Hu Jintao leaves behind a strong but strained China
In media commentaries, think-tank position papers and the less censored blogosphere, Hu’s reign is being portrayed as a missed opportunity to tackle longstanding problems grown more deep-seated, from a yawning rich-poor gulf and worsening environmental degradation to stiffly authoritarian politics. One commentary has referred to the period as a “lost decade.” “We didn’t realize Hu would turn out to be so conservative,” said Wu Jiaxiang, a former party researcher-turned-businessman and avid blogger, summing up the disappointment of many in China’s chattering classes. He dates his own disappointment with Hu to the closing of liberal-minded websites in 2005.
Some of the criticisms are designed to influence Xi Jinping, who will begin taking over from the technocratic, ultra-reserved 69-year-old Hu at a party congress that opens Thursday.
Mainstream state media, which answer to the party and dominate what most Chinese see, read and hear, have been praising the Hu era, calling it a “Glorious Decade.” It’s not complete hype. Hu has presided over a run-up in domestic prosperity and global clout unseen by Chinese for centuries. When he took office, China’s economy was a bit larger than Italy’s; now it’s No. 2 in the world. It boasts the largest numbers of Internet and mobile phone users worldwide and is the strongest magnet for foreign direct investment. Per capita income has quintupled to $ 5,400. China has a seat at the top table in global decision-making and is recognized by US defense planners as the only potential peer competitor. Under Hu, China held its first manned space flight and its first Olympics and rolled out other projects that have signified China’s rise and brought the world’s respect.
China’s politics, however, remain a world apart, and Hu’s critics say he and the rest of China’s collective leadership have been too timid to change a system that is simmering with conflicts.
A central problem the critics point to is the growth-at-all-costs strategy that concentrates wealth among the few and disadvantages the many. Fixing it has been on the leadership’s to-do list for more than a decade. In some cases, strategies Hu employed — easy bank credit, a bigger security apparatus and a reliance on huge state companies — have made matters worse, adding slowing growth and rising debt to problems like cronyism, corruption and injustice that are driving large-scale protests.
“Behind all these achievements are problems,” wrote Deng Yuwen, an editor at a party newspaper, in a scathing analysis that was posted online in September but has since been expunged from Internet sites in China. Deng said Hu’s failure to take meaningful steps toward political change has “resulted in the Communist Party itself facing a crisis in its legitimacy to rule.” Calls from retired party members, academics and other commentators are building for Hu’s successor, Xi, to take on political reform, from making the system more transparent to moving toward democracy. The issue has stood untouched since the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement was crushed by military force. A research paper by the government-backed China Society for Economic Reform said in August that a new revolution might erupt without a fundamental shift in the current model.
Even after he steps down as party chief, Hu’s influence will linger. His allies and protégés run provinces and key bureaucracies and are in line for promotions.
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