period with more allocations. One of the flagship programmes of the Hu-Wen regime was the Building a New Socialist Countryside launched in 2006. The widening rural-urban gap — urban per capita income was over three times the rural — and massive migration to cities with nearly three hundred million floating population in the cities had created a major crisis. The new initiative aimed at investing more in rural infrastructure, agricultural technology and, above all, in health and education. But after the first flush of enthusiasm, its significance seems to have waned and only routine references are made in the annual reports and plan documents.

The Hu-Wen decade saw the ‘rise of China’ as a world power poised to overtake the U.S. economy by 2040. As a growing big power, China’s moves in the South China Sea, the vigorous acquisition of natural resources and markets in Africa and Latin America and its challenging of the U.S. position on many issues in the U.N. represent one trend. This was in tune with the massive display of nationalism by millions in the cyberspace. Deng Xiaoping’s advice that China should lie low in the world and bide for time may have run its course.

At a different level, China actively associated itself with many multilateral initiatives and worked together with the developing countries, including India, on issues of world trade and climate change. It has enthusiastically participated in the emergence of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as a new force for building a just and equitable world order. Thus the Hu-Wen leadership has constantly swung between two opposite tendencies — one pushing it to act as a big power with an eye on competing with the U.S. in every sphere, and the other working to end big power domination. In popular imagination, China is caught between the visions of G-2 and G-77. No doubt, as in other parts of the world, in China too there are people who acknowledge that humanity has entered a new historical phase in which hegemony in any form is challenged everywhere.

These contradictory pulls have been reflected in China-India relations during the past decade. There were new milestones created with the establishment of the ‘strategic and cooperative partnership’ between India and China and agreement on the political parameters guiding the process of settlement of the boundary question during Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India in 2005. The trade volume has increased steadily, reaching $74 billion in 2011, and exchanges in all possible spheres expanded vastly along with exchange visits by top leaders. At the same time, India seems to have receded in China’s strategic priorities in recent years. It is seen more in the context of the Chinese response to the new strategic line of the U.S. in forging its “Asian pivot” rather than a partner in its own rights.

‘Grandpa Wen’

As for the human face of the regime, the image of Premier Wen Jiabao standing on the rubble of school buildings during the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 or at the site of the High Speed Train accident in 2011 in Wenzhou will always be etched in the Chinese mind. While Hu Jintao, the ideologue, exhibited a stiff personality, smiling rarely, the charming Premier was fondly called Grandpa Wen by children. The two together successfully led China in a momentous decade and are all set to pass on the mantle to the Xi-Li leadership which has already been groomed to succeed them.

The composition of the next Standing Committee will be watched with great interest keeping two questions in mind. One is whether the Xi-Li leadership will reflect the Hu-Wen tilt towards equity and sustainability by deliberately scaling down the growth rate from 10 to 7.5 per cent in the XII Plan. Or would they rather give up such pretensions and resume the Jiang era focus on rapid growth? The other is the foreign policy line of the Jiang regime during 1989-2002 which was seen as being soft on the U.S. for obtaining western capital, technology and access to its market. The Hu-Wen regime was seen readjusting that policy, building up linkages with African and Latin American countries and playing tough with the U.S. on many issues such as on Syria.

(The author is Chairperson, Institute of Chinese Studies and Professor at Council for Social Development, New Delhi. E-mail: mmohantydu@gmail.com)

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article3851429.ece