There is a picture of the new Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping on each of the first six pages of today’s South China Morning Post (on average: none on page 2, two on page 3). After a nail-biting American election, the ritualized unveiling of the new seven-man Politburo Standing Committee doesn’t exactly scream ‘world’s next superpower’.
What will this new line-up of radical, young, reform-minded black hair-dye consumers do? They will trim the state-owned industries to encourage the more vibrant private sector, despite the fact that their families, friends and power bases depend on the privileges accorded the SOEs. They will allow market-based interest rates, so the masses get a return on their savings and capital is allocated efficiently, despite the fact that their families, friends and power bases are the main beneficiaries of the current system of subsidized policy loans. They will shift the economy away from investment to consumption, despite the fact that their families, friends and power bases thrive on the state’s direction of resources away from consumers. And of course they will crush corruption – in other words, deprive their families, friends and power bases of their lucrative livelihoods.
They will give the courts more independence and allow a free press to introduce badly needed transparency and accountability to the political system, even though the Communist Party probably won’t last five minutes afterwards. They will release political prisoners and allow open public debate of political issues to give the system badly needed legitimacy, even though the one-party state’s authority will collapse almost immediately. They will end controls on things like petitioning and the Internet and learn to trust rather than fear the population, even though no Leninist system has ever done so before. Like the UK government in 
Scotland, they will allow referendums on independence in Tibet and Xinjiang, secure in the knowledge that the regions’ peoples will overwhelmingly support continued union. They will build stability by respecting other countries’ territorial rights, even though such a move would provoke the army and frenzied ultra-nationalists into overthrowing the regime. They will serve the country, rather than expect the country to serve them, their families, friends and power bases.
Oh yes.
I love the Standard’s shoe-shining of incoming Premier Li Keqiang, whom they describe as an ‘enforcer with compassion’. His qualification for such praise:
He was governor of Henan in 1998 when tens of thousands of people contracted HIV from illegal blood-buying rings.
Li oversaw a campaign to squelch reporting about it, harass activists and isolate affected villages. When Beijing’s stance changed, Li showed canny instincts by quickly channeling aid to victims and making shows of compassion.
Makes you wonder what the enforcers without compassion in China are like. (And you have to wonder how damning the Standard would be about the guy if they weren’t trying to shoe-shine him.)
As I say, flicking through today’s South China Morning Post, you get picture after picture of the cherubic Xi Jinping and his cohorts – marching on stage, waving to the crowd, sitting down, standing up, clapping each other and marching off stage, in identical black suits, with identical ties and identical spectacle frames, for page after page after page. Then suddenly you get this…
Yet another overpriced-crap-for-morons company has come to Causeway Bay to pay the planet’s highest retail rents. It’s called Hackett. I could just about keep the vomit down until my eyes came to his footwear.
This just in: CPC Congress wins worldwide plaudits!
What do you have against the nicely-dressed young man? i used to dress like that thirty years ago. I even wore a deer stalker. The trousers were baggier though.
i wonder how China would be without the CCP the last sixty-three years – a dustbowl of diseased children, children being sold in markets, hot spiced dog for breakfast, India without the hope.
Communism has been tested to destruction. They never gave Socialism a chance anywhere much though. Thirty odd years and it was scrapped in England. Just look what that has become: a sinister, greasy cauldron of fear and loathing with a stagnant economy.
China is America with the gloves off. Call the CCP Goldman Sachs and you just about have a mirror state!
Rejoice!
A virtuoso, positive demonstration of what the new government will NOT do without using the n word a single time.
The sub-Standard article can’t really be written by a supporter can it?! It sounds to me more like a normal person with a dictatorial editor — plus a headline writer in the pay of the dark forces. But then again “shows of compassion” can be read both ways in a cultural universe where everything is show.
I have always wondered what makes the CCP show shiners in the HK Media write the subservient crap they do. Love Country, tick. Country was once a basket case but now is strong, tick. If I suck up to the CCP I will get a big juicy contract and share in the largesse, tick. I am Chinese and also have a large chip on my shoulder, tick.
The trouble is you have to pretend all the other things don’t happen too. Which, you have perfectly illustrated above. How many people died due to Li Keqiang’s “squelching, harassing and isolating”? Speaks English too! Wonder if our reporters will dig around his glorious reign in Henan and ask him how many people, do the CCP estimate, died due to his actions or likely inaction. Well we remember the last time he came when some people tried to engage him!
Wonder what the mood of the people will be in 10 years when this lot steps down, as far wealthier men, and handover to the next lot so they can begin their wealth ascent. Or will we see China really awaking?
Millions gathered in Tiananmen Square chant “Where’s Snow White, then?”
I’ve got it! It’s a translation, perhaps aided by the synonym facility, which explains why squelch is used as a transitive verb and canny and making shows jar slightly. What the author actually wrote was fine political instincts and showed his sympathy for the victims’ plight.
In ten years’ time the procrastination, incrementalism, moving the goalposts when the Americans aren’t watching, sweeping problems under the carpet or tinkering at the margins will surely have had its day. But it would be a rash person who predicted which way it will all go.
But we all know that China produces better and more legitimate leaders than anywhere else – the CCP itself tells us so and anyone who disagrees will in time realise their error, whether they wish to or not. Domestic dissenters they can deal with now, foreign dissenters they’ll deal with once they have the economic clout (look what’s happening to Taiwan’s press) or once they are in range of a credible SLBN threat or a credible ability to project conventional military force beyond their borders. China’s rise will ensure a harmonious sphere in which all nations, not just the already fortunate Chinese domestic populace, rejoice in the benevolent but firm guided rule of the CCP though they may only get to enjoy it via proxy influence and client-patron relationships. Cambodia already enjoys it in such a form. Other Asian nations are next. Tomorrow, who knows. The CCP are patient, but if China continues it’s economic succcess (a contingent if obviously) they’re coming for you, whereever you live.
At least that’s how the futurology of the CCP would have it I suspect.
“Millions gathered in Tiananmen Square chant “Where’s Snow White, then?”
Superb! The Seven un-elected corruptors-in-chief.
Interesting to note that the SMCP got the new line-up 100% correct : 7/7
Jon Huntsman only got 5/7 correct ( and those 5 were dead certs)
I noted down the exact predictions of both of them a few days ago
So much for the quality of China- watching in the god ‘ole USA.
Guess Gen Petraeus’s antics are more important these days … well certainly more entertaining ( BTW : do real Alex Lo on this today “Desperate housewives play the CIA, FBI and the Pentagon” Will a half naked HK police officer please now send his pics to the ICAC female officer investigating Donald Tsang ?
RTP, The mainland government cynically manipulates the media, throwing titbits to the lapdogs and turning a blind eye when hired thugs attack, especially, compatriots in the pay of the foreign devils.
Since Wo-lap Lam left, the SCMP’s coverage of mainland affairs has been systematically biased, severely damaging its international reputation, which is a shame since its coverage of HK affairs is good.
@Property Developer. I can’t agree … the SCMP coverage of local affairs is also lacking depth. Most of the insightful, headline making stuff comes from the Apple Daily and the Orientail News these days.
WDH, I should have written generally good, as its coverage of legal issues or even money matters has its moments. But I’d agree with you that it’s sometimes rather derivative.