General Secretary Xi Jinping has lost no
time in reassuring the world that his Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) administration will not only
persevere with reforms championed by late
patriarch Deng Xiaoping but also "initiate new
paths". Shenzhen, the special economic zone (SEZ)
that is synonymous with the country's 34-year-old
era of reform and the "open door" policy, was the
first city that Xi inspected after becoming party
chief and chairman of the Central Military
Commission on November 15.
While China's
intellectuals generally have responded positively
to Xi's early commitment to economic reform, many
doubt whether anything substantial will be
accomplished in the more controversial field of
political liberalization. The symbolism of Xi's
five-day visit to Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other Guangdong
cities is particularly
significant in light of widespread criticism in
the foreign press that the seven-man CCP Politburo
Standing Committee (PSC) is stacked with
conservatives, such as former vice-premier Zhang
Dejiang and former director of the CCP Propaganda
Department Liu Yunshan.
The Shenzhen SEZ
is not only the brainchild of Deng but also that
of Xi's father, Xi Zhongxun (1913 - 2002), the
late vice premier who was Guangdong governor and
party secretary from 1978 to 1981. A close ally of
reformist general secretary Hu Yaobang (1915 -
1989), Xi Zhongxun not only turned Guangdong into
an "experimental zone" for economic reform but
also was praised for his tolerant policies toward
outspoken intellectuals who criticized Chairman
Mao's excesses during the Cultural Revolution.
Guangdong Party Secretary Wang Yang
accompanied General Secretary Xi when he arrived
in Shenzhen on December 7. Xi underscored his
personal affiliation with the "ahead-of-the-times"
province by paying a brief visit to his
86-year-old mother, Qi Xin, who is a long-time
Shenzhen resident. At one stroke, Xi has laid
claim to being the successor of the CCP's
reformist wing that was once headed by luminaries
such as Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang and Xi Zhongxun.
On the second day of his visit, Xi laid a
wreath at the Deng Xiaoping Statue in Lotus Hill
Park.
"The reform and open-door policy
that the party central authorities decided upon
[in 1978] was correct," the 59-year-old supremo
told local cadres, "Henceforward, we will continue
down this correct path." Xi added, "Not only will
we unswervingly take the road that brings wealth
to the country and the people but we will also
break new ground." Xi also expressed his wish that
Shenzhen and Guangdong would "make an even bigger
contribution" to the reform enterprise.
As
though to underscore his status as Deng's heir, Xi
made it a point to see four long-retired officials
who had accompanied the Chief Architect of Reform
on his famous "Southern Tour" (nanxun) in
the summer of 1992. They included two former party
bosses of Shenzhen, respectively Wu Nansheng, aged
90, and Li Hao, aged 86, as well as the former
party boss of the nearly Zhuhai SEZ, Liang
Guangda, aged 77, and deputy secretary general of
the Guangdong Provincial Committee, Chen Kaizhi,
who is aged 72.
On December 9, Xi took
part in an economics-focused seminar with
Guangdong cadres as well as leading entrepreneurs
in the provincial capital of Guangzhou. The
discussion centered on how Chinese industry could
maintain its momentum in the face of the global
financial uncertainties and increasing competition
from emerging markets.
"We must resolutely
and unhesitatingly push forward systematic
innovation and technological innovation," he said,
"We must implement the strategy of using
innovation to drive development, and push forward
structural changes in economic development." The
party chief also repeated pledges made by other
leaders such as President Hu Jintao and Premier
Wen Jiabao about "deepening reform, perfecting the
systems of the market economy, changing the
functions of the government and strengthening rule
by law," which Xi summed up in this way:
The reforms will not stop and the
pace of opening up will not
slacken.
While Xi has given Chinese
citizens and the global audience no details
regarding what innovative measures his
administration is due to undertake, he and his PSC
colleagues have at least tried to boost the
transparency of the official functions of senior
cadres. The Politburo decided during its first
meeting on December 4 that top officials,
including PSC members, should minimize disruptions
to the public while performing public duties.
"Traffic controls should be decreased,"
the Politburo announcement said, "There should be
no sealing off of roads under general conditions.
Nor should [ordinary people] be barred from places
and buildings that [the cadres] are visiting".
Shenzhen and Hong Kong papers have
reported that many Shenzhen residents were able to
wave at, and occasionally even talk to, Xi from
surprisingly close distances. Moreover, although
it has been standard practice for the official
media not to release information about inspection
trips made by PSC members until after their
departure, photographs and brief reports of Xi's
Guangdong outing appeared in selected official
newspapers and websites not long after his arrival
in the southern province.
Chinese scholars
have given relatively affirmative appraisals to
Xi's nanxun. According to well-regarded
historian Zhang Lifan, Xi has departed from the
tradition of newly appointed general secretaries
making their first inspection trips to "red
revolutionary meccas", such as the Jinggangshan
guerrilla base in inland Jiangxi Province.
Zhang noted "Xi's trip is a gesture of
support for the line of reform and the open door."
Hu Xingdou, a scholar at the Beijing Institute of
Technology and a noted social critic, said he
viewed Xi's future moves with "guarded optimism."
Professor Hu said "It seems that both Xi Jinping
and [premier-in-waiting] Li Keqiang are firm
supporters of reform... Yet reform is not that
easy because of the constraints imposed by vested
interest groups. Just look at the fate of the
ambitious reforms introduced by Hu [Jintao] and
Wen [Jiabao] in 2003".
