In a campaign that some have likened to the political persecution that took place under the Cultural Revolution, the 84-year-old scholar has been the target of abusive, late-night phone calls, a wave of attacks on microblogs as well as disruptions of his lectures. He has been denounced as a traitor and targeted by demonstrators.

[...]“The islands have no GDP, no tax revenues and no real value,” Mr. Mao told the Wall Street Journal, repeating public statements he has made previously. “It’s fine to be patriotic, but we have to be realistic about things.”

He took a mild swipe at political leaders of both countries, saying they shouldn’t be creating fresh tensions and instead should be working to reduce existing ones. ”Political leaders are using taxpayers’ money for pointless pursuits,” he said.

Remarks like these have touched a raw nerve.

”Those who advocate giving up the Diaoyus – aren’t they traitors? …Mao Yushi is a traitor wearing the clothes of an academic,” wrote one angry user of the Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging platform, where much of the criticism has unfolded.

[Source]

Reporting from a promotional event for Mao Yushi’s new book, the New York Times’ Didi Kirsten Tatlow has more on the harassment of Mao Yushi, how he is dealing with it, and what he sees as the bigger picture:

We had come to hear Mr. Mao talk about his new book, “Where Does Chinese People’s Anxiety Come From?” But the conversation moved to how the 84-year-old engineer-turned-economist, first branded a political “rightist” by the Communist Party in the 1950s, was coping.

“Of course, we’re being harassed at home, so my wife cannot sleep peacefully, and I’ve also been affected,” said Mr. Mao.

“But I feel that is a small issue,” he said. “What’s a truly big issue is how we as a society should view this bifurcation of opinion, how we can resolve this difference of positions.”

The differences speak of a society increasingly fractured into rich and poor, pro-state and pro-individual, a skewed left and right — all the issues that Mr. Mao addressed at the gathering, kept deliberately small to maintain security.

[Source]

In a follow-up New York Times’ blogpost, Tatlow explains how two Mao’s represent starkly opposed political camps within a one-party state:

The first Mao is that Mao, who commands a group of loyalists from beyond the grave and whose legitimacy is enormously bolstered by the Communist Party’s refusal to repudiate his legacy, despite some acknowledgment that he did some wrong — a legacy that includes the violence of the Cultural Revolution, which lasted about a decade and finally ended with his death in 1976.

[...]The second Mao is Mao Yushi, a popular, 84-year-old engineer-turned-economist, a figurehead for greater economic and political freedoms who is an outspoken critic of the other Mao’s legacy, which he says poisons China and must be removed. (He is not related to Mao Zedong.)

The political groups the two Maos represent work broadly like this: on college campuses around the country, and elsewhere in society, there is a “ziyou pai,” or “freedom faction,” made up of adherents of Mao Yushi’s viewpoint (he is one of its best known representatives but by no means its only one).[...]

There is also a loosely named “wumao pai,” or “50-cent faction” (named after citizens who, for a small fee or even voluntarily, “guide” public opinion on social media and in public debates in line with the government’s views). This group is very loyal to the party and mostly incorporates the Maoist rump, though there is tension, as the Maoists often accuse the party of not being Communist enough.

[Source]

Also see a 2012 article by Willy Lam on Maoist revivalism within the CCP that helps to elucidate China’s ideological split.

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Post tags: diaoyu islands, free market, ideology, Mao Yushi, maoism, party politics, political reform, politics, public intellectuals, red culture
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See more on the Chinese Dream, including an analysis by Perry Link and CDT founder Xiao Qiang, via CDT.

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Post tags: American dream, Asia Society, Chinese Dream, Evan Osnos, political reform, political slogans, Xi Jinping
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In March, China completed its transition to a new leadership team. The usual fanfare — masses of black limousines bringing nearly 3000 delegates to the Great Hall of the People to hear proud speeches about the country’s three decades of economic growth and waxing international influence — was dampened by a sense that, by the next time the party comes to town, there might not be as much to celebrate. Xi Jinping, the new leader of the Chinese Communist Party, and his colleagues have repeatedly expressed alarm at increasing social protests. According to confidential but widely circulated Chinese police estimates, there are now about 180,000 mass protest incidents each year, roughly 20 times more than there were in the mid-1990s. China’s leaders portray the surge of protests as fueled by popular outrage over the yawning gap between rich and poor — a chasm that the leaders have spent a decade trying to close. In reality, though, Chinese citizens are angry about a different gap: the one between the powerful and the powerless. The CCP has turned a blind eye toward this problem. Unless the situation changes and China’s new leaders start finding ways to temper popular outrage over procedural injustices and official corruption, the prospect that they will maintain political order until the next leadership transition is bleak.

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As Tea Leaf Nation writes, however, these new regulations have not yet had a significant impact on the daily work of the Chinese media, as two major recent stories demonstrate:

[..T]he rule was only two days old when it was ostensibly broken by hundreds of journalists and media outlets. When Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong paper closely affiliated with the Chinese government, published (and then retracted) a story about Xi Jinping taking a taxi ride in Beijing, it quick went viral and almost everyone in the journalist community on Weibo retweeted or commented on the story.

