As China prepares for a transition of leaders the incumbent Wen sets out to secure his legacy, writes CLIFFORD COONANin Beijing
THIS IS a tale of two premiers. The first is Wen Jiabao, who is heading for the exit doors of the Zhongnanhai government HQ early next year but is making a major commotion as he goes.
He has underlined his reformist credentials in the very last months of his tenure, warning against a return to the bad old days of the Cultural Revolution and setting up a showdown with powerful interests within the government itself by calling for reform of the state banking sector.
The second is Li Keqiang, the premier-in-waiting. The man expected to become president and head of state, Xi Jinping, is more familiar to Irish readers as he has visited Ireland and hosted the Taoiseach, but Li too is a name to conjure with.
As premier he will have considerable heft in the next government as he is said to be President Hu Jintao’s protege.
In the run up to the start of the leadership transition in the autumn, generally the anointed successors keep a low profile. But Li has been talking reform.
“China’s reform has entered a crucial juncture,” he told an economic forum in Boao recently, adding that reforms would focus on the fiscal sector, taxation, finance, pricing, income distribution and enterprises.
“Faced with the profound changes in international and domestic landscapes, we must let reforms and opening-up continue to lead the way in removing the institutional obstacles that hamper the shift of the growth model,” he told business leaders at the forum on the southern island of Hainan.
The run up to the Communist Party congress, when the leadership transition is supposed to take place, is generally a time for calm reassessment and caution, but the last few weeks have been turbulent, and much of this has focused on the man known as “Grandpa Wen” for his personal touch in dealing with the devastation of the Sichuan earthquake in 2008.
The current incumbent may be a lame-duck premier, but he has a few months left to secure his legacy and he seems set on laying the foundations for a reformist path before he steps down from his prime ministerial role.
At his final press conference, at the end of the annual parliament, the National People’s Congress, the 69-year-old came out with a line that was politically explosive.
“Without a successful political reform, it’s impossible for China to fully institute economic reform and the gains we have made in these areas may be lost, and new problems that popped up in the Chinese society will not be fundamentally resolved, and such historical tragedies as the Cultural Revolution may happen again in China,” Wen said.
He was referring to the 10-year period of ideological fanaticism, driven by chairman Mao Zedong, in which millions were persecuted and died.
But these remarks heralded the stunning purge that saw the removal of Chongqing Communist Party chief Bo Xilai, the one-time rising star who had been dogged by scandal after his protege and police chief, Wang Lijun (who oversaw his crackdown on organised crime in Chongqing), disappeared for a while into the US consulate in Chengdu, seeking asylum.
Not content with setting the stage for the biggest political upset in China in many years with the purging of Bo, he went on to attack one of the pillars of state power in China, the state banking monopoly, which he said was choking the flow of capital.
“To allow private capital to flow into finance, basically, we need to break the monopoly,” he said in a speech on national radio, echoing reform calls by the World Bank and the think-tank attached to the state council.
So how will this play out with his likely successor? And what talk is there of political reform?
Trying to evaluate the next leadership’s reform credentials is one of the two favourite pastimes among China-watchers in Beijing, the other being working out exactly what happened to Bo.
Economic reform is an ongoing process, but under the Hu and Wen administration, political reform has all but dried up.
The move against Bo, whose “red revivalism” and populism were seen as a dangerous step, shows that there may be readiness within the incoming administration to institute more political reform.
Like Xi Jinping, Li suffered during the Cultural Revolution, working on a farm for four years but staying loyal to the party.
He is from the same province, Anhui, as his political mentor, Hu.
The purge of Bo has been accompanied by a broader discussion of reform within the leadership.
Political reform, as Wen said, is needed to help boost economic reform. And keeping the economy on track is essential for the party to entrench its position.