Leadership Transition:

• Tao-Bao (涛宝): Playing on the name of the online shopping site Taobao, this is a term of endearment for Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. See the “prime minister and chairman edit” of Fish Leong‘s “Sadly, It’s Not You” below.
• Chief Xi (席总): 席 Xí sounds the same as 习 Xí, as in Xi Jinping.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Chengdu Construction Woes: Chengdu Party Secretary Huang Xinchu has undertaken major construction in the city, snarling traffic, stirring up dust, and irking residents.
• Digger Huang (黄挖挖): A nickname for Huang Xinchu. Coincidentally, “Digger Huang” (黄挖挖 Huáng Wāwā) sounds similar to “Baby Huang” (黄娃娃 Huáng Wáwa).
• Huang WW (黄WW)
• Huang Xinchu + end class (黄新初+下课): Netizens are complaining about Huang; some hope he will “leave the classroom” and step down from his post.
• Pengzhou + petrochemical industry (彭州+石化): An oil refinery project is already complete in nearby Pengzhou.

All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.

Browse all of CDT’s collected sensitive words in this bilingual Google spreadsheet.

CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words post.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Chengdu, Chengdu PX, Hu Jintao, Huang Xinchu, Internet censorship, leadership transition, Ministry of Truth, Sensitive Words Series, taobao, weibo, Wen Jiabao, Xi Jinping
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Those outside China will look to Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi to understand China’s stance on a host of international issues. However, they might not receive clear answers.

“Chinese foreign policy has been criticised domestically because it looks like China has been very weak in dealing with hot issues,” explains Su Hao, professor of foreign affairs studies at the China University of Foreign Affairs.

“But internationally, China has been accused of being arrogant. Terms like ‘assertive’ and ‘aggressive’ are used to describe China’s foreign policy.”

Perhaps that is the toughest task faced by Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi: they must present China’s foreign policy on the international stage, even if, at times, they played a limited role in making those decisions.

Zheng Wang, an associate professor at Seton Hall University and a public policy scholar, says the position that foreign policy occupies in the Chinese government is still very low. From The New York Times:

However, neither Mr. Yang, who will continue to oversee foreign relations, nor Mr. Wang, the new foreign minister, is among the 25 members of the Politburo — the power center of Chinese politics.

None of the seven members of the even more powerful Politburo Standing Committee — which includes Mr. Xi and the new prime minister, Li Keqiang — is a foreign policy expert, though one of them, Wang Qishan, has worked closely with the last two Treasury secretaries of the United States, Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Timothy F. Geithner, in coordinating the response to the global economic crisis of 2007-8.

China watchers have a tendency to overstate the sophistication of Beijing’s foreign policy and ambitions, but the truth is that China’s foreign policy is highly deficient. While the outsiders often see China as a rising giant and a threat, Chinese leaders are in fact largely nervous and insecure, uncertain of how to manage, both at home and abroad, the inevitable tensions that arise from their nation’s rapid ascent on the world stage. For the newly “elected” leaders, their first challenge would be how to fill the foreign policy vacuum and how to solve the country’s choice between nationalism and globalism.

The new Chinese leadership will be tempted to please its domestic base by adopting more nationalistic foreign policies. China has many domestic troubles, from corruption to a slowing economy. However, the new leaders have to make sure that they fully understand the consequences of China’s heading down a path of nationalism.

Another article from The New York Times provides more details on China’s new foreign policy team. The officials’ records seem to suggest that China wants to secure its position in Asia:

As foreign minister, Mr. Yang often pushed a hard line on policy toward the United States. And on the eve of his new appointment, he suggested that Washington should play a lesser role in discussions among nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

“Asia-Pacific issues should be discussed and dealt with by the countries of the region themselves,” he said at a news conference on March 9, a reference that was interpreted by Asian diplomats as meaning that the United States should stay out.

The new foreign minister is Wang Yi, a diplomat experienced in Asian affairs who was China’s ambassador to Japan from 2004 to 2007. Mr. Wang, until recently in charge of the Taiwan portfolio, does not have much experience with the United States, but American officials know him from his role in leading six-party talks on North Korea during the administration of President George W. Bush.