User @老辣陈香 asked, “What direction does the wind blow? Right after SARFT announced the strengthening of regulations on news editorial online activities, Ta Kung Pao broke the news that Xi Jinping had taken a ride in a taxi cab, and then domestic media were all reposting the news. In a word, the rule was brazenly violated – SARFT, what are you gonna do?”

[...] Two days later, a 7.0-point earthquake hit Sichuan province, immediately gathering full attention of the country’s media outlets. A picture of some journalists resting in a pigsty in the disaster zone was widely circulated in social media, with commentators praising their dedication to the profession. It soon emerged that the journalists in the photo were from Tencent.com, one of the major Internet portals in China, and thus lacked proper authorization to conduct journalistic endeavors. Sun Hai (@孙海) pointed out in his microblog: “Tencent news is covering earthquake with original reporting … The ‘journalist permit’ now exists in name only.” At least 10 reporters from Tencent were sent to cover the earthquake, according to Tencent’s feature page which carried the words, “we are on the front line.”

While the tenacity and determination of China’s journalists may weaken the effectiveness of these regulations, the fact that they are being implemented now shows the limitations of prospects for reform under Xi Jinping, according to Sinostand:

So what’s the deal? Are these new leaders reformers or not? Obviously, it’s complicated, but you can make a pretty good prediction on the likelihood of a given reform just by establishing whether it threatens the Party’s absolute control over who educates the public, who holds any kind of political power, and which way the guns would face in the event of an uprising (AKA – Propaganda, Personnel, People’s Liberation Army).

[...] In some ways it may seem like the new government is more amenable to opening up the press. Xi has vowed to go after both “the tigers and the flies” (top leaders and low officials who are corrupt) and hinted that this involves more freedom for the press and the online public. But there will always be a cage over the press. If that cage gets bigger (and there’s been no meaningful indication that it actually will), it will be carefully designed to let reporters roam only in areas that serve the Party’s self-preserving interests. These new directives suggest that that the vetting process for those even allowed to roam in that cage is getting stricter.

So this is what we’ll need to get used to. Virtually everything outside the Three Ps is eligible for reform, and that’s good news. There’s still a lot of room for making China a better place within those confines. But the Three Ps will absolutely remain under complete Party control, barring some massive national movement that presents a crisis even greater than Tiananmen.

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“The Shoe Fits” (Kuang Biao)

This past weekend, Xi Jinping told an audience at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations that “only the wearer knows if the shoe fits his foot.” Netizens have taken Xi to task on his characterization of China’s “personalized” development strategy, wondering when the country’s “worn-out shoes” will be replaced.

Blogger and commentator Wuyue Sanren caught the metaphor and ran with it on Weibo:

@五岳散人: My take on the shoe-and-foot question: Whoever buys the shoes has the last word. The common people pay taxes, so they have the right to say whether or not the shoe fits, as well as the style they want. A well-chosen pair of shoes also comes with a warranty and the privilege to exchange or return the items. The shoes themselves don’t have the qualifications to say whether they fit or not. Shoes that do aren’t shoes, they’re shackles.

@五岳散人：关于鞋与脚的问题我是这么想的：谁花钱买鞋谁说了算，老百姓纳税了，有权表达鞋是不是合脚，以及鞋子的款式。选好了鞋子还要有三包服务，也要有退换货的权利。鞋子本身没有说自己是不是合脚的资格，有这个资格的不是鞋子，往往都是脚镣。

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Xi Jinping’s Moscow lecture rankled many netizens. (Xinhua)

The following article originally appeared March 23 on the BBC Chinese website.

While discussing the paths that nations take towards development in a speech delivered at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Chinese president and CCP General-Secretary Xi Jinping said, “Only the wearer knows if the shoe fits his foot.” President Xi’s comments led Chinese microbloggers to comment at length.

On Tencent Weibo, user @叶海波 says, “If a country’s people lack freedom of speech, is speaking of shoes fitting their feet not a bit extravagant?”

Sina Weibo user @郑现莉 posts, “Of course, only the feet will know if the shoe is appropriate. Therefore, not only the subset of feet whose shoes fit should be heard while other voices are stifled, but all feet should be allowed to stand publicly and testify freely. Only this way will those with well-fitting shoes get accurate information to advance reform for all shoe-wearers. Otherwise, while the sound of praise is ringing, many feet will still suffer.”

A netizen going by @云卷云舒随风意 replies, “Yes, indeed. So, when I’m at a store shopping for shoes, I’ll first try them on. If they don’t fit, I’ll immediately abandon them, no matter what brand they are. If you want to stick to a certain brand, finding the correct size becomes a bit more difficult, does it not?

Netizen @我卖糕的2012 says, “If the shoe on one man’s foot doesn’t fit and he wants to exchange them, they’ll say he is not qualified to represent the people who feel the shoes fit well. He’ll say, if that’s the people’s decision, we must take account of their feelings. With that sentence, he will be judged.”

