B.RAMAN
Pragmatism will continue to guide the policies of
the new leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) headed by Mr.Xi
Jinping which took over from the outgoing leadership headed by Mr.Hu Jintao on
November 15,2012.
2. The seven members of the Standing Committee of
the Politburo, who will lead the party and the country till the 19th
Party Congress in 2017,belong to a transition generation which was born just
before the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 or in
the early years thereafter.
3. Mr.Xi, who took over as the Party General
Secretary on November 15 and will be taking over as the State President next
March, and Mr.Li Keqiang, the No. 2 in the Standing Committee, who will be
taking over as the Prime Minister next March, were both born in the early 1950s
after the proclamation of the PRC. They will both be eligible for one more term
in 2017 and hence should continue till
2022.
4. The other five members of the Standing Committee
were born in the late 1940s just before communism triumphed in China and the
PRC was proclaimed. They were young kids when the PRC was formed.
5. All the seven members of the Standing Committee
are children of the participants in the Long March and the peasants’ revolution,
but they themselves had not participated in the revolution under Mao Zedong.
They grew up in Communist China under the leadership of Mao and they and their
parents had seen the abject poverty and the excesses of the Cultural Revolution
and its Red Guards.
6. It is a generation that had suffered the years
of misery under the Cultural Revolution. It had also seen and benefited from
the beginnings of affluence after the
death of Mao and the opening-up of the economy by Deng Xiaoping. The children
of this generation were the initial beneficiaries of the affluence brought in
by Deng’s opening-up.
7. China is going to be ruled for the next 10 years
by a leadership belonging to a generation that had seen the worst of poverty
and disorder during the Cultural Revolution and enjoyed the benefits of
affluence arising from the pragmatic economic policies of Deng.
8. The new leadership and its princelings will have
a vested interest in the continuance of this affluence. It realises that this
affluence has been made possible not only by the pragmatic economic policies,
but also by long years of political stability in the Han areas except in some
pockets.
9. This affluence has also been made possible by
pragmatic foreign policies, which have avoided unnecessary rhetoric and foreign
adventurism despite sticking to China’s territorial sovereignty claims.
10. One can, therefore, say with reasonable
confidence that the new leadership will follow a policy mix of economic
pragmatism, avoidance of liberal political experimentation while continuing to
pay lip service to the need for political reforms to keep pace with the
economic reforms and non-provocation of external military conflicts while
continuing to adhere to territorial sovereignty claims.
11. The world is aware of the tremendous prosperity
that China has achieved in large parts of the country. It is not equally aware
of the continuing poverty and inequalities in the interior parts and in the
peripheral non-Han areas. These are the faultlines of China which can make it
come unstuck if the leadership is not wise enough to address them imaginatively
and with innovation.
12. We will see 10 more years of cautious and
pragmatic rule that doesn’t aggravate the faultlines. The Chinese civil society
today has three classes---- the aging remnants of the participants in the Long
March and the peasants revolution, the middle-age remnants of the days of the
Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards and the new class of the Internet
generation, which has been rapidly growing.
13. While exhortations of caution and pragmatism
are accepted by the aging and the middle-aged classes, the new class of the
Internet Generation---the Internet Revolutionaries---- are tending to be more
and more idealistic and challengers of the status quo.
14. The new leadership under Mr.Xi that took over
on November 15 has the ability and experience to carry along with it the ageing
and the middle-aged classes and ensure that they do not rock the boat. But will
it be able to handle with equal dexterity the new Internet generation? The
answer to this question will decide the continuing economic prosperity and political
stability of China. ( 16-11-12)
(The writer
is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi,
and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate
of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter @SORBONNE75)