“Wang Yi is of the school that does not see China’s future on the Korean Peninsula yoked to North Korea,” said Victor D. Cha, a former director of Asian affairs for the National Security Council in the Bush administration, who participated in the talks.

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: foreign minister, foreign policy, leadership transition, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wang yi, Yang Jiechi
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Peng, 50, is known for singing soaring patriotic songs in praise of the Communist Party, often while clad in glittering floor-length ball gowns and occasionally in Chinese ethnic minority costume (think Barbra Streisand in Native American garb). She was born in Shandong province, enrolled at Shandong University of Art and Design at age 14, and joined the People’s Liberation Army in 1980, at 18. In 1986 she married Xi Jinping. Her daughter, Xi Mingze, was born in 1992 and stays invisible too (she studies at Harvard under an assumed name).

[...] Fast-forward to now: the Financial Times just reported that Peng will not only accompany Xi to the BRICS summit in Durban, South Africa, this month, but will speak there. “She can help China build soft power,” said a source in the piece. Peng also became a Goodwill Ambassador for tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS—a controversial subject in China—for the World Health Organization last year and won a splashy $160,000 China Arts Award in December.

[...] Pressure is on for the CCP to burnish its image. Overly outsize stars within—or married to—the party can be reined in, but society at large is developing a celebrity culture, and that’s a threat too. More and more, people look up to leaders from business, pop culture, and the Internet. Alibaba founder Jack Ma inspires Steve Jobs–like reverence in China. Real-estate tycoon Zhang Xin is affiliated with the World Economic Forum and the Council on Foreign Relations and is becoming a thought leader. And the rabid following behind Li Yang, founder of Crazy English, is downright cultlike.

See also Is Xi’s Wife a New Kind of First Lady?, via CDT.

See more on Peng Liyuan via CDT.

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Post tags: AIDS activism, leadership transition, Peng Liyuan, PLA, soft power, Xi Jinping
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Browse the first and second installments in this photo series, or read the latest on the Two Sessions from CDT.

Translation by Liz Carter and Anne Henochowicz.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: leadership transition, NPC 2013, photo gallery, Song Zuying, Xi Jinping, Yang Chuantang, Yang Jiechi
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“Hen na gaijin” raises the issue of the South China Sea. How likely is a clash over territorial disputes there or the East China Sea?

The danger is not of a strategic decision but of a mistake – a miscalculation, an error, a clash – and that danger gets larger as more vessels crowd into a confined space. Importantly, it can be said that Chinese leaders, even the more hawkish wing, do not actively seek a conflict simply because the Party’s operating principle is to control – and a conflict, by definition, has too many variables it cannot control. The Party knows that one of the few things more destabilizing than a conflict would be a conflict in which it loses.

At the Sydney Morning Herald, John Garnaut offers an explanation for Beijing’s willingness to risk such a conflict. According to sources said to be close to new president Xi Jinping, the stand-off has served as a means for Xi to consolidate his standing within the military, akin to Deng Xiaoping’s 1979 invasion of Vietnam.

“To sort the horses from the mules you need to walk them around the yard,” said the friend.

[…] A second associate of Mr Xi, a retired officer who is the son of one of the People’s Liberation Army’s top commanders, said pushing the PLA onto a war-footing – even an artificial one – was the first and most important stage in his consolidation of political power.

[…] The associates of Mr Xi say the dispute is moving into a less dangerous phase following his successful demonstration of military authority and his appointment as President on Thursday, which was the third and final of his formal leadership titles.

[…] Few believe a senior Chinese leader would deliberately trigger a war, as Deng did with Vietnam after securing a green light from Washington. But Mr Xi’s mobilisation of the military for war preparations may have served a similar purpose.

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Post tags: Deng Xiaoping, diaoyu islands, east china sea, leadership transition, People's Liberation Army, PLA, Sino-Vietnamese War, South China Sea, Xi Jinping
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As delegates in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing applauded on Friday, Li stood up, bowed and shook hands with Xi Jinping, who was named as China’s new president on Thursday, and his predecessor Wen Jiabao.

Li received 2,940 votes out of 2,949 cast, a 99.69 percent vote share, slightly lower than Xi’s.

“I announce that comrade Li Keqiang has been chosen as premier of the People’s Republic of China,” said Yan Junqi, a vice-chairwoman of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament.