 

“If the shoe doesn’t fit, what’s to be done?”

Netizen @施济 thinks, “If the shoe doesn’t fit but is worn continually, this leads to the most suffering.”

User @梧桐老廖 quips, “You let your family wear comfortable shoes, while compelling ours to wear worn-out shoes of the wrong size.”

@天黑不白 raises a question, “But how will they know if this country’s people feel the shoe fits or not?”

@林朝海 asks “If the shoe doesn’t fit what is to be done? Give me a new pair, or cut my foot down to size?”

User @窈窕老淑女 wonders, “You want try a new pair of shoes to see if they fit? Anyway, everyone’s current shoes are chafing their feet.”

Via CDT Chinese. Translation by Josh Rudolph.

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Not unlike Deng’s return to power, China’s new leaders, largely ‘princelings’ whose formative experience was the Cultural Revolution– in which many of them first participated in and soon became victims of—take the reins of power at a time when China is facing enormous challenges. Compared with their nine predecessors, the seven men who now serve atop the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) are older, less-scientific, more conservative, and heavily weighted towards the Shanghai faction in China’s elite politics that is often associated with former President Jiang Zemin, who boldly reasserted himself into Communist Party decision-making in the months preceding the unveiling of the PSC members. Additionally, the PSC’s first-among-equals, Xi Jinping, appears to be far more charismatic than the man he replaces, a much welcome change for China followers both inside and outside the country.

The new leadership faces a host of pressing challenges, including: an increasingly politically conscious and activist public, armed with far more information than their parents thanks to new social media platforms; a slowing economy suffering from growing debt, weak global demand, official corruption, low domestic consumption, rising labor costs, and over centralization that is largely the result of too-big-to-fail but too-politically-powerful to easily break-up State-Owned Enterprises (SEO); and increasingly strained relationships with China’s neighbors and the United States.

For the Sydney Morning Herald, John Garnaut reports that Xi is in a strong position to lead the Party to overcome an ideological divide which was thrust into the public spotlight during the purge of Bo Xilai and to implement real change:

The new administration has ”corrected” the party’s course at its ”critical moment of life and death”, said one party stalwart, Hu Muying, at a recent spring festival gathering of children of revolutionary leaders. ”There is hope in the snake year now the party leadership has shown us the content and direction of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

”Deng’s success was, after all, the result of his close relations with so many groups in the leadership and the party rather than any inflexible ideological or intellectual position,” says David Goodman, author of Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese Revolution.

He says Xi could have the makings of China’s strongest leader since Deng Xiaoping.

But unlike in Deng’s time, says Goodman, there is no consensus on how to move forward and Xi risks being trapped by the disparate groups that brought him to power.

Premier Li Keqiang has also spoken out in favor of reforms that would address a number of issues generating public anger and threatening the legitimacy of the Party. In a lengthy profile of Li, Caixin looks at how his journey up the ranks from Henan Provincial Governor may influence his leadership now, especially on economic issues:

Now heading the cabinet, Li faces many tough issues, namely that the pace of reforms to public hospitals is slow and welfare housing lacks a national system. There is still no diversified competition in the medical industry. Urbanization, the center of Li’s governance strategy, is still facing old problems regarding land, household registration and social welfare.

More importantly, in today’s China, economic development is increasingly determined by the comprehensive progress of reforms. Many ask how far can an “economic cabinet” go when facing entrenched interests and power structures without political reform.

Some argue that the Chinese market economy, benefitting from 30 years of reform and opening, is finally beginning to take shape and now is the time for action.

It would seem Li agrees. In a recent interview, he told People’s Daily: “Those who refuse to reform may not make mistakes, but they will be blamed for not assuming their historical responsibility.”

But Andrew Nathan of Columbia University cast doubt on Xi and Li’s rhetoric. From ChinaFile:

Why can’t the Party really root out corruption? Excuse me for being simple-minded, but doesn’t an effective attack on corruption require independent prosecutors and courts, and a free press? An authoritarian regime generates temptations for its all-powerful officials at every level to abuse power faster than its internal supervision mechanisms can catch the abusers. And a secret, internal self-policing process is irremediably infected with political and personal favoritism. The opportunity to exercise uninhibited power, or to get in bed with those who do, is one of the chief attractions of the system for its members and supporters—not a threat to its power but actually one of the mechanisms it uses to stay in power.

If the leaders keep saying one thing and doing another, that’s PR, not policy. Some people continue to buy it.

See also a Reuters video which questions whether the new administration is up to the task of reforming the economy:

For more on this topic, see: “Xi Jinping Should Expand Deng Xiaoping’s Reforms” by Zhou Ruijin on ChinaFile, and “China Gets a New Cabinet” from the Wall Street Journal, which looks at changes in government leadership at the ministerial level.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: corruption, environmental degradation, Li Keqiang, NPC 2013, political reform, wealth gap, Xi Jinping
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The ministry was officially valued around 4.3 trillion renminbi, or $690 billion, according to The 21st Century Business Herald, but that paper and the corruption researcher doubt the figure. As an entity that transports hundreds of millions of passengers yearly, with stock and other assets, he said, “It’s got to have assets of about 20 trillion.”

