About the only one here who has not offered a view of any kind is Xi. Keeping with protocol, Xi has said little during the past months or years that would reveal even the slimmest hint of his intentions. His public speeches have largely been typical jargon laced with Communist fare, urging the party to maintain “purity.”
Xi’s silence on the key issue of political reform has made the portly 59-year-old a veritable walking Rorschach test, allowing observers to project onto him whatever views they choose or perhaps hope to see.
Change ‘too difficult’
“Compared to Hu Jintao,” the outgoing president, “Xi is more like a reformer,” said Mao Yushi, an economist, offering one commonly heard sentiment. “China is a country under dictatorship. But the new leadership group I don’t think will take active measures to change the situation. It’s too difficult.”
He added: “I think they will make some changes. But they won’t make fundamental reform. It’s important for the party to maintain its power.”
Li Datong, a journalist and reform advocate who was fired from his editor’s job at China Youth Daily for pushing against official censorship, said he believes that Xi realizes the imperative for reform but may be hamstrung by a Communist Party fearful of losing its power.
“The CCP is facing an unprecedented crisis of credibility, which is fatal for them,” Li said. “The party has already lost its credibility because of the long time of one-party dictatorship. The regime will collapse like the last few years of [the] Qing Dynasty if the new leaders don’t catch this chance to reform.”
Li said Xi, as the “princeling” son of a Mao Zedong-era revolutionary hero, has a better chance to make real political change. He compared Xi to the late Taiwanese president Chiang Ching-kuo, who in 1987 was able to lift martial law and move Taiwan to democracy without opposition because he had credibility as the son of the nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek.
One word, many meanings
One of the problems with speaking about reform in China is the myriad definitions of what that word really means here. In most cases, when Communist officials speak of reform, they are not thinking of moving toward anything resembling a Western-style multiparty democracy.
Hu laid out his view of reform in a lengthy opening report to the party congress Thursday. He mentioned the word “reform” 86 times in his speech, “comprehensive reform” twice and “deepen reform” five times, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
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