[For his
part, Mr. Xi, introducing himself to the American public, will showcase a
down-home personality in contrast to that of China China
By Michael Wines and Edward Wong
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Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Vice President Xi Jinping and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
near Chengdu, China, last year.
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But none is more important — and for now, more opaque —
than the question of where Mr. Xi and the next generation of leaders want to
take China’s economy, which is still growing rapidly but shows signs of stress
and structural instability, economists say.
Mr. Xi’s cross-country swing, from Washington Iowa Los Angeles China China United States
In meetings with Mr. Xi at the White House on Tuesday, a
stock list of economic demands — that China lower barriers to American
investment, build a consumer-driven economy that would buy more American
imports and allow the renminbi to rise against the dollar more
quickly — seems likely to dominate Mr. Obama’s side of the conversation,
according to officials in Washington.
For his part, Mr. Xi, introducing himself to the American
public, will showcase a down-home personality in contrast to that of China China
There is a longer-term debate about reforms going on even
now, however. In recent months, some Communist Party elites have privately
debated the necessity of those reforms with renewed vigor; some of the
discussion has crept into public discourse, and there are a growing number of
attacks by intellectuals and former officials on what they call the “vested
interests” that threaten to take China
But the delicacy of the leadership transition and the
structural limits on Mr. Xi’s authority, particularly in his first five-year
term in office, would hamper attempts by him or his colleagues to push reforms
even if they are inclined to do so.
He and a new leadership team are set late this year to
inherit a quasi-market economy geared above all else to generate fast growth.
The state-owned industries that have ballooned in size, the
coastal provinces that have grown rich on exports, the local governments that
have reaped billions from land sales and poured billions more into building
glittering cities — all have interests in that economic policy. Economists
agree that reforms are needed to land ownership, the social welfare system and
the financial sector, and that China
The big state corporations, in particular, have gained
political clout alongside their wealth. They have monopolies on the most
important industries — banking, oil, aviation, construction, telecommunications
— and they maintain close ties to the top party officials. Two former
executives of mammoth oil and machinery companies sit on the current Standing
Committee of the Politburo, the nine-member body that essentially runs China
The officials expected to take posts on the Standing
Committee this October all have ties of some kind to the heads of state
enterprises; for example, Wang Qishan, who is seen as relatively liberal on
economic policy, was a top state bank executive himself. Corporate executives
regularly rotate into top provincial posts, and still more sit on the Communist
Party’s Central Committee.
“If the new leadership can crack down or curtail these
companies, they will score well with the public. But those interest groups are
very powerful,” Cheng Li, a scholar of elite Chinese politics at the Brookings
Institution in Washington
So, say some, is the risk of doing nothing. Concern has
mounted in some quarters of the party — and anger among citizens — over the
emergence of a powerful and privileged elite. Cynics have coined the phrase
“black collar” to describe the big-city titans and government elites who wear
expensive black suits and invariably drive black luxury automobiles, often
flouting traffic and speed laws.
There was a notable lack of discussion of new economic
reforms at the party’s annual economic work conference in December, where Mr.
Hu focused only on talk of stability, according to an editor at a party
newspaper.
But in at least five private forums organized by the
children of Communist revolution elites last year in Beijing
Much about Mr. Xi points to a person who, by the standards
of current leaders, will be comparatively progressive. Unlike the parochial Mr.
Hu, Mr. Xi, 58, is well-traveled and intimately familiar with the West. His
daughter attends Harvard, and he is said to enjoy Hollywood
films about World War II. (Mr. Hu is said to be a
Russophile.)
Mr. Hu, a onetime hydroelectric power technician, worked his way up
through jobs in China China China
Some experts say that the background and the histories of China
“These people got their college education in the honeymoon
years of reform and opening up, in 1977 and 1978 when the country was just
beginning to be transformed,” said Li Daokui, an economist and adviser to China
But Mr. Xi’s voice, while influential, will be just one of
many in China
Mr. Wang has deep ties with China
Mr. Li’s views are unclear, but he served earlier as
governor of the central province
of Henan China
But some party elites have criticized Mr. Li as ineffectual
and reluctant to challenge vested interests in those sections.
Whatever their views, major policy changes will have to run
a gantlet of scrutiny — and potential opposition — by a new Politburo and other
Communist Party powers, including Mr. Hu, who, like his predecessors, is
expected to still play a signature role.
And the changes are unlikely to be swift. Many near-term
economic policies have already been laid out in the party’s latest five-year
plan, unveiled last year. Until Mr. Xi manages to fill important jobs with his
own allies, a process that will take years, Mr. Hu’s economic blueprint will be
the guide.
For some years to come, Mr. Hu is going to be “an overlord,”
one economist who has advised party leaders said in an interview late last
year. “If Xi has any hope, it’s in his second term” — that is, the last five
years of his expected decade-long stint as president.