Like many, he worried the low valuation was deliberate, to facilitate a purloining of state assets by powerful families.

The speed of its disappearance is also striking. On March 10, a report on the change was presented to the National People’s Congress. On March 17, the new sign for the China Railway Corp. was already up at its premises. The state-owned company has taken over commercial operations while regulatory functions have been transferred to the Ministry of Transport.

According to the corruption researching who spoke with Tatlow, the cynical question hanging over the breakup of the Railway Ministry is whether powerful families have sliced up the organization into pieces for themselves. Still, Bloomberg reported that the move to distance the railway industry’s commercial operations from the government will bring it in line with other sectors such as aviation and telecom:

“Railway was the only ministry that didn’t separate administration from management,” Zhao Jian, a professor of economics at Beijing Jiaotong University, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “The breakup is a very significant step as a prelude to reform.”

Read previous CDT coverage of China’s railway industry, including how systematic failures led to rampant corruption which in turn led to the deadly July 2011 Wenzhou train crash.

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“Corruption and the reputation of our government are as incompatible as fire and water,” Mr. Li told reporters at the Great Hall of the People.

Speaking on the final day of the legislative session that installed a new generation of leaders, Mr. Li vowed to ease impediments to private investment, rein in the powerful interests that dominate large sectors of the economy and scale back an unwieldy, intrusive bureaucracy that he acknowledged often frustrated entrepreneurs and citizens.

The new government, led by President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, will impose a moratorium on the construction of government buildings and reduce spending on official vehicles, public meetings and overseas travel, Mr. Li said. The government’s sprawling work force, he warned, would be trimmed to increase spending on social welfare.

“Reforming is about curbing government power,” he said in his opening remarks, which were broadcast live on television. “It is a self-imposed revolution that will require real sacrifice, and it will be painful.”

Specifically, Li mentioned the problems that accompany China’s rapid urbanization, according to the South China Morning Post:

“Urbanisation will usher in a huge amount of consumption and investment demand, increase job opportunities, create wealth for farmers and bring benefits to the people,” said Li, who began exploring the topic as a doctoral student at Peking University.

But he also cautioned that it was also a “complex systemic project” that must be bolstered with various reforms.

In carrying out the project, the government would have to consider the different stages of development between cities and regions, he said.

“Urbanisation is not about building big, sprawling cities,” he said. “We should aim to avoid the typical urban malady where skyscrapers coexist with shanty towns.”

Li also discussed ways to free up the market in China to allow businesses more leeway to operate. From the Wall Street Journal:

The 57-year-old Mr. Li also said the government should give markets greater room to operate, including allowing private businesses to compete on an equal footing with state-owned enterprises. In finance, the market would play a greater role in setting interest rates and the exchange rate, and companies would have greater access to funding through the bond and equity markets, he said.

“Talking the talk is not as good as walking the walk,” he said. “We need to pursue market-oriented reforms.”

The premier’s annual news conference is the only time the Chinese public gets to see the leader who steers the world’s second largest economy being quizzed by the media, even if the questions and answers are mostly scripted.

Mr. Wen had sought to portray an avuncular man-of-the-people image, although he had a somewhat stiff manner on the podium. Mr. Li has a more informal style, and a down-to-earth delivery that resonated on China’s social networks, where many noted his absence of official airs.

Some observers have noted that Li’s targets for reform are less ambitious, but more specific, than those of his predecessor, Wen Jiabao. From the Financial Times:

The key question is not whether a Chinese leader is a reformer – but rather what kind of reformer he or she is.

The contrast between Mr Li’s programme and that of Wen Jiabao, his predecessor, is illuminating. Mr Li’s agenda, which he outlined at the end of China’s annual parliament on Sunday, is more limited and more singular in its focus on economics. It also appears to be more concrete and therefore more achievable.

Overall, Li’s style is more direct and less florid than Wen Jiabao’s, and received mixed reviews, according to the South China Morning Post:

The performance gained Li mixed reviews among critics and internet users, with some saying that they preferred his down-to-earth manner to Wen’s more florid style, while others said Li’s remarks were “flat” and avoided touching on sensitive issues.

Li kicked off the two-hour press conference by vowing that he would remain loyal to the constitution.

He also did not recite any classical Chinese works, which Wen often referenced to describe his personal feelings.

The most notable remark by Li in summing up his philosophy was: “Follow the great way, put the people first and benefit everyone.” It is a line he said he has learned through life experience.

Read also:
“Profile: Li Keqiang: a reform-minded premier” from Xinhua and “Li sets out strategic mission for next 5 years” from China Daily.

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The new leadership has stressed it will make a priority of social spending and other measures to spread prosperity more evenly and narrow a politically volatile gap between China’s wealthy elite and poor majority, as well combat endemic corruption that has angered the public.

