Opinion | China’s common prosperity push is long overdue, but the rich don’t need to worry about their wealth

Xi Jinping’s rhetoric on common prosperity, which calls for the people to share in the opportunity to be wealthy, has surged this year

Notion of common prosperity dates back to the 1950s and Mao Zedong, before fellow former leader Deng Xiaoping repeatedly mentioned the idea in the 1980s

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Xi Jinping has emphasised wealth redistribution within China, referring to common prosperity goals at least 65 times in speeches and meetings this year, more than double the 30 mentions in all of last year. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 8:00pm, 30 Aug 2021Updated: 10:37pm, 30 Aug 2021

Beijing’s push for so-called common prosperity has fanned concerns whether China’s own Gilded Age of massive wealth creation is coming to end.

While it is probably true that money cannot have its way like it used to, it would be wrong to worry about a state-sanctioned wave of redistribution of wealth.

To start with, the goal of common prosperity is long overdue. The search for a fair society is deeply rooted in communism and China’s traditions, the two sources of official Chinese ideology.

It is a Confucian ideal of a community shared by all, and while it has never really been achieved, it has never faded as a pursuit.

Common prosperity became an empty slogan in a country that has more billionaires than the United States

Mao Zedong tried to create an egalitarian society by eliminating private property, but this only made everyone poor.

Deng Xiaoping then unleashed China’s economic potential partly by telling people “to get rich is glorious”, but this created one of the world’s widest wealth gaps.

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