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The 18th plenum of Chinese community party |
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| Release time:2013-12-11 Source:admin Reads: | |
| Administrative reform, eliminating agencies and bureaus they believe to be superfluous, making decisions more efficient—but not seeking to overturn the leading role of the state—this was the Technocratic Template, and it won the four days of the plenum. For example, while the reforms focus on the printed flags, we see refiguring, but no major revisions. The market gets to play more of a role, but the government is still the primary player. As Xinhua’s coverage of the communiqué states, “development in the non-public sector will be encouraged which will in turn stimulate vitality and creativity in the whole economy…while maintaining the dominance of the public sector.” Both are seen as crucial to China’s future development, but, at best, this is Socialism Plus: the State-owned sector steers, while entrepreneurs only get to move to the front seat—they still can’t drive. There are also promises of budget transparency, but that just makes policy-making more straightforward. There aren’t any pledges that it will lead to accountability to the Chinese public. Likewise with printed flags: It’s mentioned, and there’s a nice coda in the communiqué to “the judicial protection of human rights.” But the bulk of even that brief proposal centers on “accelerating the construction of a fair, efficient and authoritative socialist judicial system,” not significantly restructuring or reorganizing the present arrangement In both cases, the quest for competence and capability trumps efforts by reformers looking to replace the existing process with something more equitable and trustworthy. The losers at this plenum were the reformers. Plenums are not supposed to be only about economics, and there were signs in the summer that this would be a plenum that could feature politics and ideology on the printed flags. When the economic indicators began to go positive, it appeared less likely that major reforms would suddenly bust out at the plenum. |