“In face of the mighty trend of the times and earnest expectations of the people for a better life, we cannot have the slightest complacency, or get the slightest slack at work,” Xi told the nearly 3,000 delegates at the congress’ closing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in the heart of Beijing.

“We must resolutely reject formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance, and resolutely fight against corruption and other misconduct in all manifestations,” Xi said.

Xi, already the country’s overall leader since being named Communist Party general secretary in November, was installed as president during the 13-day session ending Sunday, and the party’s No. 2 leader, Li Keqiang, was named premier.

Premier Li Keqiang held a press conference Sunday, during which he was asked a number of pre-screened questions on a range of topics, including environmental degradation, reform of the re-education through labor system, and U.S.-China relations. Foreign journalists at the event live-tweeted his comments:

Li Keqiang has 3 rules for next 10 yrs. 1. No new govn’t buildings 2. Gov payroll will decrease 3. Entertainment budget will decrease.

— malcolmmoore (@MalcolmMoore) March 17, 2013

Li: no matter how deep the water, we must wade into it. There is no choice. The country’s future depends on it. #reform

— Damien Ma (@damienics) March 17, 2013

Li Keqiang laughs during response to @charleshutzler question: When will China stop hack attacks against the US?

— April Rabkin (@AprilRabkin) March 17, 2013

Li Keqiang breaks into full laughter while responding to hacking question

— April Rabkin (@AprilRabkin) March 17, 2013

Li on environment: it’s no good to be poor in a beautiful environment, nor any good to be well-off and live with environmental degradation

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) March 17, 2013

China Daily asks Li about time table on re-education through labor reform.

— Eric Fish (@ericfish85) March 17, 2013

Li: Plan on Re-education through labor reform may be unveiled by the end of the year.

— Eric Fish (@ericfish85) March 17, 2013

Journos around me chiding me for bothering to raise my hand. Allegation that I’m contributing to charade this is an actual press conference.

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) March 17, 2013

NYT has not been invited to Li Keqiang’s inaugural press conference Sunday. I was so looking forward to showing off my new red suede shoes!

— Andrew Jacobs (@AndrewJacobsNYT) March 16, 2013

Interesting – Li Keqiang says he knows many foreign journos didn’t get to ask a question…

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) March 17, 2013

Nobody asked a question that wasn’t pre-screened RT @ericfish85: Nobody asked how Li’s experience in Henan affected his view on AIDS policy.

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) March 17, 2013

This is literally true RT @malcolmmoore: Li Keqiang is now putting questions to himself on behalf of the foreign media.

— Tom Lasseter (@TomLasseter) March 17, 2013

Strikes me that Xi and Li were more philosophical this morning than usual, but still steadfastly dull.

— malcolmmoore (@MalcolmMoore) March 17, 2013

Well, show’s over. This was the reform and good governance speech. Li invoked rule of law and transparency more than I expected.

— Damien Ma (@damienics) March 17, 2013

South China Morning Post also posted live updates from the press conference.

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“We are keenly aware that we still face many difficulties and problems,” Wen told almost 3,000 delegates in his final report to the National People’s Congress in Beijing today. He set an economic growth target of 7.5 percent for this year, unchanged from 2012, and an inflation goal of 3.5 percent.

Those achievements have come at the cost of surging inequality, environmental degradation and growing financial risks, challenges that he leaves for incoming Premier Li Keqiang.

“There are also many problems Wen left behind, and the new leaders are to face and tackle,” said Zhang Zhiwei, chief China economist at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Hong Kong. They include “the risk of a property bubble, significantly increased local government debt, income equality and worsening pollution,” said Zhang, who previously worked for the International Monetary Fund.

Wen has promoted an image of a grandfatherly figure who is in touch with the people’s problems. In his final months in office, he has expressed regret for not accomplishing more while in office, and has also spoken out in favor of political reform and against corruption – even while being the subject of an investigative probe by U.S. media. From the New York Times:

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China, well known for baring his emotions in public, has displayed a blend of defeatism and defensiveness as he winds down his decade in office. During a visit last month to a Muslim neighborhood here, Mr. Wen lamented that he “fell short in some tasks” to improve people’s livelihoods. “In my heart I feel guilty and constantly blame myself,” he said.

But his most intriguing comments have touched on corruption. During a cabinet meeting last month, he said that even among top officials, “abuse of power, trading power for cash, and collusion between officialdom and commerce continue unabated.” And in a vague mea culpa before a group of overseas Chinese in Thailand late last year, Mr. Wen admitted to unidentified failings but defended his integrity by paraphrasing an ancient Chinese statesman said to have taken his own life to protest imperial corruption. “In the pursuit of truth, I would die nine times without regret,” he said.

With his retirement looming at the end of the annual meeting of China’s legislature that begins Tuesday, Mr. Wen, 70, has been struggling to push through economic changes and to shore up his image as a frugal populist and one of the few Communist Party leaders to champion political reform, even if that push has come to naught. But he has also been pressing hard to clear his name, particularly in the months since The New York Times published accounts of the way his immediate family had become extraordinarily rich during his time in high office.

