China’s President Xi Jinping is neither a reformer nor a non-reformer. He is a pragmatist – a disciple of former Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping. Mr. Xi seeks to build the overall vitality of the Chinese nation, and to do this, he feels the Party must maintain absolute control.
China’s President Xi Jinping attends a meeting with President Bill Clinton at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Nov. 18. Robert Lawrence Kuhn writes: Mr. Xi ‘is goal-oriented, not ideologically constrained….If during Xi’s decade of leadership, it becomes clear that tight political control is no longer optimal for China’s development, what would Xi do?….To find out, we will have to wait.’
Jason Lee/AP
For the past year, ever since Xi Jinping was confirmed as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, the big question has been: Is Mr. Xi a reformer? Now, after the third plenary session of the 18th Central Committee, we have our answer. It is neither “yes” nor “no.”
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Without doubt, the third plenum institutes systemic reforms that seek to transform China‘s economy and society. Specifics will come later and implementation will take years, but major reform is finally policy, not rhetoric. It is Xi’s unambiguous commitment that the market must drive the economy, government retreat to regulation and oversight, farmers and migrant workers have equal rights and opportunities, and judicial system reform “deepen.”
All and more are paragons of reform. That some reforms were not enacted, particularly breaking the monopolies of state-owned enterprises, should be viewed with the lens of political expediency.
In addition, early in his first year, Xi seemed to articulate a liberal agenda: curbing official extravagances, praising China’s rights-protecting (but largely irrelevant) constitution, and suggesting some form of judicial independence. More recently, Xi backed Premier Li Keqiang established the Shanghai free-trade zone.
Intriguingly, Xi called for the party, which maintains atheism as an article of faith and requirement for membership, to be more tolerant of China’s “traditional cultures” or religions. Though he did so to halt moral decay and fill the spiritual vacuum created by market-driven materialism, this was no hard-core Marxist at work. (Xi’s father, former vice-premier Xi Zhongxun, was respected as a far-sighted visionary on ethnic and religious affairs.)
China’s Xi Jinping isn’t a reformer. He’s a pragmatist. – CSMonitor.com
CHINA AND HER HISTORY 