Li becomes the country’s first premier with an economics doctorate, according to Bloomberg News, “expertise he may need” as China seeks to restructure a growth model that has begun to stumble. Similarly, The Associated Press repots that China’s new top leaders now face a number of internal challenges:

An increasingly vocal Chinese public is expressing impatience with the government’s unfulfilled promises to curb abuses of power by local officials, better police the food supply and clean up the country’s polluted rivers, air and soil.

“What do ordinary people care about? Food safety, and smog if you are in a big city, and official corruption,” said the prominent Chinese author and social commentator Murong Xuecun, the pen name of author Hao Qun. “They just want to have a peaceful, stable and safe life. To have money and food, and live without worry of being tortured, or having their homes forcefully demolished.”

“The entire country is watching for Xi’s next step,” the writer said.

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Post tags: CCP 5th generation, ccp leadership, leadership transition, Li Keqiang, NPC 2013, Xi Jinping
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See more photos in the series here. Follow the latest news from the Two Sessions here.

Via CDT Chinese. Translation by Liz Carter.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: leadership transition, NPC 2013, photo gallery
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Leadership changes in China are thrashed out behind closed doors through horse-trading between new leaders and outgoing or retired leaders anxious to preserve their influence and protect family interests, but reshuffles must go through a choreographed selection process.

Two other sources, who declined to be identified because it is sensitive to discuss elite politics with foreign media, also confirmed that Xi had decided to make Li his vice president rather than Liu.

The National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, will vote in Xi and Li as president and vice president respectively on March 14. Li Keqiang, the party’s new No.2 official, will succeed Wen Jiabao to become premier and oversee the economy and day-to-day running of the cabinet.

[...]

“It was Xi’s decision and a sign he is strong and able to say ‘no’ to Jiang,” the source told Reuters

Reuters adds that Li’s promotion may also indicate Xi’s willingness to pursue limited reforms. But while he has taken steps to increase the inefficiency and tone down the extravagance of the Chinese government, and even said that the government should tolerate “sharp criticism”, a leaked speech from December also dampened expectations of more substantive political reforms.

Noted political theorist Wu Jiaxiang, however, is keeping the faith that Xi can deliver on reform expectations. From an interview with Hong Kong’s Yazhou Zhoukan, via the China Media Project:

YZZK: Those internal speeches by Xi Jinping have created a lot of dissatisfaction. How do [you] view this?

Wu Jiaxiang: My guess is that this is about [addressing] a sense among some prominent old politicians that says basically, look, this Xi Jinping cares only about Deng Xiaoping, he has no use for us — he denies Mao Zedong, he doesn’t mention Jiang Zemin, he talks even less about Hu Jintao. I believe Xi Jinping’s speech at the Central Party School already marked a major compromise, a huge back-step in comparison to how much Deng Xiaoping was willing to give. Deng Xiaoping essentially yielded nothing to the Cultural Revolution faction. Xi Jinping made this [compromise] because he recognised the fact that the Cultural Revolution faction had already made a comeback, that, moreover, this comeback was quite substantial, like a bunch of walking dead if you will. Faced with this situation, how could a General Secretary who has just come to power declare war against these monsters?

A wise politician won’t declare war before they’ve even managed to accomplish something. [Xi Jinping] has a major strategic consideration, and that is to first ensure that this year’s meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference proceed smoothly. If he didn’t compromise, this would instantly drive a major wedge in the Party. The ripples would run across the internet and through the Party ranks. So Xi Jinping must seek the greatest common denominator. He must find broad consensus — and that comes on the issue of the past thirty years of reform, which no side rejects outright.

[...] It might be that he talks about some things he won’t necessarily do. He may also do things he doesn’t necessarily talk about. There may also be things he’s thinking about that he can neither say nor do. This administration is like an iceberg, and right now we see maybe one-eighth. There are still seven-eighths we haven’t seen yet.