But Wen has also been called “China’s greatest actor” by critics. The South China Morning Post looks at these two sides of Wen’s legacy:

Professor Liu Kang, a China-watcher and director of Duke University’s China study programme, said Wen had been working hard to cement two legacies – as “a political reformer” and “a people’s premier”.

Wen called for political reform in a series of speeches in recent years, mostly during trips overseas, appearing more like a dissident or a human rights campaigner than a communist leader by saying that “democracy, rule of law, freedom and human rights are shared values pursued by humanity over the long course of history, the products of a common civilisation”.

Critics accuse him of using his last two years in office to cultivate his public image before retirement – or deliberately playing the role of an outspoken reformer in an effort to balance the communist leadership’s conservative image.

But sympathisers say Wen has really represented a dissenting voice within the top leadership because many other members of the Politburo and its Standing Committee have argued the opposite on countless occasions.

His final work report also received mixed reviews on Chinese social media, according to the BBC:

Wu Tianzheng says on Sina Weibo: “Premier Wen’s last report made it clear that urbanisation is part of the modernisation drive, and that it would help the reform of the registration card system. It’s a good proposal, but it was not implemented during his last five years in government; Now that he is retiring, who will carry it through?”

On Tencent Weibo, Hu Zhihai posts that economic increases have “only benefitted the corrupt officials; ordinary people are still poor, some dying in garbage bins, or under the bridge; many can’t afford to go to school or buy houses. Please save these people.”

Liu Jianqiang, a magazine editor, is pleased that the speech referred to pollution issues. “He [Wen Jiabao] says let people see hope from our actions – very impressive; but I feel that hope is fading, now even soil has become a state secret. People know nothing.”

Read more about Wen Jiabao, via CDT.

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Post tags: economic growth rates, NPC 2013, political reform, Wen Jiabao
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A big hurdle, legal experts say, is that authorities have grown dependent on labor camps as an expedient way to silence critics. Police can send people to the camps for up to four years with no judicial process. Citizens have been punished for crimes as trivial as writing an unflattering blog post about a local official. Some prisoners are there because of their religious practice or because they have tried to raise complaints about local injustices to central authorities.

The camps provide what is essentially free labor to state ventures. But critics say the practice has also undermined the government’s claim to abide by rule of law.

“They know it’s bad for China’s soft power abroad and for legitimacy at home,” said Jerome Cohen, a Chinese law expert at New York University.

Even if reality has caught up with reform rhetoric, Didi Kirsten Tatlow of The New York Times reported Monday that delegates to this month’s National People’s Congress were issuing strong calls to end the laojiao system:

“The reeducation-through-labor system to a certain extent makes citizens live in fear,” said Dai Zhongchuan, a delegate and law professor from Huaqiao University in Fujian Province, in a report by china.com.cn, the news portal of the State Council Information Office and the National Internet Information Office.

“Not to go through the courts to decide on a crime is to deprive and limit personal freedoms. Not to take steps to restrict and monitor this can very easily lead to the abuse of power,” said Mr. Dai.

Xinhua News also claimed that lawmakers still recognize the need for reform:

The labor camp system, known as laojiao, was “a disgrace to China’s national image and required urgent reform,” as it runs against the principles of lawful governance and justice which the country pursues, said Yang Weicheng, who is a deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC) and lawyer from Shandong Province.

Deng Hui, an NPC deputy and law school dean from Jiangxi Province, said the labor camp system violated various laws, including the Law on Legislation and the Administrative Penalty Law. It’s also a deviation from a human rights convention the Chinese government had signed, he added.

“The reform of laojiao is imminent and inescapable,” Deng said.

See also previous CDT coverage of China’s re-education through labor system.

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Post tags: labor camps, NPC 2013, political reform, re-education through labor, soft power
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About 2,200 members of the 12th CPPCC National Committee will discuss major issues including the election of new leaders of the top advisory body and proposals for the coming National People’s Congress (NPC) on Tuesday. They will also review government work reports and hear recommendations for improvement.

“This year’s two sessions have a distinct feature, which is to witness the transition of the top government leaders,” Yun Jie, director of the administration research department at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday, adding that a smooth leadership transition is crucial to China’s future over at least the next five years.

Chi Fulin, director of domestic reform think tank the China (Hainan) Institute for Reform and Development, expects the meetings to shed light on China’s future reforms because NPC deputies and CPPCC members will make proposals to the government on issues concerning people’s livelihoods and state affairs.

Lü Xinhua, a CPPCC spokesman, said 840 proposals had been submitted by members as of Saturday noon. The Global Times found many of the proposals tackle issues including fighting corruption, institutional restructuring and environmental protection, particularly curbing air and water pollution.

While last year’s congress was held amid the breaking scandal involving former Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai, this year’s congress aims to refocus public attention elsewhere. From the New York Times:

Most analysts agree that the proceedings this year will ignore the plight of Mr. Bo, who is being detained awaiting prosecution on charges of corruption, abuse of power and obstruction of justice.