It is also
significant that Xi's nanxun took place in
the wake of at least three major post-18th
congress forums on reform that were organized by
the Caijing news group, the Hong Kong-registered
Bo Yuan Foundation and Beijing-based Reform
Journal. Participants included such nationally
renowned reformers as Hu Deping, the son of Hu
Yaobang; legal scholar Jiang Ping; and veteran
economist and government advisor Wu Jinglian.
Speaking at one of the conferences, Hu
Deping suggested the CCP could not afford to
further postpone political liberalization. "The
18th Party Congress has started a good trend [for
reform]" he pointed out, "Whether this trend will
continue depends on all of us." Renmin University
jurist Jiang Ping, who is often dubbed "the father
of China's legal reform", urged the new leadership
"to immediately build [political] institutions so
as to ensure the rule of law in society".
Wu Jinglian, a long-time advocate of
free-market forces, noted that the Xi leadership
had taken the first right step by "reinstating the
agenda of reform and getting ready the resumption
of reform". Wu pointed out that the administration
must speedily "complete the construction of a
competitive market economy". Wu added that in
light of the resistance of powerful interest
groupings, there also must be far-reaching
political and institutional reforms. He quoted
Deng's famous adage: "Economic reform cannot
succeed without political reform".
There
is no evidence that Xi's nanxun was
connected to these forums of the nation's leading
liberal intellectuals. Shortly before the
congress, however, he did seek the advice of
progressive officials and scholars such as Hu
Deping on the next step of reform. The marathon
"airing of views" (biaoti) by the nation's
most prominent public intellectuals also could be
interpreted as an effort to lobby the new
administration.
There are, however, very
few signs that significant steps are about to be
taken in the area of political reform. Take, for
instance, the treatment of party critics and
public intellectuals, which has remained a litmus
test of Beijing's commitment to liberalization. On
December 10, more than 100 petitioners and
Internet activists gathered outside the United
Nations office in Beijing to mark International
Human Rights Day. They were hustled away quickly
by the near-ubiquitous security personnel in the
capital. The spouses and relatives of dissidents
continue to be subject to frequent harassment and
24-hour surveillance.
After Liu Xia, the
wife of jailed Nobel Prizewinner Liu Xiaobo,
complained this month that she was living under
virtual house arrest; 15 Nobel laureates issued a
statement calling for the unconditional release of
the Liu couple. Late last month, Chen Guangfu -
the nephew of world-famous human rights lawyer
Cheng Guangcheng - was sentenced to three years in
jail for having injured a local official in his
Shandong province hometown. Chen Guangcheng, who
arrived in the United States in May after seeking
political asylum at the US Embassy in Beijing,
said in New York that his relative's imprisonment
was in effect a punishment for himself.
Nor is it likely that Beijing's tough
tactics toward Tibet and Xinjiang will be relaxed
soon. Xinhua reported in early December that a
Sichuan-based monk and his nephew were arrested
for allegedly instigating the self-immolation of
eight Tibetans in the western province. The
detained monk, Lorang Konchok, who lives in the
predominantly Tibetan county of Aba, was accused
of "colluding" with the Dalai Lama's exiled
government.
Little progress is seen even
regarding the relatively limited goal of building
viable institutions to curb corruption, which
former general secretary Hu Jintao referred to
last month as "a matter of life and death for the
party and state". Perhaps to underscore its
commitment to nabbing so-called "tigers among
corrupt cadres", the Central Disciplinary
Inspection Commission (CDIC) - China's
highest-level graft-busting office, which is
headed by new PSC member Wang Qishan - swung into
action immediately after the Party Congress by
detaining the Deputy Party Secretary of Sichuan,
Li Chuncheng, for alleged "economic crimes".
Moreover, the disgraced former Politburo member Bo
Xilai, who will be put on trial early 2013 for
alleged crimes including corruption, is expected
to get a hefty jail term.
There are,
however, few indications that the CDIC is about to
put into place regulations and institutions to
combat graft. A long-standing proposal that all
senior cadres must publicly disclose their assets
- as well as those of their spouses and children -
has remained on the drawing board. Other measures
such as empowering the media to expose the
business activities of princelings - the children
of senior cadres and party elders - also are
unlikely to be adopted.
As legal scholar
Jiang Ping noted, the window of opportunity for
political reform is getting narrower by the day.
Jiang pointed out that the past five years
amounted to a "golden juncture" for rolling out
real reforms. "Yet it is most disappointing that
nothing much was done" by the Hu-Wen
administration, Jiang said.
He added that
the next five years would be critical for the
future of reform and the fate of the nation. Jiang
warned "If this opportunity is lost again, the
future of China will be in very dire straits". The
onus is on Xi and his PSC colleagues to
demonstrate whether they have what it takes to be
the worthy successors of the Great Architect of
Reform.
Dr Willy Wo-Lap Lam is a
Senior Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation. He has
worked in senior editorial positions in
international media including Asiaweek
newsmagazine, South China Morning Post, and the
Asia-Pacific Headquarters of CNN. He is the author
of five books on China, including the recently
published Chinese Politics in the Hu Jintao
Era: New Leaders, New Challenges. Lam is an
Adjunct Professor of China studies at Akita
International University, Japan, and at the
Chinese University of Hong Kong.
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