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Post tags: CCP 5th generation, Jiang Zemin, leadership transition, Li Yuanchao, Liu Yunshan, NPC 2013, reform, Xi Jinping
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Follow the latest news from the Two Sessions here.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chen Guangbiao, Hu Jintao, Jia Qinglin, leadership transition, Mao Xinyu, NPC 2013, photo gallery, PM2.5, Wen Jiabao, Xi Jinping, yao ming
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Mr. Yang is likely to succeed Dai Bingguo as state councilor responsible for foreign affairs—the country’s top diplomatic position—according to Chinese foreign-policy scholars and diplomats in Beijing. Among his most pressing challenges will be managing relations with Washington and coordinating the behavior of interest groups such as the military and state-owned enterprises, which have become important foreign-policy actors but at times drive conflicting agendas.

Mr. Yang’s expected appointment suggests to many analysts and diplomats a continuation of recent trends in China’s diplomacy, characterized by a more assertive approach, especially to territorial issues, that has raised tensions with several of its neighbors and the U.S. That approach has been attributed partly to the lack of a foreign policy specialist on the Party’s Politburo—the country’s top 25 leaders—for the last decade. That body includes two generals, several local government leaders, and many people from state industry backgrounds, all of whom have vested interests in foreign policy.

…

Mr. Yang is likely to be replaced as foreign minister by Wang Yi, a former ambassador to Japan, according to diplomats and Chinese foreign-policy experts.

While the promoted officials include former ambassadors to the U.S. and Japan, do the appointments signal a change in Beijing’s approach to relations with its key rivals? For Foreign Policy, Willy Lam ponders what we can expect from Xi Jinping’s personnel changes:

In China, major policies on diplomacy and national security are made not by the Foreign Ministry but by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Leading Group on Foreign Affairs, which General Secretary Xi Jinping heads. Members of this top-level interdepartmental organ include representatives from the Foreign Ministry, the army, and the Ministry of State Security, as well as departments handling energy and foreign trade. But two Beijing sources close to the foreign-policy establishment say that Xi, who doubles as commander-in-chief of the military, has given the generals — many of them fellow princelings, the offspring of party elders — a bigger say in national-security issues than his predecessor Hu Jintao.

At least in terms of symbolism and atmospherics, however, the new diplomatic trio could take a more flexible approach to tackling the most worrying flashpoint in Asia: China and Japan’s ferocious wrangling over the sovereignty of a group of islets called the Diaoyu in China and the Senkakus in Japan.

Given widespread perception within the party leadership that the intensification of the U.S.-Japan defense alliance — which applies to the Senkakus — is a centerpiece of Washington’s pivot to Asia, the personnel changes in Beijing could also affect the style, if not the substance, of how the party will pursue relations with the United States.

…

It is important to note, however, that whatever changes in style and orientation the trio’s appointment may portend do not necessarily signal a de-escalation of Beijing’s increasingly ferocious saber rattling. The generals appear to overwhelmingly favor bellicosity — they have enthusiastically echoed Xi’s repeated calls over the past two months for China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to “get ready to fight well and to win wars.” Gen. Wei Fenghe, who is commander of China’s missile forces, said in February that the PLA must “improve its war-fighting skills” and “it must fulfill the task of winning wars.” And recent commentary in People’s Liberation Army Daily, a military newspaper, argued that the Chinese military must rid itself of “peacetime inertia and other [bad] habits accumulated over a prolonged period of peace.” Popular military commentator Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, who in April 2012 called for a limited war to “punish” the Philippines for allegedly occupying Chinese territories in the South China Sea, even suggested in a January 2013 interview with Chinese state media that China “must raise its guard against stealthy [military] attacks launched by other countries.” Even as diplomats such as Fu Ying, the vice foreign minister in charge of Asia, have reiterated Beijing’s commitment to “peaceful development” in global affairs, China has increased the frequency of its “patrol” of the Diaoyu-Senkakus by marine surveillance and other quasi-military vessels.

In a contribution to CNN, Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt dismisses the notion that “the new team will ease up” in its approach to foreign policy and regional territorial disputes:

As the National People’s Congress opened in Beijing, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Fu Ying warned that the country had sent an “important signal” to the region that it would respond “decisively” to provocations on territorial disputes.

That means we can expect Beijing to continue with its “reactive assertiveness” foreign policy tactic. China has perfected this approach in its ongoing maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas.

The approach allows Beijing to use perceived provocations as a chance to change the status quo in its favor — all the while insisting the other party started the trouble.

