What it is ain’t exactly clear… Words from a 1960s Buffalo Springfield tune, For What It’s Worth. And as Europe dangles in its debt crisis and as our reelected President faces off with Congress on the issue of the fiscal cliff, it’s easy to overlook one of the most significant changes that will impact us all as much as any other major changes facing us today: the transition of power in China, the contraction of the powerful seven-member Standing Committee of the Politburo (reduced from nine in the last administration, but all are still older men; the majority are “princelings” – see below) and the Peoples Republic of China’s setting of new goals, new policies and new leaders for the coming decade.
With the close of the 18th Party Congress, 2309 party delegates formalized these massive changes. Some things are clearly changing – the old guard hierarchy was clearly disappointed that outgoing supreme leader Hu Jintao (right above), removed even from his position atop the Central Military Commission, did not move hard enough into implementing needed changes – and some things are clearly staying the same. The Congress put the rubber stamp on what we already knew would be changes at the top, and selection for the top apparently wasn’t Hu’s first choice. Indeed Xi Jinping (left above), son of a Communist Party pioneer, both the new President and the head of the Central Military Commission, is cut from a different cloth. But he is also a symbol of the new Chinese aristocracy, the descendants of former top officials who built China since its inception… a closed circle based on family connections and seemingly a body of princelings who actually run and administer China at every level, almost to the exclusion of anyone else.
“Despite rising controversy over their prominent role in government and business — highlighted by recent corruption cases, as well as the fall of Bo Xilai, whose wife was found guilty of murder — China’s princelings, who number in the hundreds, are emerging as an aristocratic class with an increasingly important say in ruling the country… Many of the oldest among them — those now set to take power — share something else: an upbringing during some of China’s most difficult years. Many were children during the Great Leap Forward, when upward of 30 million people died of famine from 1958 to 1962, and teenagers during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, a period many spent as outcasts or in exile after their parents were attacked by Maoist radicals.
“‘This is a volatile generation, one that didn’t have a systematic education and often saw the worst side of the Communist revolution,’ said a senior party journalist who grew up with some of China’s princelings and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of pressure from China’s security apparatus. ‘They’ve learned one thing, and that’s all you can count on is your family.’” New York Times, November 13th.
And there is wave of conservative retrenchment, reigning in many of the new non-princeling billionaires who have created successful small and middle-level businesses, and a feeling that the new China doesn’t have to bow to the international pressures coming from Russia or the United States, the latter which senior Chinese believe “is on the wrong side of history.” The focus on bringing Taiwan – one country with two political systems (a la Hong Kong) – into the PRC on a formal basis is growing stronger.
Yet China is mired in problems. Corruption is rampant and threatening central policies to spread the wealth into sections of China, particularly the impoverished interior, that have lagged seriously behind the coastal growth. In a 90-minute speech at the opening of the Party Congress, outgoing President Hu stated the obvious: “Nobody is above the law…If we fail to handle this issue well, it could prove fatal to the party.” As the party elite was announced and the convocation was ending, Xi Jinping strode forward in his anointed position at the top echoing these sentiments: “The party faces many severe challenges, and there are also many pressing problems within the party that need to be resolved, particularly corruption, being divorced from the people, going through formalities and bureaucratism caused by some party officials.”
Pollution is now reaching critical mass, destroying potable water and sending effluents into the atmosphere at record levels. 2012 is posting a record year for the global release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere – just as global warming issues have produced a superstorm in the United States, unprecedented flooding in northern Italy and astounding, life-threatening droughts all over the world. China alone accounts for about a quarter of that pollution.
Her economic growth appears to be moderating fast and seems to be well-below published performance statistics. With inventory stacking up, as global economic difficulties have slackened consumer demand for China’s exports, China is seeking to ramp-up domestic demand and raise the local standard of living – which will also move the cost of Chinese labor higher and which may ultimately eliminate that economic advantage over labor costs elsewhere – to make up for international losses. Bottom line is that China’s focus is China, and the rest of the world, particularly the United States and other prominent powers, are no longer remotely as relevant as in the past. China has embraced smaller nations, often ignored by the West, with aid and long-term commitment to purchase commodities vital to China.
“In a closing statement, President Hu Jintao said the congress had ‘replaced older leaders with younger ones’ and made decisions of ‘far-reaching historical significance,’ Xinhua news agency said.” BBC.com, November 14th. In March of 2013, after a decade in the top spot, Hu Jintao will step aside. You can rest assured that the new leadership, under Xi Jinping, will begin to implement new directions, new policies… and all from a position of feeling exceptionally powerful, not needing much from the old world powers… including the United States. Can China and the United States find a new accommodation? We need to think that after Xi consolidates his power, notwithstanding the rhetoric, he really has to work it out. They have too much of our national debt, we are still too large of a political and economic power. Neither nation will get everything to go its way.
I’m Peter Dekom, and the complex interconnectivity of nations just got even more complex.
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