China's 2020 goal may fail unless core issues are tackled, say analysts

While Hu Jintao's goal of doubling per capita income by 2020 is seen as a sign Beijing is paying attention to the poor, analysts said achieving it may not narrow the wealth gap if other, deep-rooted problems remain unsolved.

Setting such a target at a congress was an unprecedented step for the Communist Party, given that leaders of previous generations have focused on increasing the overall size of the economy rather than improving the average citizen's well-being.

Still, the effort could fall flat if Beijing fails to take additional steps to correct the way wealth is distributed, economists said.

"If the systematic problems aren't corrected, it would be hard to double income," Yale University finance professor Chen Zhiwu said, though Hu's plan was still "a step forward".

Chen said Beijing's leaders must cut taxes, loosen market controls, level the playing field for private businesses and give more chances for ordinary people to increase their wealth by buying property and making investments. Overbearing government control in areas such as land and market access would be "a deadly obstacle", he said.

In recent years, some Chinese academics, including Su Hainan, a researcher at the Labour and Wage Institute of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, have said Beijing must learn from Japan's "income-doubling plan" in the 1960s. Japanese prime minister Hayato Ikeda introduced a series of steps, including interest rate and tax reductions, to boost spending and fuel much of the economic boom associated with Japan's miracle rise in the decades after losing the second world war.