In Beijing’s eyes, it is a means of satisfying domestic pressure for a tougher foreign policy to match its economic might, all while trying to cling to the mantra of peaceful development. But this juggling act does not always work, and a number of countries in the region are giving up on the notion of a peacefully rising China.

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Post tags: diplomacy, Japan, leadership transition, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, territorial disputes, United States, wang yi, Xi Jinping, Yang Jiechi
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The upcoming NPC meeting will give the newly empowered Xi-Li duo a chance to reveal their objectives and new administration. Since being granted their power at the 18th Party Congress in November of last year, pledges have been made to crackdown on corruption and limit extravagance in the party, curb the nation’s massive pollution problem through green energy policies, and deepen economic reform. A piece from Bloomberg Businessweek comprehensively outlines what is to be expected at the NPC, noting that the nation Xi and Li inherit is much different than it was when Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao convened the 10th NPC as new leaders a decade ago:

As they try to deliver on [their] promises, Xi and Li face an unprecedented level of public scrutiny, with China’s online community expanding more than eight-fold since their predecessors took power 10 years ago. At stake is their ability to maintain the ruling Communist Party’s legitimacy as it adjusts to slower economic growth after an average of 10.5 percent expansion over the past decade.

“Xi and Li take over a nation characterized by far more large-scale corruption, inequality of wealth and environmental degradation than was the case a decade ago,” said Kenneth Lieberthal, director of the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center. “The population is now demanding that the government treat it with greater respect.”

[...]China’s citizens have used the Internet to increasingly express discontent over issues from pollution to graft to income disparities. China added 51 million web users last year to bring the total to 564 million, underscoring the challenge faced by Xi and Li in ensuring the government’s message remains dominant.

As the party holds supreme power in the PRC, real policy decisions are usually made at plenary meetings of the CCP’s central committee, while the NPC (with help from the mass media) has acted more as a mechanism to guide public opinion. However, Brookings scholar Cheng Li thinks that the upcoming NPC will have more policy implications than in the past. Wall Street Journal reports:

First, there is a sense of urgency on the part of Mr. Xi to lift public confidence by initiating major policy changes, especially to please the middle class and to do so now rather than waiting another seven months.

Second, Mr. Xi is now in his “honeymoon period,” and he should cash in his political capital to carry out new policies promptly.

Third, in contrast to the previous 10 years when there was often policy deadlock resulting from the factional infighting of the top leadership, Mr. Xi now has a six-to-one concentration of power in the Politburo Standing Committee — a great advantage that should allow him to do substantive things .

And fourth, Li Keqiang is under tremendous pressure to demonstrate his leadership ability. Evidence seems to suggest Messrs. Xi and Li understand very well their need to support each other. Their different policy preferences can also complement each other, resonating well in different sectors and with different classes throughout the country.

In the lead-up to the NPC, there have been attempts to urge leaders into addressing sensitive topics at the NPC. Deutsche-Welle reports on an open letter calling for China to ratify a UN human rights treaty; and Channel News Asia notes that, after much public discussion and media coverage, the controversial re-education through labor system may be discussed.

For more on the soon-to-be-complete leadership transition, see Patrick Chovanec’s perpetually helpful primer, which includes an overview of the separation of powers in China.

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Post tags: leadership transition, Li Keqiang, National People's Congress, NPC, NPC 2013, two sessions, Xi Jinping
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Pictionary Curse: Fish (鱼 yú) plus veggie chicken (素鸡 sùjī) plus 7-Up (七喜 Qīxǐ) may sound like it equals a delicious meal, but in Shanghai dialect, it spells “Go die, Secretary Yu.” This and many images like it have been pulled off the Internet.

As of December 25, the following search terms are blocked on Sina Weibo (not including the “search for user” function):

Studies in Leadership: Xinhua launched a profile series of China’s new central leadership this Sunday, showcasing the human side of incoming president Xi Jinping and Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) members Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, and Yu Zhengsheng. Netizens are going after the egregious Photoshopping of Li Keqiang, glaring omissions from Yu Zhengsheng’s story, and an outlandish statement attributed to Zhang.

