| by B.Raman
(November 16, 2012, Chennai, Sri
Lanka Guardian)
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.
 |
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(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)
 Pragmatism will continue to guide the policies of the new leadership ...){kind=link}