This year, the party’s new top leaders, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, have paved the way for the 13-day session with vows to end flagrant privileges and self-enrichment by officials and their families. They have also vowed to create a more efficient government, and reduce the acrid smog that has enveloped Beijing and other northern Chinese cities for weeks this winter.

“They’ve already taken many steps that have raised hopes among ordinary people — now we’re looking for signs that the hopes can be satisfied,” said Deng Yuwen, an editor for The Study Times, a weekly newspaper published by the Central Party School in Beijing. “The congress won’t have any breakthroughs, but it can indicate where and how fast the leaders want to take things.”

Yet the congress itself is widely viewed as a rubber stamp, with any debate or negotiations taking place behind the scenes. For the many journalists who attend the proceedings, it can be difficult to gain access to key players or to inside information about how proposals are introduced and debated. The Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time reports:

While delegates to the two meetings will get to discuss key plans for streamlining the government and even make recommendations, it’s hard to conceive of this pageant as much more than a talk shop when there is only one full session a year.

The quest for authoritative and objective reporting might be easier with a little less secrecy surrounding even the simplest information. A list of all delegates to the advisory body was released without explanation of what any of the more than 2,000 representatives did to get into this august body. Even the time of the CPPCC’s opening session was kept under wraps until the last moment – and they were similarly coy with the closing date for the parliament session, which formally opens Tuesday.

That presents a bit of a challenge for serious news coverage, leaving state media to occupy the role of stenographer. CPPCC chairman Jia Qinglin noted that over the last five years the advisory body had organized more than 500 in-depth studies, zeroing in on the economy, people’s livelihood and regional development, state media reported. Xinhua revealed that a total of 28,930 proposals had been submitted by CPPCC members over the past five years, and 26,583 of these had been addressed. There were no details on which had actually made it into policy or law.

For domestic media, reporting on the congress is tightly proscribed. CDT recently translated a list of ten topics that are off-limits for reporting during the session.

One piece of data – the annual military budget – was not revealed at the press conference on the eve of the session’s opening as expected [See update below]. As AP reports:

The legislature’s spokeswoman defended booming military spending Monday, saying the vast investment has contributed to global peace and stability, though she did not announce the coming year’s percentage increase, as usually has been done on the eve of the legislature’s opening.

With China now the world’s No. 2 military spender after the U.S., the amount of this year’s increase will be a barometer of the complicated relationship between Xi and the politically influential military. A big boost would show Xi wants robust backing for the People’s Liberation Army at a time when China has tense territorial disputes with neighbors and wants to reduce U.S. influence in the region. A smaller increase would show that Xi feels he already has strong military support without the need to pander to its recent demands for ever-larger outlays.

Growth in the military budget should match or exceed last year’s rate, if only to keep up with rising inflation, said Ni Lexiong, a military expert at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. Tensions with Japan and others, he said, should ensure a bigger voice for the military.

Other changes that are expected to be announced during the congress include an administrative reorganization of government ministries. Notably, the scandal-plagued Ministry of Railways is expected to be demoted and broken into commercial and operational arms. From Reuters:

“Part of the Ministry of Railways will be merged with a super-Ministry of Transport,” said a second source who has leadership ties, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions for speaking to foreign reporters. The source was referring to the operations of the railways.

A state-owned enterprise will absorb the ministry’s commercial arm, which has responsibility for passenger ticketing and freight operations, the sources added.

The Railways Ministry has faced numerous problems over the past few years, including heavy debts from funding new high-speed lines, waste and fraud. The government has pledged to open the rail industry to private investment on an unprecedented scale.

Individual delegates to the CPPCC and other activists have issued public calls for specific reforms at the NPC. As the New York Times reports, some delegates are calling for an end to re-education through labor, or laojiao, camps, following vague promises from the government on the issue:

“The reeducation-through-labor system to a certain extent makes citizens live in fear,” said Dai Zhongchuan, a delegate and law professor from Huaqiao University in Fujian Province, in a report by china.com.cn, the news portal of the State Council Information Office and the National Internet Information Office.

“Not to go through the courts to decide on a crime is to deprive and limit personal freedoms. Not to take steps to restrict and monitor this can very easily lead to the abuse of power,” said Mr. Dai.

Human Rights Watch issued a letter to Xi Jinping calling for the abolition of laojiao and a number of other reforms.

But as the New York Times article quoted above points out, deeper political reforms are unlikely to come to fruition at the current congress:

The apparent scaling back of the plans for administrative changes reflects how difficult it will be for the leadership to deliver on promises to free up the economy from state-owned enterprises and fight corruption, while still preserving single-party rule, said Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. “In all these issues, there’s the same basic problem of deep distrust between the people and the government,” Mr. Zheng said. “Because there is so much distrust, the government is reluctant to make deep reforms. What they call reforms turns out be reassigning powers within government, not giving up powers to society. That’s not real reform — and then people feel increasingly frustrated.”