- Li Keqiang + PS (李克强+PS): “PS” can mean “Photoshop” or “to Photoshop.” A 2004 image of Li accompanying his profile is clearly Photoshopped.
- Xinhua + PS (新华社+PS)
- Yu Zhengsheng + older brother (俞正声+哥哥): Yu Qiangsheng’s defection to the United States in 1986 has become a hot topic following the release of the Yu Zhengsheng profile.
- Yu Zhengsheng + family (俞正声+家族)
- Veggie chicken (素鸡): “Fish Veggie Chicken” emerged as a nickname for Yu Zhengsheng during his tenure as Party secretary of Shanghai. The nickname alludes to “Secretary Yu” (俞书记) pronounced in a Shanghai accent. “Fish Veggie Chicken” was first blocked in early September, when word that Yu could be nominated to the PSC began to circulate.
- Zhang Dejiang + power car (张德江+动车): Power cars are used in high-speed trains. The Xinhua profile of Zhang states that after the July 2011 high-speed rail crash in Wenzhou, Zhang “gave a clear instruction that no one should bury the wreckage.”

Church of Almighty God: Authorities continue the crackdown on this cult, which saw a resurgence of activity around Mayan “Doomsday” predictions.
- Almighty God (全能神)
- Real God (实际神)
- Eastern Lightening (东方闪电)

Other:
- seven Standing Committee members (七常委)
- often atrophy (常萎 cháng wěi): Sounds the same as “Standing Committee members” (常委)
- long atophy (长萎): Same as above.
- elders (长老): Refers to the PSC.
- River Elegy (河殇): The groundbreaking 1988 CCTV documentary about the decline of Chinese civilization.

All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.

CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words post. 

You can see all of CDT’s collected sensitive words in this bilingual Google spreadsheet.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, church of almighty god, filtered keywords, high-speed rail crash, Internet censorship, leadership transition, Li Keqiang, Ministry of Truth, Photoshop, Politburo Standing Committee, River Elegy, Sensitive Words Series, sina weibo, weibo, Xinhua, Yu Qiangsheng, Yu Zhengsheng, zhang dejiang
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This October, China’s Eighteenth National Congress ushered in a new generation of leaders that will set the agenda for the second-largest economy in the world, provoking myriad questions about what we’ll see out of the country in the coming year. CFR’s Adam Segal predicts continued international concern for China’s cyber policy, while CFR’s Elizabeth C. Economy weighs its challenges of keeping “foreign policy front and center” against a heavy list of domestic concerns. Claremont McKenna’s Minxin Pei adds that China will be forced to respond to calls for greater political openness, facing a delicate balancing act. CFR’s Yanzhong Huang points out that despite China’s highly publicized health-care achievements, reform hasn’t fundamentally solved the problem of access and affordability.

Since Xi Jinping took the reins as CCP general secretary, domestic policy has been front and center: we have seen a symbolic trip to the south emphasize the leader’s commitment to economic reform, and have heard the powerful princeling identify the eradication of party corruption as a major policy goal. Also in question are the prospects for political reform – potentially divisive as the influence of previous party leadership lingers. A reform-minded new leader and an anti-corruption campaign both made Sinocism curator Bill Bishop’s list of “8 Trends to Keep an Eye On” in 2013, published at the NY Times’ Dealbook blog:

NEW LEADER Xi Jinping has moved quickly in his first three weeks to project an image of change. The government faces a growing expectations gap with its citizens and needs to rebuild public confidence. Mr. Xi is talking a lot about the Chinese dream and the “great renewal of the Chinese nation” — nationalist concepts with significant appeal. Mr. Xi’s choice of Shenzhen for his first domestic inspection trip is a symbolic tribute to Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 southern tour that restarted reforms after 1989. Mr. Xi’s visit is most likely a signal that he is serious about pushing forward with changes. Expect renewed energy around overhauls, primarily economic and administrative but possibly some political ones.

CRACKDOWN ON CORRUPTION The new leadership has begun a public crackdown on corruption. One relatively senior official and several minor officials have already fallen. Internet exposés brought down the minor officials, but there are reports that the Communist Party’s central disciplinary inspection commission has started new investigations into money laundering through Macau. Expect this antigraft campaign to ensnare more senior officials and to be the most effective in recent memory, yet ultimately stop short of addressing the systemic issues that have allowed corruption to flourish.

