CHINA’S FIFTH GENERATION OF LEADERS: an Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove

The CIDOB Foundation of Barcelona think tank has published an analysis of the new leadership of the Chinese Communist Party by Seán Golden, member of the Inter-Asia research group that comments on the following topics:

• The 18th National Congress of Communist Party of China has replaced half the members of the Central Committee..
• The Red Guard generation born after the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 have come to power.
• There was a strong internal struggle between the children of veteran revolutionaries (taizidang) and the meritocrats who had risen to power through the Party’s selection processes (tuanpai).
• The taizidang promote liberalization in order to generate more wealth; the tuanpai promote redistribution of wealth to combat social inequality.
• The results of the 18th National Congress seem to indicate that the taizidang faction is winning the struggle.
• There are signs of political change in China: the social media allow people to organise themselves and publicise information the official media suppress.

The full text can be consulted here.

Ten-year plan for social and political development in China

From David Bandurski at the University of Hong Kong China Media Project:

"Yu Jianrong (于建嵘), one of China’s most outspoken intellectuals, yesterday posted a ten-year plan for social and political development in China on his Tencent microblog account. The plan called for a three-year initial phase of concerted social and judicial reforms, including the abolishment of the petitioning and household registration systems, followed by a second phase of political reforms moving China toward constitutional democracy".

"Yu’s plan gives readers a general idea of many of the concrete changes proposed in China by pro-reformers under the auspices of 'political reform'."