China reform pledges show Xi assuming Deng mantle, analysts say
By claiming authorship of broad reform pledges after repeated conservative pronouncements, China’s President Xi Jinping is assuming the mantle of Deng Xiaoping, who oversaw both huge economic changes and the Tiananmen crackdown, scholars say.
Days after the conclusion of a key gathering known as the Third Plenum, China’s Communist Party leaders unveiled a list of sweeping changes to economic and social policy.
They included reforms to the country’s land ownership system, loosening controls over state-owned enterprises, relaxing the controversial one-child policy and eventually shuttering forced labour camps.
The 22,000-word document explicitly declared Xi as head of the group charged with its drafting - a marked departure from previous administrations that suggests he is linking his own personal prestige to the planned changes, according to experts.
Xi Jinping seems to think that he can take the current political system and instil it with more discipline, mass supervision and a tough assault on corruption
“It was pretty surprising,” said Barry Naughton, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, and an expert on China’s economy. “He said, ‘I was the head of the writing group.’ That’s a very strong and unambiguous thing to say, and there’s also the fact that he said it rather than leaving it unsaid.”