There are those, including CFR’s Elizabeth C. Economy and Bill Bishop above, who stress the importance of China’s foreign policy in the year to come. CNBC talked to Daniel Franklin, editor of The Economist’s “The World in 2013“:

The relationship between China’s new leader Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama “is absolutely the crucial one now for global politics,” Franklin tells The Daily Ticker.

Franklin says both men need to keep U.S.-China trade flowing. China is the second largest trading partner of the U.S. Last year $503 billion worth of goods were exchanged between the two countries. 80% of those items were U.S. imports from China.

Franklin says both countries also need to work on resolving disputes between China and other countries over ownership of islands in the South China Sea. Many of those countries, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, are allies of the U.S.

“This is something that has to be handled, adjusted to, and it will be awkward, no doubt about it,” says Franklin.

China’s English-language press also offers us a forecast into the Year of the Water Snake. Xinhua describes rural development efforts to be expected in 2013, and the Global Times cites World Bank data predicting that GDP growth, which fell in 2012, will rebound:

The World Bank raised its 2013 economic growth forecast for China Wednesday, citing the government’s fiscal stimulus plans and faster approval of large investment projects.

China’s growth is projected to recover in 2013 to 8.4 percent due to the combination of monetary easing, local government fiscal stimulus, accelerated approval of investment projects and an upswing in the business cycle, the World Bank said in its East Asia and Pacific Economic Update published Wednesday.

The bank also forecast that growth will reach 7.9 percent for 2012, significantly down from 9.3 percent in 2011.

For more on the economic front, Bloomberg reports that China plans to increase its budget deficit by 50 percent in 2013, which could help to boost urbanization and consumer demand.

Next year may also bring further changes to China’s role in the global economy. While foreign firms invested 3.6 percent less in China compared to last year, Chinese firms invested 25 percent more abroad. Chinese FDI has long landed primarily in the developing world, but firms are also beginning to invest seriously in developed countries. Forbes predicts that this trend will continue, and identifies 13 Chinese companies that will “go global” in 2013:

Chinese foreign direct investment has long been characterized as focusing on securing raw materials in emerging markets like Africa and Latin America. But as the list of the top 13 Chinese companies going global below demonstrates, this is no longer the case. Chinese investment continues in strategic natural resources like oil and gas; however, companies in industries ranging from consumer electronics, entertainment, athletic apparel and even luxury boating are all pushing beyond the borders of the Middle Kingdom. Through expansion overseas, they aim to gain access to new distribution channels, international managers, brand recognition and technological expertise in global markets.

While some of the names appearing on the top 13 for 2013 are well on their way to becoming househould names, a few of the others may come as a surprise…

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Post tags: 18th party congress, 2013, economic growth, economic reform, Internet regulation, leadership transition, political reform, predictions, technology, Xi Jinping, year end lists 2012
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In June 2011, she stepped up her role, becoming a World Health Organization ambassador for tuberculosis and AIDS — even as her husband was heading for the top. Hood says it would be a loss of face for her to step down now. But China’s first ladies have traditionally played a supporting role not much seen in public. So could China be paving the way for a new kind of first lady?

“I really do hope so,” Hood says. “[Peng] is an incredibly talented woman. She’s very well-educated, she speaks well, she’s knowledgeable, she’s powerful. And she’s one of the perfect people to pave the way for a new role model.”

But there is official nervousness about Peng already. Her name has become a forbidden search term on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, and several online stories about her have been deleted recently.

Given China’s recent history, Peng’s cultural and artistic background doesn’t necessarily work in her favor. The last high-profile spouse in recent memory was Madame Mao — or Jiang Qing — the wife of Chairman Mao Zedong who dictated the country’s cultural life for a decade, limiting cultural fare to a series of “revolutionary operas” and “revolutionary songs.”

Jiang was subsequently blamed for the decade-long Cultural Revolution, and sentenced to a suspended death sentence as a member of the “Gang of Four.” She committed suicide in prison in 1991, but her legacy is one that hangs over all subsequent first ladies, consigning them to the background.