UPDATE: Early Tuesday morning Beijing time, Xinhua released the military budget:

China plans to raise its defense budget by 10.7 percent to 720.2 billion yuan (114.3 billion U.S. dollars) in 2013.

— Xinhua News Agency (@XHNews) March 5, 2013

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bo Xilai, Li Keqiang, NPC 2013, political reform, re-education through labor, super-ministries, Xi Jinping
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Reuters visited Wukan six times over the last year-and-a-half, chronicling the early protests, the uprising, its eventual triumph and now its disillusionment.

The events in Wukan focused keen attention in Beijing over a problem the central government had long underplayed – rampant land seizures across China. The government is drafting revised land management legislation for the annual parliament session in March that would require farmers – an estimated 650 million of them in China – to be adequately compensated and relocated before officials can expropriate any land.

But Wukan’s failure to overcome entrenched corruption shows how difficult it is for grassroots protest to spur lasting change in China. Towering above Wukan is a vast local, regional and national edifice of Party control and vested interests. Indeed, even the Xi administration’s push to overhaul the land seizure law faces opposition from developers, businesses and local governments that depend on property sales.

“For Wukan, amongst all the villages in China, to be able to rise up and protect their interests, then to conduct a democratic election and to become a kind of experimental ground, is significant,” said Peng Peng, a senior researcher with the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences. But the inexperience of the new leaders and their halting progress over the land issues has exposed the teething problems of nurturing village democracy in China, he added. “There can’t just be democracy, there needs to be solid administration, too.”

Resentment has simmered among Wukan villagers at their leaders’ inability to secure the return of their land, but the Financial Times reports that deputy village chief Yang Semao believes critical villagers “are not reasonable:”

In its year in office, the committee has succeeded in returning 200 hectares of land sold off by the previous village chief, Mr Yang says. But many villagers are still determined to seize property for which the deeds were transferred to factory owners and businessmen several years ago.

Confronted with persistent criticism – in painful contrast to the adulation they once enjoyed of a once remarkably united village – Mr Lin and many committee members have contemplated resigning.

“I am afraid of seeing people, afraid of hearing my doorbell ring,” Mr Lin told a Shanghai television station last month. “Why? Because whatever I do or say now, people are able to find a way to blame me.”

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: democracy, land grabs, local politics, mass incidents, political reform, protests, Wukan
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The Parliament meeting will be an early gauge of the new leaders’ commitment to carrying out broad changes in China’s economy that Messrs. Hu and Wen talked about for years, but did little to accomplish—remaking the economy so it relies more on domestic demand and less on investment in capital-intensive industries at home and demand for Chinese exports abroad.

[...] One major change that Parliament is expected to approve is a plan to streamline the State Council—or cabinet—by, among other things, merging the Railways Ministry into the Ministry of Transport, a move that many analysts believe is linked to a high-speed train crash in 2011, and the dismissal the same year of the railways minister, Liu Zhijun, on corruption charges.

Agencies monitoring food safety—another issue of huge public concern following a string of scandals in recent years—may also be merged, and greater powers given to the State Oceanic Administration, the agency responsible for maritime patrols around disputed islands in the South China Sea and East China Sea, according to Chinese academics familiar with the plans.

Chinese experts say the restructuring is designed to cut down red tape, enhance interdepartmental coordination and break apart vested interests in the bureaucracy. But many analysts are skeptical, arguing that more fundamental changes are needed, such as forcing all officials to declare their financial assets publicly, to enhance government transparency and accountability.

The meetings will also announce key personnel postings, and some insiders are anticipating that more liberal members of the Communist Party elite, including Li Yuanchao and Wang Yang, who were not nominated to the current Politburo Standing Committee, may be named to top government posts, according to the WSJ report. Reuters looks at the factional battles taking place behind the scenes to decide who will take over the Standing Committee in 2017, when five of the current members will retire:

Two main factions are competing for power within the Standing Committee. Members of the “Shanghai Gang”, headed by former Party chief Jiang Zemin, have connections to China’s commercial capital. The other main faction, the “Tuanpai,” is led by outgoing President Hu Jintao. Its members, like him, cultivated their careers in the Communist Youth League.

Most of the Politburo members and provincial Party secretaries eligible for promotion in the next term in 2017 have experience in the Communist Youth League, according to data from “Connected China”(connectedchina.reuters.com), a Reuters site that tracks the careers and connections of China’s top leaders.

Although the Politburo appointed in November shows strong ties to Jiang Zemin, analysts say outgoing President Hu Jintao’s Communist Youth League faction will gain the upper hand over the longer term.

A third group has also ascended rapidly – the princelings, or privileged children of revolutionary leaders. Key princelings include Xi and Politburo Standing Committee members Yu Zhengsheng, Wang Qishan and Zhang Dejiang.

For more on the agenda of the NPC meetings, see, “What to Expect at the 12th National People’s Congress” from CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Communist Youth League, food safety, Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, Li Keqiang, Li Yuanchao, NPC 2013, political reform, Wang Yang, Xi Jinping
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