'Four comprehensives' vital to progress
- By Dan Steinbock
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E-mail China Daily, November 3, 2015
Here's the caveat: success will be possible only through "structural reforms". Since this means reducing the government's role by increasing market power, it will require the reform of state-owned enterprises and thus a great balancing act between economic restructuring and new job creation.
The third task is the "rule of law". Along with other Chinese reformers, Xi is very cognizant of the fact that, without the rule of law, the middle-income trap and disharmony could become real risks. This is why the top leadership's anti-corruption campaign is so critical to drastically reduce corrosive corruption; the latter undermines the trust and social capital required in a post-industrial society.
The fourth comprehensive is "strict discipline in the Party", which means transforming the CPC. This is something that remains underestimated in the West. Indeed, the newly-revised CPC rules on disciplinary penalties, which separate Party discipline from the law, mark a progress in advancing the rule of law. In order to be accountable to the people, the Party is expected to lead by example.
Deceleration of growth, doubling of living standards
When Deng Xiaoping began his reforms, the idea of gradual change was seen as a mistake in the West, where most multilateral financial organizations said China's development would fail. But the Chinese experiment succeeded while others failed.
Today, too, China's new grand plan has met with great skepticism in the West. So once again, Beijing will act on its own and "seek truth from the facts" - not from ideological doctrines.
If China's growth continues to be around 6.5 percent, which is the evolving target, the country's per capita income will rise to $21,000 - close to that of Mexico and Turkey - in five years.
While critics say this is impossible because China's growth is slowing, they are missing the point. It is precisely the rebalancing of the economy from investment and net exports to consumption and innovation that requires the deceleration of China's growth so that Chinese people's living standards can be doubled by 2020.
That's the way to sustain the Chinese Dream.
Dr. Dan Steinbock is Research Director of International Business at India China and America Institute (U.S.A.) and Visiting Fellow at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more see: http://www.differencegroup.net
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