Most have assumed that Peng would take on a more subdued role during Xi’s tenure as China’s leader, and Newsweek’s Melinda Liu writes that she has scaled back her profile ever since her husband was tagged as the Communist Party’s heir apparent:

In that sense, Peng, despite her celebrity status, is no different from previous political wives in post-Mao China who have largely shunned the limelight. This trend partly reflects a visceral backlash against the toxic legacy of Mao Zedong’s last wife, Jiang Qing, a former B-grade Shanghai starlet who has been blamed for the bloody excesses of China’s Cultural Revolution. It also partly reflects a longstanding Chinese tradition, which discourages women from dabbling in politics. “In ancient times, the empress was never allowed to cultivate her own supporters,” said Li Yinhe, a sociologist and gender studies expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. “And communist culture hasn’t given official roles to first ladies.”

Peng has yet to appear in public since Xi was annointed earlier this month as China’s new leader; there was no highly publicized “victory embrace” between China’s new power couple, like the one Americans witnessed between Barack and Michelle Obama. Yet ordinary Chinese like the Xi-Peng narrative, especially her admission that Xi knew he wanted to marry her just 40 minutes after they met—even though her parents initially opposed the match. “They married for love; it wasn’t arranged. And that’s romantic,” says Li. “Communist cadres are often seen as robotlike, but Peng is warmly accepted by people.” That acceptance has bolstered Xi’s popularity at a time of considerable uncertainty in China. Perhaps politics in the East and West aren’t so different after all.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Jiang Qing, leadership transition, Mao Zedong, Peng Liyuan, pop music, Xi Jinping
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This new regime will govern a China that is increasingly two different countries. On the coast, the country is developed, with the amenities of a post-industrialized society. In the countryside, China is still a developing country, with hundreds of millions of people living in poverty. In 2010, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, there was a nearly threefold difference in per capita incomes between coastal China and inland China. Likewise, China now has more income inequality than the United States, making China 27th in the world overall.

Those Chinas want different things from their leaders. People making $20,000 a year in prosperous cities don’t need 8 percent growth. They need product safety, government accountability, transparency, clean air and water ‑ good government, in other words, without all the lies and the secret wealth. People in the interior, on the other hand, need growth and goods. Government transparency means less to those who live hand to mouth.

This is what the 21st century economy has wrought, but China clings to its 20th century political system. Ten years ‑ the expected stint of the current Politburo members (though there will be room for halftime adjustments) ‑ is a long time to live with so fundamental a contradiction. Pressures will mount from within and without for China to modernize its political approach to match the economic reforms it must undertake. But those hoping for political reform are sure to be disappointed, no matter how much they pine for them on Weibo or in the halls of the United Nations. The leadership change, remember, was all about solidarity, both for the Communist Party and with the party’s past efforts. Citizens on both ends of the spectrum may grumble, but the Chinese leadership will continue its slow and cautious approach ‑ and its focus, first and foremost, will be on consolidating power and eliminating threats to the party’s hold on power. On the Politburo’s list of priorities, political innovations will run a distant second.

Meanwhile, though little evidence remains of the 18th Party Congress which took place earlier this month, The New York Times’ Amy Qin reports that nostalgia still lingers for some residents of Beijing:

Liu Ji, 63, was one of the many sprightly retirees called upon by security officials this month to work as informal traffic cops, taking to the streets to keep unruly pedestrians and drivers in line. In a city with more than five million registered cars, it was not the most relaxing task. But Ms. Liu, a longtime Communist Party member, said it was an honor to play a role during the weeklong event, even if it meant tackling the city’s nightmarish congestion equipped with only a red armband and a flag.

“To help out even just a little is a glorious feeling,” she said.

But now, the heart of this ancient capital has returned to what passes for normal these days: hazy gray skies above the granite expanse; crowds of tourists, both Chinese and foreign, milling around and posing for photographs; and uniformed security officers watching them carefully in front of the Forbidden City. (Less familiar was the sight of some of those officers zipping around the square on two-wheeled, Segway-like vehicles as the ageless Mao Zedong gazed down from his portrait.)

Elsewhere, pirated DVDs and English-language books on China have reappeared on shelves after having been relegated to storerooms in some shops. Several prominent activists who were asked to leave Beijing during the conclave have slowly found their way back to their homes.

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Post tags: 18th party congress, Beijing, inequality, leadership transition, Politburo Standing Committee, reform
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