'Vigorous' effort to push economic reform in China

CHINA’S COMMUNIST Party will make “vigorous yet steady” efforts to push political restructuring in the next five years, a communiqué issued after a closed-door meeting of the country’s ruling elite said.

“Great impetus would be given to economic restructuring, while vigorous yet steady efforts should be made to promote political restructuring,” ran the statement, carried on the official Xinhua news agency. “Reform in every realm must be comprehensively pushed forward, with more resolution and encouragement.”

The plenum was about bringing fresh dynamism into the world’s second-biggest economy, but the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo and growing calls for political reform meant the four-day meeting was scrutinised for signs of any loosening on issues such as democracy or freedom of speech.

While the statement on reform has a bold tone, it does not suggest China is about to aim towards western-style democracy any time soon. It falls short of addressing some of the reform calls made by premier Wen Jiabao in recent speeches, seeking greater openness and accountability, and describing democracy as “irresistible”.

The main task of the annual closed-door meeting of the Party’s Central Committee was to introduce the next five-year plan, 2011-2015, and this will be aimed at lifting the incomes and spending power of hundreds of millions of farmers and workers to keep China’s upwards trajectory intact.

The plan envisages the Chinese economy growing by about 50 per cent to €5.4 trillion, which would cement China’s position as the world’s second-biggest economy after the United States.

Crucially, the 200 or so voting members of the Central Committee also appointed vice-president Xi Jinping as vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, which puts him in a strong position in relation to the People’s Liberation Army ahead of a 2012 party congress that will choose China’s new leadership, and makes a smooth transfer of power look more likely.

The plenum issued a work report on behalf of the Politburo, delivered by President Hu Jintao, who is general secretary of the Party’s Central Committee.

The language and nature of the gathering shows that while China has espoused “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, which increasingly translates as a form of state capitalism, Marxist-Leninist thinking still holds sway among the powers-that-be, at least in a formal sense.

The focus of the meeting was to come up with ways to get Chinese consumers to buy more goods to help stimulate the economy.

This has been a familiar refrain in recent years, as has the growing gap between rich and poor, and dealing with these issues is increasingly a priority for the Communist Party, which relies on stability to maintain the iron grip on power it has held for over six decades.

These wealth gaps could lead to unrest, and the party leadership urged the faithful to hold on to a “sense of peril”.

Central to the reforms are healthcare and education, and the country is also planning to expand its social safety net by enlarging the number of social security cardholders to 800 million in the next five years from the current 190 million.